30 Minutes With The K'hyurbhi Lands

In this series, I'll be examining the Heart of the OHR contest entries in brief 30 minute sessions. As soon as the timer in-game hits 30 minutes, I quite and write this review. 

Author: TheCube (Clint Emsley)

I'll admit it, I was a little worried about The K'hyurbhi Lands. Even without the apostrophes and silent H's, the title betrays the game's roots as a love letter to a certain Nintendo property. Many of the characters seem like mutant cousins to the great pink blob himself. Now that I've played the game, my fears that this would be the fan fiction equivalent of an RPG have all but dissipated. This is a very good game.

30 Minutes With Universal Wars

In this series, I'll be examining the Heart of the OHR contest entries in brief 30 minute sessions. As soon as the timer in-game hits 30 minutes, I quite and write this review. 

Author: TheCube (Clint Emsley)

Universal Wars. I definitely thought this was going to be set in space. The title screen certainly doesn't dispel this thought in the least, although I'd be hard pressed to say what those two big blobs are supposed to be. Are they planets? Great circular space beasts about to fight?

Well, I'm not going to find that out today.

30 Minutes With AR-PUH-GUH!

In this series, I'll be examining the Heart of the OHR contest entries in brief 30 minute sessions. As soon as the timer in-game hits 30 minutes, I quite and write this review. 

Author: TheCube (Clint Emsley)

AR-PUH-GUH is a strange game. In the first 30 minutes, I met a giant disembodied head (called a yapper) who saved my game, was told to exterminate some bug by some random person, captured a monster and stole its skillset, and was lied to by a sign.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Introduction to Maze Techniques in the OHRRPGCE

Here in the Hamster Burrow, we'll be feature game design tips from experts in the OHR field. In this design-focused article, Willy breaks down what it means to have a maze in your game, the pitfalls and dead-ends you're sure to encounter while designing them, and how to successfully navigate your way to a well designed maze.

Author: Willy Elektrix

Introduction

Mazes have been relevant in computer role-playing since the medium's infancy. Colossal Cave Adventure (1976) takes place within a maze of caverns and contains the famous "maze of twisty little passages". Mazes are prominent in Zork 1: The Great Underground Empire (1980), Ultima 1: The First Age of Darkness (1981), Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981), and the numerous sequels to those games. The occurrence of mazes in modern games solidifies the depth of this classic form of puzzle. This article discusses techniques for utilizing mazes in computer role-playing games designed with the OHRRPGCE.

Heart of the OHR

The Heart of the OHR contest has just stopped accepting entries, so we now have an official game list! There's still a week or so to submit a late entry, though no entry prizes will be awarded for submission. You can still get prizes for winning the contest.

For those not already aware, the Heart of the OHR is a bi-annual contest first held in 2010. The idea is to encourage and promote old-school RPGs made in the OHR engine. Any game released between June and December of this year was eligible to win. Everyone who enters gets to request a bug fix or feature from James Paige. Last HotOHR contest had 12 entries, and this year there are 15 entries. That's 15 excellent RPGs to play and vote on.

For the official game list as of right now, see below.

Guide to the OHR part 1 - What is the OHRRPGCE?

One of the purposes of The Hamster Burrow is to provide a guide for those new to the OHRRPGCE. In this 5-part series, we'll discuss the past and future of the OHR, some excellent games to show the power of the tools, and how to get started making your own game. Today, we'll showcase a bit of general knowledge and history.

Author: TheCube (Clint Emsley)

If you're new to this whole OHRRPGCE business, then you're probably wondering just what the heck it is. Well, technically it stands for the Official Hamster Republic Role Playing Game Creation Engine...but that doesn't say a whole lot, does it? In a nutshell, the OHRRPGCE (which I'll call the OHR from now on) is a set of tools that anyone can use to create an RPG with no knowledge of programming or advanced computer skills. It is not a new tool, and it has its limitations, but it is certainly unique among its brethren of game creation tools.