The Crystal Globe
A Commentary by Shadowiii
Download here

A few months back I was looking at my profile on Castle Paradox (because I'm a vain, self-centered, egotistical bastard, just in case you were wondering) and my attention was undeniably caught by the list of games I made. You see, it had been two years since I even opened the OHR, much less designed a game. With most of my time now spent writing, I began to wonder why I even bothered working with such a dated, dos-based engine. Seriously, as we all know even a demo OHR game equates to countless hours of work, not to mention stress and lack of a social life. So, in an attempt to somehow reconnect and try to figure out what the hell I was thinking back then, I downloaded all my games and played around with them.

The results were different then what I expected.

I expected to play a bunch of dumpy old games, unimmersive, bad looking, with crappy BAM music to boot. Much to my surprise, I actually enjoyed my first blast into the past (Pitch Black), and moved on to a game I just knew would piss me off, Stop. Well, it didn't work. In fact, after playing it I wanted to get custom.exe RIGHT THEN and finish the damn thing, no matter how many hours it would take.

What on earth is this weird connection between me and the OHR? And why am I even talking about this when the article's point is for me to blab about my own games in an attempt to generate hype?

Well, the point is I learned something that day. Even though I now can understand why I put so much time and effort into these games, to many people (including my past self) the OHR is an excellent engine to spread one creative wings. How often does someone get to be the producer, director, graphic designer, musician, and playtester of their own video game? And how good does it feel when one's released a completed entity, which they have created with their own time and talents? I l tell you: it feels damn good.

The point is, though I may not make another OHR game, I know other people will. And you know what? I'm fine with that. I had a great time entering contests and making games (usually both at the same time, if you see my track record), and I'm sure countless others have and will continue to do the same. Sure, the OHR may be outdated, but the things we produce on it won't ever be outdated as long as we give it our all and do our very best. We can and we will make professional grade games. They may not be HD, or have an insane polygon count, or even have original music. But they will be ours, and we can look with pride at what we e created.

And with that, I wish the best of luck to all you authors. Hopefully this trip into Shadowiii's mildew-encrusted mind will inspire you to continue to make great, innovative, and most importantly FUN games.
Happy creating!

Part 1: The Pre-History

I was introduced to the OHR way back in... I seriously don't remember. What I DO remember was I was at Mr. B's house, and he showed me a game starring a hamster that hit things with a mallet. Yeah, I thought it was pretty freaking awesome. I was determined to experience this bizarre little adventure in the comfort of my own home.

I didn't get the OHR for a while after that. I remember first downloading it, having no idea what it was. At the time, we only had dial up and my computer in my room had no internet, so I had to download it on my parents computer and move it with an A: floppy disc (do computers even come with those anymore?). I distinctly recall booting it up, messing around for a while, and then the truth dawned on me. Holy crap, I can MAKE games like Wandering Hamster on this? It was my first encounter with a game making program, and I pretty much crapped a brick when I discovered how easy it was for me to use sample.rpg to send Mr. Smilie on his undoubtedly mirthful adventure.

Then the game design began. I actually designed a very cliche RPG storyline a while back, for some half-baked D+D session that lasted about thirty seconds before everyone quit. But I totally had the plot down: a guy wakes up and his village is on fire! So he saves this old guy, who tells him some evil dude did it (go figure). Then, away you go to a castle, grab a hussy to keep you company, and then get to THE DARK PORTAL (I was proud of that, that's why The Dark Portal was the name of the adventure). Then you DARK PORTALED to different worlds based on the four elements, kicking butt and taking names, until you killed them ALL and got all the crystals orb things, wait that's not it either. Oh yes, GLOBES. You get all the globes then combine them to make a WHITE ONE that kicks even more ass than the four separated. Then I think you won. Or something. I never got that far.

At any rate, it didn't get very far. I made a knight, some fire, and some fire enemies. That's it. DARK PORTAL was very short lived. Dang.

However, it was about this time that the magic of illegal emulators entered my life. Now I could finally experience what everyone had experienced a long time ago: the SNES. Final Fantasy 6, Final Fantasy 4, Mario RPG, and Chrono Trigger later, I needed to change the story and make a sweet sweet game.

So now we have the real game. THE CRYSTAL GLOBE. Because the globes are crystal when they combine. Get it? Yeah, somehow that stayed. But now, it has like a PROLOGUE thing where people are guardians of the globes (just like in LOTR with the rings! Not a rip-off) but some evil dude tries to get them, then they combine before he can get them, and the good guy banishes the bad guy and his dark globe (one globe to rule them all?). In comes you, and the adventure of a lifetime!

Well, it WOULD have been. The Dark Portal (which was still in the story) gets way tricked out at one point, sending you through time. It even had this huge Shadowiii plot twist (you know what I mean) where the chick you dig turns out to be like the Crystal Element (each globe has its corresponding element that is a person/monster/something) and gets fused with the evil one making your love interest the bad guy. Oh hell yeah, this plot is kicking ass and taking names now!

Well, it was about this time I discovered that making OHR games is not easy. In fact, it a freaking lot of work. So, I made the opening scene, made a bunch of sprites, including ones to animate (which undoubtedly paved the way for the upcoming sprite animation nightmare, also known as Stop) in an elaborate fight scene. Then, I advertised the HELL out of it on the Zantetsuken boards. And never released it.

Yeah, we've never heard that story before, have we? Certainly not. But, to my credit, I DID learn how hard it actually is to make an OHR game. Plus, if you download the unfinished file that's now up on CP (there's really nothing in it but some stupid battles), you can see how its framework reeks of Shadowiii. I have all the music uploaded already (70 odd songs if I recall), which has always been the first thing I do. I also have a lot of text boxes, but nothing pieces together in the end. Plus, the one map actually doesn't look all that bad (though ripped off from the FF6 opening movie). You can also see my generic, Final Fantasy looking sprites that permeate all my games. Now that I've told you all this, you don't even have to download it. Trust me, it's for the best.

But, although I diss on The Crystal Globe a lot, it still holds a special place in my dark, moldy heart. Granted, not a very large place, and its rent is probably paid for by the government, but it's there. It helped me realize the difficulties yet to come, and got me started on the road to pixilation. So there you go. That's The Crystal Globe.