There’s a post over at LetsKillDave about a small, 96kb, game called .kkrieger. It’s more of a demo than anything, but still interesting. It’s pretty amazing what computers can do these days. As I understand it, all of the graphics and levels used within the game are generated using procedural content generation. Essentially, they’re created using a mathematical algorithm. Quite amazing stuff.
I’d like to highlight some other really great games as well. Each of these is pretty small, the largest weighing in at just over 2 megs. They’re incredibly fun to play and very well written. The first two are written by Hikoza.T.Ohkubo.
Ray Hound is a unique 2D shooter where the object is to destroy the turrets that are firing at you. Problem is, you have no weapons. So, you use a tractor beam of sorts to capture the missle fired at you and sling it back at the turret. It takes a few minutes to get used to, but once you do, it’s incredibly addictive.
Warning Forever is a top-down shooter similar to 1942. The biggest difference is that there is no general gameplay, it’s all boss battles. And depending on how you destroy each boss, the next boss is adapted to defend against the strategies you used to kill the previous bosses. There’s a great article over at Wikipedia describing how the bosses evolve.
The last game is called Cave Story. I don’t know who wrote the game, but all the information you need to download and run it can be found here. This is quite the amazing side scroller, reminiscent of Castlevania or Wonderboy. I’ve played through once so far and found the story to be pretty deep and engaging. I’m planning on checking it out again as there are apparently multiple endings. It’s a pretty addictive little game and I suggest checking it out!