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Updates: October 2000
New ZIO games!
[ Tuesday, October 31 ]
ZIO Interactive have announced a couple of new Pocket PC titles, Pow Wow and Metalion ( information to come soon). Pow Wow is an action/arcade-style shooting game that certainly looks very impressive from the screenshots. Unfortunately, the Enjoy Demo Version page didn't actually have a demo when I checked! Hopefully, this will be rectified very soon. ZIO Interactive, the producers of the much-heralded ZIOGolf, have a reputation for high-quality software so these two games should be well worth looking out for.
New RPG in beta!
[ Tuesday, October 31 ]
KPoole Software's RPG designed specifically for PDA's, Solskia, now has a downloadable beta version for Pocket PC's available.
Laser ported to CE
[ Tuesday, October 31 ]
Thanks to Domenico Dato, iPAQ owners can now enjoy a Laser emulator (for brief information on what Laser is, see this Sys2064 page) on their device. You can find the download link at the official Laser Emulation site, or in the Emulation section at Pocket PC Games.NET.
Sokoban game released
[ Tuesday, October 31 ]
The classic brain-teaser, Sokoban, is now available on the Pocket PC courtesy of Ask4Soft. PPCSokoban is shareware, priced at $15.
Free Talking Clock download!
[ Monday, October 30 ]
Many thanks to Orion Sloley for allowing me to distribute a free talking clock program that he has written, which you can download directly (68 Kb) from here. Please note that to run the program, you will also need to download and install the appropriate Pocket C runtime file. Please don't thank me for this, thank Orion!
Star Trek trivia game in beta!
[ Monday, October 30 ]
A beta version of Pocket Trivia is now publicly available as, for the first time, is the Pocket Trivia site. Complete with images and questions from both the old and new series, Pocket Trivia looks like everything any Star Trek fan could ever wish for!
Pinball game in the works!
[ Saturday, October 28 ]
There's an interesting Brighthand post by iPAQluvvver stating that he/she (hard to guess from the name!) is writing a pinball game and will be making an announcement regarding beta testers in about a month's time.
Pocket Millionaire released!
[ Saturday, October 28 ]
Pocket Millionaire is now (finally!) available to download. The game, strangely reminiscent of a certain hit TV show, is freeware and comes with a set of Pocket PC-related questions.
What's more, you can write your own questions for the game and submit them to the site for others to download. The (eVB) source code is also available and should anyone want to convert it into a "proper" (eVC++) application, I'd be delighted!
PalmChess blows away Pocket Chess
[ Saturday, October 28 ]
An unofficial Pocket PC Chess Tournament held by Raid resulted in PalmChess (version 2.02) defeating Pocket Chess (version 1.1) 4-0 in a best-of-five series:
Final standings
Game 1 - PalmChess 2.0.2 (black)
Game 2 - PalmChess 2.0.2 (white)
Game 3 - PalmChess 2.0.2 (black)
Game 4 - PalmChess 2.0.2 (white)
Since PalmChess already won 4 of 6, I thereby declare PalmChess to be the
winner of the Pocket PC Chess Tournament. Overall, not only does PalmChess
take less time, sometimes less than half of the time than PocketChess, its
moves were more solid.
Raid
For full details, check out the relevant messages in the Pocket PC newsgroup.
How to write Pocket PC Games!
[ Thursday, October 26 ]
As posted by Verb in this thread at PDA Buzz, Panutat Tejasen - better known as Jimmy from Jimmy Software - is set to release a book on programming games for the Pocket PC OS.
Jimmy Software are currently working on a new game engine to power games that will be "a new milestone of the industry", and are also looking for beta testers for a new game coming out soon. See this message on the Jimmy Software forum for all the details.
Time to Talk!
[ Thursday, October 26 ]
It might well be useless for 99% of the Pocket PC population, but a product that gets your Pocket PC to read the time to you is too cool to ignore! Unfortunately, I couldn't find a product homepage or demo download for Fonix's TimeTalk for Pocket PC, but you can buy it either from Fonix or Handango.
New e-book publisher promises a better read
[ Thursday, October 26 ]
CyclopsMedia.com, an e-book distributor, will open its doors on October 31. The company aims to offer a higher quality selection than its rivals due to its policy of only accepting authors represented by literary agents, and will offer the first chapter from each text for free.
Jimmy Software: E-125 compatibility list
[ Thursday, October 26 ]
E-125 owners should head over to the Jimmy Software site to take a look at the brand new compatibility list stating which games work with the device (and the EM-500 as well). If you haven't visited in a while, there's also a rather snazzy set of game icons on the left-hand side to admire as well!
ICBM update
[ Thursday, October 26 ]
The freeware Missile Command clone, ICBM, has been updated to version 1.3, offering "improved gameplay, display of wave number and background colour changes!".
Oric Emulator!
[ Wednesday, October 25 ]
I have to admit that I had never heard of the Oric before, but it would appear that there is an emulator for it nonetheless. Euphoric is written for the E-105, although it should presumably work on the newer Casio devices as well. Thanks to Cloy for letting me know about this.
New Mobile Combat!
[ Wednesday, October 25 ]
There's a new version of the popular Mobile Combat from Mobile Visions Software out for the AutoPC (NB: this is not a Pocket PC game, unfortunately!). For a list of what's new, see this message in the forum. Anybody who purchased and download the game will receive instructions via e-mail on how to get hold of the upgrade, whilst those who had it shipped to them will receive a free upgrade CD in the mail. Now that's service for you!
New puzzle game!
[ Wednesday, October 25 ]
The Pocket PC has another puzzle game to add to the ever-increasing collection in the shape of 5lines from the good people at PocketPC.cz.
Major MAME news!
[ Monday, October 23 ]
Thanks to Marconelly and Frank for letting me know about Techmaster's ultra-flash new MAMECE3 site. Not only is it a real site for sore eyes, but it also offers a brand new version of Techmaster's MAME port to try out as well as a messageboard to voice your compliments!
Ebony & Ivory
[ Monday, October 23 ]
PocketSoft (no website as yet) have released Ebony & Ivory, a shareware Othello (Reversi) game priced at $6.95. At the moment, the only place you can find it is at Handango.
MAME with style
[ Sunday, October 22 ]
I've mentioned the French Accueil Imame site before, but it's so good that it's worth another mention. Even if you don't parler la langue, it's well worth taking a look at the Games page which has a snazzy (and very useful) interactive listing of the games available for MAMECE including screenshots, samples information and game ratings.
CB64: Soon with Sound!
[ Sunday, October 22 ]
Come Back 64 fans should check out this message on the Come Back 64 messageboard from the emulator's author, Domineco Dato, which talks about the soon-to-be-released next version which will include sound support.
Jornada happy to play Scrabble, CE Entertainment Pack
[ Sunday, October 22 ]
Thanks to Mary for confirming that Scrabble does work on the Jornada 540 series Pocket PC's, as do "most of the games in the wince MS entertainment pack".
Pocket PC Games.NET: Mail links now working
[ Sunday, October 22 ]
The e-mail links in the games listings at Pocket PC Games.NET are now updated and working for all games. If you spot any mistakes, please let me know.
Jumble updated
[ Sunday, October 22 ]
The sliding-tile puzzle game, Jumble, has been undergone a "facelift" in addition to adding support for more image types (2BP, BMP, GIF, JPG, XBM).
Leo's Flight Simulator update
[ Sunday, October 22 ]
The ultra-impressive Leo's Flight Simulator has been updated, incorporating a whole host of improvements. For complete information on what's different in the new version (Beta 2), take a look at the Leo's Flight Simulator History page. Miss this game at your peril!
Note: I found that the setup program didn't work properly for the Pocket PC ARM version. However, performing a manual install (by copying the CAB file across to my iPAQ and then running it from there) worked fine.
Scrabble, Slingo confirmed as working on the E-115
[ Saturday, October 21 ]
Scrabble and Slingo are confirmed as working on the E-115, which would suggest that the rest of Hasbro Interactive's Windows CE lineup should work fine with the Casio unit as well. Thanks to Dean for this information.
Incidentally, anyone looking to purchase any of the titles should note that the only way there appears to be of doing this is by searching through the Games Catalogue for the relevant title and then following the link. Unfortunately, I could only find links for Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit - maybe you'll have better luck!
Another Pac-Man!
[ Friday, October 20 ]
No definite information yet, but Ramon's homepage will presumably host a new Pac-Man game within a few weeks.
Pocket Music Box: Does it rock?
[ Friday, October 20 ]
By pure chance, I was browsing the latest releases at Handango and noticed that Flux had released a demo for the iPAQ of Pocket Music Box. Oddly enough, there's no mention of this anywhere on their site. At over 4 MB, this is definitely not a download for the faint-hearted so you might want to read the PocketGamer.org preview first...
iPAQ and Jornada net another game!
[ Friday, October 20 ]
Beiks have a released a version of their popular Palm game, NetWalk, for the iPAQ and Jornada. When viewing the NetWalk page, you have to look carefully for the Pocket PC download links which are in a tiny font just below the review links on the right-hand side - a Pocket PC specific page is on the way, according to Beiks. Unfortunately, it would appear that users of Casio devices are, for the moment at least, out of luck.
Good New Site Alert!
[ Friday, October 20 ]
Any site that's complimentary about PocketGamer.org and Pocket Millionaire is obviously of impeccable quality, but when it comes from highly-respected Microsoft MVP and Pocket PC guru, Jason Dunn, you know that it's got to be good! Pocket PC Thoughts is a collection of "thoughts, theories, rants, raves and ponderings about the Pocket PC platform".
Pocket Millionaire update
[ Friday, October 20 ]
There's an update to the Pocket Millionaire page, with the latest news being that the game has unfortunately been delayed due to potential copyright issues. Thanks to everyone who wrote in with contact details for Celador, and thanks too for the (small number of) people who have submitted questions for the game so far.
Wanted: Monopoly, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Slingo
[ Thursday, October 19 ]
Hasbro Interactive have a good lineup of CE games: Monopoly, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit and Slingo. Trouble is, they're only available for MIPS and SH3-based palm-sized and handheld devices, meaning that many (such as iPAQ owners) are missing out, although users of Casio and Jornada devices might be in luck. This is the reply I got back after asking whether a Pocket PC version was in the works:
Thanks for your feedback. At the present time, we have no plans to develop this game for Pocket PC, but we are always monitoring the market and the latest information can be found at www.hasbro-interactive.com.
If you'd like to let them know of your interest in Pocket PC versions of their titles, you can do your bit by sending an e-mail to Customer Support as I did.
Adventure Ahead!
[ Wednesday, October 18 ]
Not much to go on admittedly but given the rather limited quantity of adventure/RPG games around, any new additions would be most welcome and it would seem that one is on the way as discussed on this site. For those of you with good memories, this is the same site where votes were being collected (over a month ago now) as to people's preferences regarding this type of game and, for those interested, there's a page which has all the results with the respective comments.
New MAME messageboard
[ Wednesday, October 18 ]
With the demise of the official MAMECE site, www.mamece.com, there's an alternative messageboard in operation courtesy of Darren Fink who is the author of one of the ports, MAMECE-10X. Unfortunately, as of yet, there's no word regarding the fate of the MAMECE site or MAMECE's author, Ben Cooley.
PDAutilities: Games with Balls
[ Tuesday, October 17 ]
There's two new puzzle games in Pocket PC land courtesy of new kids on the block, PDAutilities. Their first offering, Ball's Clues, is a Mastermind clone (the object of the game being to guess the correct colour sequence in a limited number of turns) whilst their second, Balls 'R' Us, sees the player attempting to eliminate sequences of four balls of the same colour by moving a (you guessed it) ball each turn.
Monochrome iPAQ is out!
[ Monday, October 16 ]
As reported on PDA Buzz, Compaq have now officially released their new greyscale version of the iPAQ. Thanks to HoLoN's post at PDAfrance.com, here's a link to a UK reseller's Compaq handhelds page which has information on the new machine which, in the UK at least, will go by the name of the H3150. With a price of around £310 including VAT, I would expect that to translate to a US price of around $350 or less.
Who wants to be a Pocket Millionaire...?
[ Saturday, October 14 ]
It's arguably the best quiz show of all time, and it's coming to the Pocket PC soon courtesy of PocketGamer.org! Check out the Pocket Millionaire page for more details on the game, which will be released as freeware. The one snag is that I would like a reasonable number of questions before releasing it - your help is required!
Fortunately, the game is designed to read standard text files so writing questions is easy, as detailed in the Pocket Millionaire manual. This also means that you can always write your own personal sets of questions for the game (if, for example, you wanted to do some revision in style, or wanted to write a football quiz) as well as submit them so that the rest of the world can share them!
GAPI emulator
[ Saturday, October 14 ]
If you're writing a game in eMbedded Visual C++ (part of the virtually-free eMbedded Visual Tools package), you'll probably have noticed that GAPI (a way of getting games to run faster) doesn't work with the emulator. However, Thierry Tremblay has come up with a GAPI emulator which eliminates nicely that particular annoyance.
Connect 4 Free!
[ Saturday, October 14 ]
Available as freeware from those nice folks at Cap Gemini, Ernst & Young (there's a catchy name!) is everyone's favourite, Connect 4. The game features four levels of play, a monochrome option for those with greyscale devices and an option to download the (eVB) source code.
Guess the Cow Code!
[ Saturday, October 14 ]
Bulls & Cows is a Mastermind clone with an animal theme, with the object of the game being to guess the four digit code before your ten attempts are up. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a homepage for the game, so the link provided is to a Handango page. Bulls & Cows is a miserly $1.99 to register.
Two games for the Jornada!
[ Thursday, October 12 ]
It's not often that the Jornada can boast of having games exclusively to itself, but owners of other devices might be looking rather enviously at these two games from Kitti Prempinij. Rocky Fighter (currently in demo form) is a space shoot-em-up which supports the Jornada's game keys, whilst Memory Game is a freeware version of the classic, "Match-the-titles".
Something smells fishy...
[ Thursday, October 12 ]
"Probably the most useless Today component ever" is the way Stellarmetrics have described their new free Today screen component. Fish is so named because it displays, erm, fish. So, if you're angling for something a little different, rather than listening to me carping on about the product, why not reel in a copy and sea for yourself?
Three new games!
[ Wednesday, October 11 ]
Three new Pocket PC games have been released, the first being RatSplat, a simple but colourful "Whack-a-Rat" clone. Next up is Batty, an Arkanoid clone and last but by no means least is QTris, a version of that old favourite, Tetris. The good news is that they are freeware - although the author, Daniel Jackson (homepage), would appreciate your feedback - so head straight over to the download page and take your pick!
3D VRML browser released!
[ Tuesday, October 10 ]
Parallel Graphics have released Pocket Cortona, "the first ever 3D VRML browser" for PDA's and wireless devices in general. If you feel like exploring 3D worlds on your Pocket PC, you'll be pleased to hear that Pocket Cortona is free to download for personal use.
Leo's Flight Sim author interview: Space sim on the way?
[ Monday, October 9 ]
Jerrytroll.com has recently added the second part of an interview with Leo Bueno, the author of Leo's Flight Simulator in which, amongst other things, he says that he expects to release a new version of his game this Sunday, discusses future plans for the game, and reveals that he will probably next port his space combat simulator to Windows CE!
Another Turjah cheat, anyone?
[ Monday, October 9 ]
If you're a conscientious person, look away now. If not, however, and you would like some more "assistance" with the lovely but tough-as-nails Turjah, take a look at this discussion thread on the Jimmy Software forum.
New Flash player for November
[ Monday, October 9 ]
A post by FunMan in this Brighthand discussion thread indicates that Conduits will be releasing a new version of their Flash player, Pocket Spark, on November 1. This new version will presumably be compatible with all Pocket PC's, although only the iPAQ is mentioned in this particular case.
PocketSwap reviewed
[ Sunday, October 8 ]
As promised, here's the review of PocketSwap. Have PocketFun.co.uk got a winner on their hands, or is this a game you wouldn't want to swap your hard earned cash for? PocketGamer.org reveals all...
PocketSwap: It's here!
[ Sunday, October 8 ]
PocketSwap has now been released. All the details, including screenshots and download/purchase links can be found on the PocketSwap page at PocketFun.co.uk. Once again, a review should arrive within the next day or so.
Galactic Realms update
[ Sunday, October 8 ]
Version 2.2 of KPoole Software's Galactic Realms has been released, "fixing the mining bug and Pocket PC issues".
PocketSwap: Coming Soon!
[ Saturday, October 7 ]
Thanks to PocketFun.co.uk for sharing their latest game, due to be released within the next week, with me. Entitled PocketSwap, the best way of describing it that I can think of is as a PocketPop-meets-Tetris hybrid. If you liked PocketPop but also have a hankering for a game with an action element, then PocketSwap should be perfect for you! Expect a review to appear in the very near future.
AvantGo / Mobile Favorites problems fixed (hopefully!)
[ Friday, October 6 ]
Huge thanks to Mark Jackson for providing me with instructions on how to implement SSI code, which means that there is now a special Mobile Edition which should behave properly with AvantGo and Mobile Favorites. You can either read the introduction here, or add the new Mobile Edition to your AvantGo channels. I haven't had time to fully test it all out yet, so please report any problems you encounter by sending me a mail.
PocketChess 1.1 released
[ Thursday, October 5 ]
There's a new Pocket PC version of PocketChess available from Scott's Software offering a whole slew of features, including the ability to play either against another human opponent or the computer, 8 difficulty levels, savegame support, PGN export option, opening move library, sound effects, and plenty more besides! The full press release can be found on the PocketGamer.org forum.
AvantGo / Mobile Favorites problems
[ Thursday, October 5 ]
As quite a few people have noticed, AvantGo and Mobile Favorites both do funky things to the PocketGamer.org layout, so apologies for the time being. Hopefully, a solution will soon be forthcoming.
Power Toys: There's more!
[ Wenesday, October 4 ]
There's been a fourth power toy added to the list in the form of Power Contacts, which adds a nifty content menu to the Contacts app. If you've already got the Fun Pack, chances are you've already got Power Contacts installed, but at least it's a first for those of us who aren't Stateside.
Put PocketGamer.org in your Pocket!
[ Wenesday, October 4 ]
Or, more specifically, in your Pocket PC! Following quite a few complaints about the disappearance of the old Mobile Edition (sorry - I never realised it was so popular!), I've added a page explaining how you can get the PocketGamer.org front page delivered direct to your palmtop via AvantGo. For the impatient, here's the direct link to set up the PocketGamer.org channel.
Pocket PC Power Toys released!
[ Wenesday, October 4 ]
Nothing amazingly exciting, I'm afraid, but Microsoft has released three new power toys for the Pocket PC. First up is a skin chooser for Windows Media Player, closely followed by a Today Screen image tool and a Pocket Internet Explorer JScript tool.
New iMAME, new home!
[ Wenesday, October 4 ]
iMAME has been updated again to include ZIP support, more games, an improved user interface and more! Note that the iMAME site has now moved to it's new home at http://www.mameworld.net/imame/.
YATR (Yet Another Turjah Review!)
[ Wenesday, October 4 ]
Seems like reviewers just can't get enough of Turjah. I wonder why... There's a review of the game up at Dale Coffing's Pocket PC Page in which, once again, the reviewer loves it.
Two new Majong games released!
[ Wenesday, October 4 ]
Bryce Yancey has released two new Majong solitaire games, which go by the names of SiChuan Majong and NanChing Majong. Both are shareware with a registration fee of just $5.
GameFan gives MAMECE the boot!
[ Wenesday, October 4 ]
You might have noticed that the official MAMECE site (www.mamece.com) has been down for the last few days. The reason for this, as Frank kindly wrote in to tell me, is due to the GameFan Network giving "it's affiliates the boot", as reported in this Gamers.com article.
You say: Button problems have ruined iPAQ!
[ Tuesday, October 3 ]
According to the 460 people who voted in the previous poll, asking "Has the button problem ruined the iPAQ as a gaming device?", 68% (313) answered in the affirmative, whilst only 32% (147) thought that the much-maligned button problem hadn't ruined the machine as a gaming device.
Come Back 64 to support .d64 files
[ Tuesday, October 3 ]
Of potential interest to Come Back 64 aficionados is this posting by Marconelly on the Come Back 64 messageboard that the emulator's author, Domenico Dato, is apparently planning to add support for .d64 files.
Two new games on the horizon, but...
[ Tuesday, October 3 ]
Unfortunately, I can't reveal too many details at present. What I can tell you is that PocketFun.co.uk are currently working on a new title; all that I'm allowed to reveal is that it is an arcade game. As soon as I'm permitted to say more about the game, currently in beta testing, I'll be sure to post more information up.
Also in the works is something rather unique. PocketGamer.org is not best known as a software producer, but yes, I'm currently working on a game of my own! What I can say is that it will be based on a popular TV quiz show and more details should hopefully follow within a fortnight, along with a public beta test. Stay tuned!
Take The Triad Test
[ Sunday, October 1 ]
As spotted on ce4you, Random Software have a new game out by the name of Triad. The game is a tile-based brain teaser and is compatible with Palm-sized PC's in addition to the Pocket PC.
Aero 1500 games site
[ Sunday, October 1 ]
Boris wrote in to tell me about his site which is dedicated to Aero 1500 series Pocket PC's, and details his project to get a working MAME port on the device. Also included is a emulator for Space Invaders, which you can find on the downloads page.
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