Bloodlands

By: Derek Yu

On: April 18th, 2012

Bloodlands, by Maxim
Screenshot taken from Free Indie Games.

Booting up Bloodlands, you’re met with a warning screen that indicates the level of action the title is aiming for – the screen that greets you is a tribute to Cave’s famous shoot ’em up DonPachi. It’s a tall order for any game, but especially one that’s made in the ANSI-based game creation tool Megazeux! But Maxim, who developed Bloodlands over the course of two years, has managed to squeeze a lot out of the aging engine, offering some pretty intense “dual stick” arena shooting with a full complement of cutscenes and special effects.

  • Maxim

    I gotta say, I did not expect the indie scene to pick up this game in such a big way.  But I am delighted.  Thank you for calling attention to my work.

    I’m already planning my next projects, one of which will be a game not made in Megazeux.  For that reason I’d be happy to see your feedback so I can address some player concerns in the next game…  and in the patched version of the game I’ve been working on since receiving the first feedback.

    And to the people who first called attention to my game, Apollyon, Anna Anthropy and Steve Cook…  I’ll remember what you’ve done for me.  And now you as well, Derek Yu.  Thanks so much!

  • Anonymous

    Oooh, I was kind of fascinated with the episode of Ancient Dos Games (
    http://www.pixelships.com/adg/) that covered MegaZeux.  Kinda curious as to see what people can do with it.

  • Guess-t

    This game looks amazing

  • Jamagic

    nice ascii art!

  • http://www.facebook.com/bswaldmann Brandon Scott Waldmann

    I recall stumbling onto Megazeux ages ago, between aimless wandering amongst the ZZT community. It’s pretty incredible that something this impressive was made with it.

  • Nik

    Too bad I cant get it to run – only displays solid color blocks instead of a tileset (Win 7 64 bit). The screenshots look amazing though!

  • daniel lower

    http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1673 is it correct to assume you’re using this version?

  • Maxim

    Did you extract the subdirectories properly?  There should be three subdirectories in the /bloodlands/ folder, /d/, /w/ and /l/.

  • offal

    it is

  • Zambo Ace

    It’s not a true Megazeux game without cv_magic.mod.

  • Maxim

    Nah, Megazeux makes everything easy enough I had plenty of time to write all my own music, heheh.

  • Maxim

    Oh yeah, there’s a true last boss in this game.  If anyone manages to access it, the first person who does will uh, get mentioned in my next game somewhere, or something…