The Art of the Demake

Krish Raghav - Wednesday, October 01, 2008 3:07 PM

The good folks over at TIGSource recently held a month long game de-programming extravaganza - The 'Bootleg Demakes' competition.

The rules? Simple - pick a game, any game. Then, 'demake' it into how it would have looked and played for hardware before its age.

Think 'Gears of War' on an old 999999 in 1 cartridge. Or Valve's Portal on one of those old Brick/Racing game bricks. But, as is usual on the Internet, the competition has surpassed all these meager expectations - throwing up 70 games of increasing incredibility, and retro goodness.

What is refreshing is that most of these games are not merely brilliant ideas (and they are), but actual games in their own right - some remarkably well polished, others riffing on interesting gameplay alternatives to the source material being demaked.

Of course, what we'd heartily recommend is playing ALL of them (they're all free), but for the purposes of convenience and bloggability - here are 5 you should not, in any cicumstance, miss:

5. Hold Me Closer, Giant Dancer

PlayStation2 cult classic Shadow of the Colossus demade for a TRS-80 from the scary eighties.
Features monsters to scale, and the ability to use your light sword!