The art of theft and other free stuff.

[shau]

Being a law student, and thus basically a hobo until I get a job, I spend most of my free time (what little exists) looking for free stuff. Recently, I have been wasting my time recently with a freeware game called the Art of Theft. It is a stealth game made with adventure game studio. The basic story is that you are a gentleman thief named Trilby and you get your jollies by stealing from the rich and powerful. Of course, such a lifestyle has its dangers and after an almost successful heist Trilby's life becomes very complicated.

You can pick it up here along with other games made by the same guy, Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. Just completing the game is pretty easy but getting the max score can be very difficult. I once missed having a perfect rank by one second.

This same guy also does video game reviews that are pretty damn funny. You can find them here.
That's actually where I first heard of this guy. Come to think of it, someone on this forum might have told me about him.

Does anyone else have cool free stuff they want to share?

[shirak]

Linux has the best version of my favorite game to date: Minesweeper! I seriously carry a Kubuntu Live DVD around which, while technically a tool for repairing PCs, see a lot of use as a game machine in various PCs around town.

[Bigode]

Yeah, Minesweeper rocks.

[Koumei]

fanfiction.net has Minesweeper fanfics. As in, plural.

And that is awesome/stupid.

[Leress]

Yeah, I have two

Home of the Underdogs (Abandonware and other lost treasures)

and

Caiman (indie games)

[Bigode]

I gotta read that fanfic - not because I think I'ma like it, but to see what the fvcking hell someone found to write about Minesweeper.

On a more useful note, www.lavalit.com might be of interest.

[Surgo]

There are also Ski Free fanfictions, if anyone remembers that little gem from Windows 3.1(1).

[JonSetanta]

I recently downloaded Samurai Shodown 2, the NeoGeo ROM.
My D&D friends in high school were wild about it but I could never get my digital mitts on it until now, 7 years later...
Turns out some files were misnamed. Found a forum with the correct names and folders (which apparently the stuff required to run) and fixed it, etc.
Works fine.

From what I recall, and witnessed, it was the best 2D fighting game of its type. Allegedly.
A friend once stated that 'Asura' reminded him of me. I asked "How so? Creep-factor?" and he said "No, just something about it. Maybe just looks like you."

The site has been up for years so I assume it's legal to share this, but I won't in the usual manner given what happened with the scanlation debacle and FBMF's concern over legality. -_-;;
Got the fixed file, zipped, and I can upload to a megashare.


Edit: although, there may have been another version they played, now that I think about it (and look at the character listing on the official website)
There's no Asura in the one I downloaded. Perhaps it's SS2 that one friend suggested to me but the rest also did some other version. Can't remember what, though.
But there was some guy in dark clothes that covered his face with his hand and had purple stuff radiate from his sword.. that's what I remember, from the brief moments I played it back then, and I haven't gotten very far with this one...

Edit again: OK. Shit. It's not SS2, so disregard that (and I don't suck cocks) but if anyone wants it I do have it.
Onward with the search, then.

[Crissa]

I put holes in my thumbs from playing Samurai Showdown in University.

...It was on one of the three arcade vends on campus. The other machines were vs basketball and a pinball machine. No, they were new at the time.

I keep trying to find the shooter that was also on the NeoGeo. Since the NeoGeo was the first machine to have full stereo CD-quality music, the shooter was all timed to a series of techno tracks I loved.

-Crissa

[JonSetanta]

Crissa! Help! Which 2D SS had the dude with the glowing purple sword???
It also had 'rage bars' and a cat girl (Cham Cham or something) and some goblin dork with a big claw. Looks like I'm an idiot but it's been years, and reading these character lists of the SS series isn't working...
Also, the blonde ninja dude had a dog. That does differentiate it a bit..

Edit: Was the shooter called Rez?

[Koumei]

Actually, the best 2d fighting game ever is Guilty Gear XX #Reload.

In the arcades, just look for GGXX. It is amazing. The controls are fantastic, the character balance is better than basically anything by Capcom or SNK, the characters are cool and original (none of this "Like Ryu, but his clothes are green". Instead, "French sword-duelist who likes collecting teacups.", "Lady with 10' long hair that kills people" and "Girl with two demonic wings, she's a pacifist but they are not." Oh, and "That nun girl is cute... hang on, that's no girl, IT'S A TRAP!") and the music and graphics are superb.

Seriously. The designer is a huge fan of rock and metal, so he made sure the music was GOOD. And the Sprites have such a good resolution and so many frames that they can't be well-replicated in Mugen, whereas SNK/CAP characters can be directly ripped.

[JonSetanta]

You can get GG for Playstation on some kind of anthology, maybe that version you refer to but maybe not.
Think I'll get it for my lil bro's birthday, although he does prefer the Samurai Warriors 2....

[Koumei]

I have GGXX#R for the PS2, and it's awesome. Not as good as for the arcade, but let's be fair. It still rocks.

[Crissa]

No, the scroller wasn't Rez, that was much later. You have to realize I went to university like fifteen years ago...

Yes, you're describing Samurai Showdown, but I bet you're thinking 3 or 4. Two introduced two new characters, and they split a couple background characters into playable in the later ones. Purple sword... Uhh, I dunno. They all had different color sets set I dunno. I played it because there were, you know, girl characters, and that was new. I always played the girl with the hawk.

-Crissa

[Leress]

Here is a site that has some old boardgames that the company has made avaiable for download

Dwarfstar

[Crissa]

Well, this System 16 seems to be the best museum of the stuff with screens and all.

So far I've narrowed down the game I loved as 'similar to Viewpoint but better' but that's not much help.

-Crissa

Edit: Yep, Viewpoint is it; apparently the remake didn't get the license to the music, and sucked, and that's were wiki got the pictures of it.

It was an awesomely hard and beautifully sounding game, too.

[cthulhu]

The best fre game I have encountered, if you can survive the ugly UI

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

[Crissa]

Oh, well, if you want a Rogue-like, there's always NetHack.

-Crissa

[JonSetanta]

OK thanks a bunch Crissa I'll keep looking.
At least I know it wasn't "Samurai Showdown 64"...

[Koumei]

Dopewars is fun. You fly around America, or even the world, buying low and selling high, like the stock market, except you can accidentally drop stock when getting chased by police dogs, find stock on a dead guy in the subway etc.

"You meet a friend. You give him 6 units of heroin."

"Well, apparently I'm not that good a friend then, letting him take that stuff."

The version I have has errors, though. You can't play for long without it having an error and closing down. Which is sad. Because you can get seriously rich in, say, 12 months. I mean, sure, 20 million USD in one month is nothing to sneeze at, but I think I got as far as 2-3 months once, and had a couple of billion (short-scale/US billion).

You can even edit the file easily enough, allowing you to travel around Monopoly Land, and changing the drugs, so maybe you deal with poor high school kids, so sell glue, spray paint and weed instead of opium, coke and heroin.

Anyway, the game is a lot of fun for a short play.