OHR Side-Scrollers, Part 1
A feature by Paul Harrington
The OHRRPGC Engine was made with Final Fantasy-style turn-based RPGs in mind, but over the years a variety of authors have shown that you can make games far different from what the engine was designed for. We've seen point-and-click adventures, tactical strategy games, card games, and even cooking games, but our focus for this article is on a classic staple of the video game world; the side-scroller. We will take a look at eight examples of side-scrolling games made on the OHR engine, with a wide range of both concept and quality.
Baby Bob the Hamster isn't an actual game, but rather an example of a side-scrolling engine made using the OHR engine. Its .ZIP file contains both the game and its scripts, as well as a brief note from OHR creator James Paige talking about the files. Baby Bob is a very limited experience, in that you are contained to a tiny, empty area and can only run and jump, but it is an excellent introduction to the potential the engine has for doing something dramatically different. The animation and control are both extremely smooth, and the included scripts give OHR users a great place to start if they are interested in designing their own side-scrolling platformer.
Siv is one of, if not the very first, OHR side-scrolling games, yet it plays surprisingly well. The movement and jumping control very smoothly, and the stage is designed in a nice, logical way. I say stage, singular, because unfortunately that's all that was ever made. Though you begin on a world map, there is only one stage to select, and the game ends after completing it. From start to finish, Siv feels coherent, well planned, and interesting. There are a number of hidden objects to search for, and plenty of items to collect. Unfortunately, since this game is very unfinished, collecting them doesn't actually have a purpose.
While the game works well, it has several flaws, some which would be simple to fix and others which would be more difficult. One of the more difficult things to do right in an OHR side-scroller is hit detection, and this is a problem in this game as well. You'll often go right through your enemies instead of killing them if you attack from an angle. Another problem that could be easily fixed is the game's control configurations. The default control scheme uses "delete" to jump, "end" to dash-attack, and you'll have to hold "insert" to run. There are times when you'll want to use all three buttons at once, and this is far from comfortable. The game's text file lists other control schemes to choose from, but none of them are much better. A lot of my problems with the button configurations would be null if there were no need to use a run button. Your character walks at an extremely slow plod normally, but moves at a nice pace when you're holding down the run button. This run speed should have been his default movement speed, as this would have made the game's pace better and controls less frustrating.
Even with its flaws, Siv is worth playing, and is one of the classic OHR titles I'd most like to see continued.
Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie: The Game
Like most fan-games, this one is extremely short, incomplete, and at times frightening. It was released as a tech demo, and it's not without its strong points. The game is very fast, and enemy hit detection is fairly solid. Unfortunately, the level design is poor, and moving at anything resembling a decent speed will get you stuck in pits that you can't escape from and don't kill you, forcing you to quit and restart the game. You'll also need to use springs as jumping points a couple of times, and if you mess up you'll have to walk up to them and touch them from the side for some reason. There are also a couple of horrifying graphics; Sonic's walking animation looks brutally painful, and occasionally falling into pits will cause his head to separate from his body. There is also no way to be harmed by enemies and nothing to gain from attacking them. While this game has some potential, there's really no reason to play it aside from morbid curiosity.
Another short tech demo, this is the first stage of the original Super Mario Bros., remade using the OHR engine. While most of Moogle1's games and tech demos are great deals of fun, this one is, sadly, far from playable. The enemy hit detection is fine, but collision with walls is poorly implemented, and you will often get stuck when trying to jump over pipes and bricks. None of the pipes or power ups are implemented, so all you have here is a version of the first stage of SMB1 that can't be completed (you're not able to cross the final set of blocks to reach the flag pole) and is full of invisible death traps. I do appreciate Mario's lovely new over-sized nose, but his walking animation looks as painful as Sonic's in the game above. While his animation in the NES original never looked comfortable, I really feel for the guy here. He's desperately flailing his broken body through an endless world of horror from which he can never escape. Still, at least this game hates the player less than Super Paper Mario.
Next month, we'll take a look at some better developed classics of the genre; It Came From Beyond the Moon, OHRadius, and the incredibly well received Trailblazers. And if all this has inspired you to become an OHR side-scrolling master, again, the best place to learn is the Baby Bob scripts. Coming from the engine's creator, it's no surprise that he managed to pull off the smoothest control yet seen. However, there is much to learn from flawed games as well: for example, don't butcher your favorite characters. Sonic is talented, but his head is not a good seat. It's far too spiky.
