Gamertell

Back before my skull had fully hardened, I would occasionally watch shows on VH1. I can’t explain why, other than that it was perhaps when Gil Amelio was running Apple, so I apparently was comfortable with brutal punishment. At one point during this period, VH1 ran a show called something like The Top 100 Most Pointless and Inaccurate VH1 Top 100 Lists of All Time, when I began to wonder whether this apparent need for nostalgia stems from the desire to relive our glory days or from the desire to simply relive something of worth.

Take radio, for example. There are no less than three weekend radio programs within my area that play nothing but ‘80s music. Two are just ‘80s shows, but the other plays ‘80s music all weekend long. (Or, at least what they claim to be ‘80s music. A little known fact is that, musically, the ‘80s began in 1979 with the release of Gary Numan’s Cars and ended in 1986 when Andy Taylor left Duran Duran.)

Then, we have all these “One Hit Wonder” shows; or—more appropriately—“One Hit I Remember” shows. The dj of one such show in my area recently played “The Safety Dance” from Men Without Hats, despite the fact that “Pop Goes the World” made quite a dent in the charts in ‘87. Often, they’ll play songs that weren’t even hits. “I Melt With You” from Modern English has become a staple of these type of shows, but guess what? It peaked at 78 on the pop singles chart. A quintessential 80s song? Yes. A hit? No. “Pop Goes the World” fared better at 20.

It set me to thinking, though, about one hit wonders outside of the music industry. Specifically (and topically), Mac games. How many times did I greatly enjoy a game only to have its developers fade into oblivion? And why couldn’t it have happened to the developer of “Phantasmagoria?”

Perhaps to help myself figure this out, I put together this list of Mac gaming “one hit wonders” a few years ago. These were picked not always because of the greatness of the game, but because of the impact the game made before the developers disappeared into the ether. If I’m wrong, and some of these developers did indeed have more than one hit, feel free to let me know…just as I’m likely to let idiot disc jockeys know that Wang Chung had no fewer than four Top 40 hits, thank you very much.

10. Goofy Golf Deluxe - Squeegee Software

I know, you think I’m insane. A more or less shareware miniature golf game on the Top 10 One Hit Wonder List? Well, after its disappearance, we got asked about this game back at Applelinks more often than any other game on this list, save for our number one. In that manner, I suppose Goofy Golf Delxue is not unlike “On the Dark Side” by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band or “Obsession” by Animotion in that it really didn’t become a hit until well after its release.

Goofy Golf Deluxe was a decent little miniature golf game with a good soundtrack, claymation-style graphics, a capable level editor, and wildly inaccurate physics. Considering the lack of other miniature golf titles at the time, I thought this one would do better. But Goofy Golf Deluxe and its developers, Squeegee Software, quickly disappeared from the scene…again, just like John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown and Animotion.

9. King of Dragon Pass - A Sharp, LLC

You know how sometimes songs that are more sophisticated than the charts still hit the charts? Songs such as “The Captain of Her Heart” by Double? Or all that pretentious nonsense by Tears for Fears? Such was the case with A Sharp’s King of Dragon Pass. Here was a game that didn’t appeal to our gaming side, but to our fiction side. To our historian side. To our sophisticated side. Playing King of Dragon Pass was like sitting down to read Tolkien instead of watching the movies; a feast for the brain and the imagination instead of a feast for the eyes.

Although A-Sharp continued to develop and publish software, King of Dragon Pass was their only foray into Macintosh gaming. However, its producer/designer/programmer, David Dunham, went on to a join a “new band,” GameHouse, who’s hits he brings to Mac OS X. GameHouse’s titles aren’t nearly as innovative as was King of Dragon Pass, but they have nice beats and you can dance to them.

Oh, and you can actually still purchase King of Dragon Pass, but it’s not compatible with OS X.

8. Food Chain - Cajun Games

Cajun Games seems to have suffered the same fate as Men At Work, Asia and countless other bands—win all the awards off your first release, then disappear into reunion tours and inspired appearances on Scrubs. Food Chain was a clever little puzzle game in which, basically, animals ate one another; four animals, each with unique characteristics, that you had to place on a grid. The point was to have the animals eat one another so the grid wouldn’t fill up, but to also not let any of the animals get eaten into extinction. Of course, it gets more complicated than that, but that’s the basic fun of it.

Food Chain became like one of those songs you just couldn’t get out of your head. However, it wasn’t throw-away pop, either. It was kind of like a good Duran Duran single. On the surface, it just seemed like bouncy fun. Underneath, however, was a solid and complex foundation that indicated a greater understanding than the creators were willing to let on. Unfortunately, Cajun Games didn’t share Duran Duran’s longevity. Food Chain is their only release to date; although a second release, Überhocken, has been in development for over a decade now, and a Mac OS X version of Food Chain is stuck in limbo, as well.

Maybe these guys are like Boston; they’ll just give us something new every decade or so. If that’s the case, hey, Cajun Games, I have one letter and one word for you: I and Pad.

7 - 1

I’ll have the final entries in my list of Top 10 One Hit Mac Gaming Wonders within a week or so. A couple of the developers on my list when I originally put this together at Applelinks went on to release more games, and a couple newer titles should be added. Until then, enjoy yourself some “Whirly Girl”:

Read [Single Mac Gamer Seeks @ Gamertell]

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