i'm sorry, but your president is in another citadel

[prof_pangaea]

i FINALLY found a chiptune cover of the doctor who theme. not only did i find it, but it is FUCKIN' AWESOME:

The Doctor's In Danger by Mahamajama

MUCH more aesthetically pleasing than the version made for the actual bbc micro game the mines of terror, which you can listen to here. i've never played it but i've heard once you get past the music and the less-than stellar graphic design it's a really engrossing game (well, according to hardcore gamers. which i wouldn't count myself as since echo the dolphin is enough of a challenge for my attention and patience).









also, anyone who ever wished they could have a wee doctor who game to play on their gameboy should check out one of these posts by reasonabsurd. pixel art is sexy, and so is saving gallifrey from daleks while collecting bananas for extra points! i would definitely play this game. if it actually existed. which it doesn't. :(

Comments

here from who_daily

[robinalaska.livejournal.com]

If I had a Doctor Who video game, I might care enough to finish it.

The music is absolutely brilliant, and so is the game! I really want to play this now. I wonder if I can get my video-game-lovin' little brother to find an emulawhatchamacallit of MINES OF TERROR and jigger it to work on my Mac.

I wonder what the deal is with the white cat down there? And what CSC stands for? So many things to find out!

Re: here from who_daily

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

i did some searching around and i found a few ways you might be able to play:

01: apparently to be able to play the game in any way, you're going to want the manual, which gives you important information on gameplay andwhat you want to be doing. there is a pdf of the manual available for download at millennium effect (http://www.millenniumeffect.co.uk/) -- i can't direct link (they have frames! FRAMES. IT IS 2009 GUYS), but all you have to do is go to the left side of the page, click on "OTHER", then click on "COMPUTER GAMES". there'll be a list of all the computer/video games that feature or reference doctor who; "the mines of terror" is near the top of the list. click on that and it'll take you to a blurb about the game, and at the bottom of the blurb will be a dl link for the manual. woot!

02: you can play the game online here: http://c64s.com/game/1072/doctor_who_and_the_mines_of_terror/
it crashed firefox once (i'm still on firefox 2 because i'm still usng osx 10.3.9), but on my second try the game loaded and i was able to walk around and be shot by a dalek... thingy. i don't know how faithful the emulation is but it will probably work if you've got a robust browser. it's actually an emulation of the commodore64 port of the game, but apparently the c64 version was a very faithful port of the original.

03: you can download an emulator for the bbc micro and an appropriate rom of the game, and then play it for (almost) real! you can find a bbc micro emulator for the mac here: http://www.g7jjf.com/ (scroll down, it's the first dl). stairway to hell (http://www.stairwaytohell.com/) is a bbc micro site with loads of info and games. you can dl a disc image of "the mines of terror" here (http://www.stairwaytohell.com/lostandfound/index.html?page=indexb). just scroll down until you see the game title and

04: you can dl an emulator for the commodore 64 and a c64 rom of the game and play it (almost) for real! i have frodo (http://bannister.org/software/frodo.htm), although i'll admit i haven't used it for anything other than opening up a demo and one tracking program. apparently the power64 (http://www.infinite-loop.at/Power64/Download.html) is the best c64 emulator for the mac, so go with that. then you can go to c64.com (http://www.c64.com/), do a search under "games" for "the mines of terror", dl that, and BAM you should be ready to play.

i hope that helps! meanwhile, i am also confused by the cat, because it starts out as a floating sphere. um. i guess even early home computer doctor who is made of crack.

Re: here from who_daily

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

woot woot woot! i just dled power64 and it's awesome! i played mines of terror for a few minutes and was shocked to death by a controller and eaten by a baby mandrag. AWESOME. it has terrible music, though, which is a crime as the sid chip is one of the most amazingly awesome sound chips evah.

if you dl power64 and want to start playing easily, just ctrl-click the game, select "open with >> power64" (in case you don't want to try and figure out the various ins and outs of the c64). two boxes will open up; a large one, which is where the prgram will run, and a small one, with txt. go to the small one and click on "doctor who" and it'll load the game up for you. then all you have to do is start walking around and getting killed by things. excellent.

Re: here from who_daily

[robinalaska.livejournal.com]

Hey, this is excellent! Thanks for finding all this for me - sorry I've taken so long to respond. You rock like a rocking thing, my friend. A rocking horse, maybe. A rockin' rocking horse.

I'm off to die fifty billion times, adieu lovely world~

Re: here from who_daily

[robinalaska.livejournal.com]

Bwa ha ha ha ha! I'm trying the online one and it says to press Control to fire, but that actually causes me to jump. On the one hand it's just as well because what it the world would I fire at them anyway? I'd have to science for hours before coming up with anything and I still wouldn't want to - but on the other hand I can't figure out how to do anything except run away from stuff, which is fine for cosmic space traveling but annoying for playing video games XD

It's hilarious, though!

Re: here from who_daily

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

i was wondering about the "control to fire" thing as well, but maybe they are using "fire" as a word meaning "to perform an action" as opposed to "fire a weapon"? since it is an old game and such. there's a menu that comes up if you hit the "s" key i think, so apparently you can find objects and carry them with you and stuff; maybe you can find an awesome SPACE GUN?

the game runs a lot smoother on the c64 emulator, so i say you should try that -- plus you can then go and find a bunch of really good c64 games to play when you tire of being eaten by baby mandrags.

the music is like the shitty music choice "a" for the nes version of tetris ahhhhhhh! apparently it changes at some point, thank god.

omg i got killed sooooo many times in the course of a few minutes. ;___;

and yay i am glad to spread the old school love. :D

[zougla.livejournal.com]

Awesomeness all around. But just a side note, Ecco the Dolphin is considered one of the hardest games on the Genesis.

I'm loving this 8bit community though!!

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

yeah i know it is, but it's probably not the poster-child for the most deep and intricate game out there. plus i still haven't finished it. :D

i want to play more of the mines of terror just to get some screencaps, but i keep getting immediately killed.

and yah, 8bitcollective is a great site. i love it so much. vorc (http://www.vorc.org/) was also a great chip music news site, but it's been down for the past six months. i keep hoping it'll come back since there are occasional posts like, "sorry we're still down". you should check out 8bitpeoples (http://www.8bitpeoples.com/) as well.