World News

March 2009

• Secrets and organisation by Chroelle on 06.03.2009
  Hi ya'll It has been a LONG time since we last wrote something. This is not because there was nothing new to report but becasue everyone of the crew has been busy on their fields of this site. We will very soon have some more interviews, games and such to present to you. We have been working hard on doing some organising in the backstage area, where everything was pilling up in corners and we all tried to keep some form of order in chaos, but now we succeeded. Order is restored to the Gamehunting section and we are finding ways to do our job even faster and better. This is also showing up on our games to add list, where we are piling up also. This means that we have time to do other stuff as well, and we are currently gathering licenses like never before, so we can test more games and host them on our site. Stiven, who is now Drasir-Vel, is doing some major league tidying, and eMTe and Pater Alf is getting down and dirty as well with him. Myself, I ahve been working on some...

January 2009

• More Gamehippo revivals by Chroelle on 30.01.2009
  AS two consecutive admins deceided to really bring down GameHippo the world of freeware cried. Firstly the site was left to rot from the administrative site with lots of members trying to get work done, but unable to as there was noone to implement changes, then the administration was shifted and the next one spent his time on trying to place as many ads as possible on the site so he could make a buck off of it. Understandably the community was in shock, and lots of members deceided to leave. Some of those decided to come back when Mr.Worm announced that, after the downfall of GameHippo, he would lead the mission to bring up a new version of the beloved and respected site. Several members joined in on this and have been doing work on the site http://gamehipporedux.com/. The design and so forth are taken up a step, and you can view the first drafts here: http://www.gamehipporedux.com/classic/ (Link was draft when posted, could be real working project when you read it). Now...
• Welcome to the new year and Stiven by Chroelle on 20.01.2009
  Well, it seems it has been some time since I last wrote something here, and so here goes. January opened up in a great manner. Cant say too much but lets just say that 2009 will very much become the year that puts CWF on the freeware map. We also obtained a new crewmember Stiven, who came by and introduced himself, and I could not help but approach him regarding a post as Gamehunter for CWF. He has agreed on the terms that he can work in his own pace, and we agree that Stivens pace is better than no pace, so hey. Welcome Stiven, and we look forward to working with you. We are also currently working on a cleanup of the forums, so expect a more clean and easy on the eyes forum in the near future. Suggestions are welcome, and the deadline is February 1st for suggestions on what to do. Shortly there after the changes will be applied. Maz has decided to step down from his deserving throne as Coding Leader, and is passing on the crown to Zyx. The division has been renamed...
• Retro Remakes hacked by eMTe on 18.01.2009
  Retro Remakes, their forum and all developers' sites hosted by them were hacked a couple of days ago. Main site is down, hosted sites also (although some of them have been restored afaik), forum is running, but old posts are lost. How long will it take to bring things to normality is not known yet, but from what Ive read in forums - let's hope my English is worse than I think - it's over and new site is being planned. What means this is a disaster and makes one think who would want to hack and completely destroy freeware gaming site?? Read oddbob's statement: http://www.remakes.org/ And check forums to see how RR's are doing and what's going on in general, because even without main site operating games are still being developed. http://www.retroremakes.com/forum/ We wish them quick comeback.

December 2008

• MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM CWF by Chroelle on 24.12.2008
  Well I simply wanted to wish everyone that has been a part of CWF in the past, future and definetly in the present a very merry Christmas. I hope that everyone will have a nice evening with family and friends. Once again thank you all for participating in making this site a site worth visiting every day just to see what has happened, and even though that might not be landslides of posts and new games added we still keep a nice and steady pace to get to the place we want to be in. ...And to all a good night.
• Ho ho ho. Here we go again. by Chroelle on 02.12.2008
  Well December has come once more (if that had somehow by a cosmic mishap slipped your attention) and the crew is working on some different stuff for the site. Currently we are once more running into the classic problem of this site - lots fo work, too few hands. Some of the guys we get to sign up disappear just as quickly as they appeared leaving us with a sad feeling. SO...If you want to join our site and help make the greatest freewaresite in history then please sign up and tell us so. We dont care if you cant work 3 hours a day in here - if you can invest half an hour a week we will be happy. If You cant code, then you can propably play games, write reviews, do interviews or something completely different. WE NEED YOU! Short and precise this month. Have a merry Christmas, and keep an eye out for Christmas Themed Games showing up on the site.

November 2008

• Bugtracker issue fixed. by Maz on 05.11.2008
  Hi deeee Ho! Bug Tracker is in use again. New address is: http://dev.connect-webdesign.dk/mantis/ All links should be updated too, but if you find a dead one, please use the tracker to report it :) :) Happy Bug Hunting! -Maz EDIT: Thanks to Zyx!!
• BugTracker out of order. by Maz on 03.11.2008
  Hi dee Ho. Just a short note. Our bug tracker is currently not working due to dropping some unnecessary domainnames. We're fixing the issue. I am sorry for the inconvenience. -Maz
• So October and things are back to normal by Chroelle on 02.11.2008
  Well it seems that I beat Maz this month on the news front. A new member called Ipsemet surfaced and talked about improving the webiste, which sparked interesting results of the kind that creates debate and some attempts at a layout for a better site. Which however once again made us clear of our present most specific problem. WE NEED CODERS AND DESIGNERS. So if anyone out there feel like using some sparetime on a project that could really go places, then please let us know. We have a lot of ideas for a layout, but not really any for a specific design, and we really need people who can dig into this. We have a dedicated crew, very capable of creating content for a website, and a willingness to get this ship launched out of this world. If you look by our bugtracker you can see there that things do get done, and some of them are even visible. So please let us know if you want in. On another note, we did some cleaning and tidying of the forums to make sure that no games got lost...

October 2008

• teardown's Space Hulk - what's new? by eMTe on 11.10.2008
  Short summary for those unaware. On February group of Swedish designers united under "teardown" flag (teardown serves both as site's and group's name) released to the public first version of their Space Hulk game. Instead of following in Electronic Arts footsteps and creating 3D strategy/shooter hybrid teardown decided to be more faithful to board classic. Game featured overhead view of corridors and atmospheric sound and put emphasis on tactics and enemy AI. Soon trouble began as Games Workshop, copyright holder of Space Hulk franchise, contacted teardown and demanded immediate remove of all downloads and cease of development. After short exchange of letters and desperate looking for contact with "right" people at GW and THQ (Toy Headquarters, owner of licensing agreement with GW) it became obvious that big companies will win over group of enthusiasts once again. Nothing bad in this, since they have full rights to chase them, but there was tiny chance that project is small...
• OpenAnno technical demo released by eMTe on 11.10.2008
  Anno games by Sunflowers Interactive are popular historical building/trading simulations. Three installments have been already published, fourth one is planned to be released in 2009. In the meantime group of German developers decided to make their own, freeware version of Anno. Game's code will be licensed under the terms of GNU GPL v2 and graphics as CC-BY-SA 3.0. OpenAnno has been in development for quite a time, but this is the first public release of hitherto efforts. Demo allows only basic gameplay on two test maps without many future features, but gives enough information on what can we expect.
• Results of Bootleg Demakes Competition announced by Pater Alf on 08.10.2008
  There were 69 entries in the competition and many of them are worth playing and created a brand new game feeling for well known games. Congratulations to all developers who took part!!! Here are the top 10 games of the competition: 1. Soundless Mountain II (superflat) 2. Gang Garrison II (mrfredman, MedO) 3. Aquarium (Oracle) 4. Little Girl in Underland (The Ivy) 5. House Globe (Oxeye Games) 6. S.T.A.C.K.E.R. (Pishtaco) 7. Squish (Terry) 8. Fillauth (Oxeye Games) / Macarena of the Missing (Noyb) 9. Sexy Seaside Beachball (lemmy101) 10. Advanced Set the Rope on Fire Cartridge (Blueberry) If you want to read more about the competition or maybe want to see the whole result list, please visit TIGSource: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=2865.0

September 2008

• The Suffering is now freeware by Pater Alf on 30.09.2008
  The Suffering was first published in 2004 for PS2 and PC and was sold over one million times. Now it is available as freeware and can be downloaded from various mirrors throughout the web (follow the link to get to GamersHell). You take the role of Torque who was imprisoned for murder and is now awaiting his death penalty into a strange high-security prison. But of course he doesn't want to be dead and so it's up to you to help him to escape and unreveal the dark secrets of the jail. The Suffering features nine levels, three distinctly different endings (depending upon how you choose to survive) and more than 10 deadly weapons. Download is about 1.3 GB. Thank you Midway for making this game freeware!!!
• Broken Sword 2.5 finally released by Pater Alf on 30.09.2008
  Broken Sword 2.5 is an unofficial sequel to the two very successful Broken Sword games and it can be considered as a tribute to the golden times of point'n'click adventures in general and the games of Revolution Software in special. Once again you have to play the character George Stobbart who gets drawn into a mysterious intrigue and has to fight the religious cult of Neo-Templars. Here's the story as described by the developers: "The last months were quite a blow of fate to George Stobbart. First he had to leave Nico for one year because of an important trip to the USA, then his beloved grandfather died of a cancerous growth. But that was not everything. When George receives a telegram from France one day he already has a foreboding of evil. The consigner is... Nicole Collard, Paris, France. His presentiment shall turn into cruel certainty: Nico is dead! "First my grandpa and now Nico?", George thinks and takes the first plane to Paris. On his arrival: Rain, storm, like...
• September - a month when I beated Chroelle :D by Maz on 27.09.2008
  Well, I beated C what comes to making these news :D Summer has been wasted once again, and it is the time when computers are about to take back our souls. Temperature drops, humidity levels increase, and suddenly warm home and glow of monitor starts once again attracting us. So I expect activity in CWF to be rising again :) At this time I do not even try to analyze the passed month, I'll leave it to Chroelle. I'll just say that this is propably only month in the history of CWF, when no developement has been done behind the curtains. (And with developement I am not referring to developing content of site. Content has been once again increased.) Why has the CWF been at standstill what comes to features? Well, I feel as I should give some kind of explanation. Well, there's couple of things. 1. I was busy, getting married, having once again loads of work to do, ... 2. I was lured by dark art of blogging, I started a blog where I babble about C programming. or actually 2...
• August - where art thou now by Chroelle on 05.09.2008
  Well August ended. A month with a somewhat quiet site. Games got added, and lots of games got suggested. We got some more permissions for games, and we also got alot lined up for going on the main page. We are as always lacking personel to handle all jobs at once, so we are juggling - but we are getting very good at juggling too. :) I will keep this short and say that we hope to see more active members in the forums, and maybe even to see some asking to become part of our gameloving crew. If only people knew how little it took to do some good work around here... Come and ask. September opened up with a clear blue sky (...oh was that my birhtday...) and some lack of admins as Maz is deeply tied up in wedding preparations I am guessing, and Chroelle (me) have had his line cut by mistake by the phonecompany... Stupid Danish phonecompanies! But we are both to be expected back in here soon. In the meantime let us all raise our glasses (wine glasses not spectacles) and cheer to...

August 2008

• Bootleg Demakes Competition at TIGSource by Pater Alf on 03.08.2008
  During the last few months some demakes have been developed (for example "Retro Raider") and there were lots of people who liked the idea. So TIGSource decided that it was time for an own competition with this theme. Developers can join the compo from August 1st until August 31st. So far several developers accepted the challenge and so we can look forward to see games like "Large-Scale Vehicular Stealing" (demake of "Grand Theft Auto"), "Commandolls: Behind Enemy Walls" ("Commandos"), "Gloom" ("Doom") or "PACperson: The Textual Adventure" ("Pacman"). Read more about the competion on the TIGSource forum. Read more about "Retro Raider" on our forums.

July 2008

• July is passing by Chroelle on 30.07.2008
  It seems that July is also coming to an end, and before Maz gets to this section I better start out. July was a month that was filled with other types of activities than usual. Not many games were finished in validation but lots of waiting games were added. I (ED: Chroelle) have been working on getting interviews done with several developers, and that is so far going well - also the amazing thing happened and I returned to the Adding of games scene that I have promised to take my turns in for so long. That gave Pater Alf some time to dig into license hunting and we got soem great news on that front. We got exclusive rights for some games that will be up soonish, and got rights to distribute from ALOT of other developers. We hunt for licenses all the time, but lots of games are very old, or comes with so little info that it is next to impossible (and sometimes totally impossible) to get permission to host. But we do our best, so if you want to help out with this please let us...
• Good news and bad news about Broken Sword 2.5 by Pater Alf on 29.07.2008
  But there are are bad news too. The announced release date (21th of August) for Broken Sword 2.5 has been canceled. The new release date will be sometime after the 27th of September (the date when the beta testing ends). It seems there are still several errors and bugs in the game that have to be fixed and so a massive beta testing is necessary. So if you want to be among the first that can play the game and want to help the developers, you can apply for a job as a beta tester on their forum between the 1st of August and the 21st of August. You can find more information and a link to their forum here.
• The perfect adventure by Jetstar on 18.07.2008
  Game designer Van Bush has a vision, and that vision has been in the making for a very long time. Van is spearheading a team of two dedicated programmers and a few voice actors to create VHEL, an adventure game made in Gamemaker that will turn heads. Using life-like animation and A.I., the game plans to fufil the author's vision of what an adventure game should be like. The story follows the exploits of a girl through a series of events on a water-logged planet filled with deadly creatures called Ragnic, who thrive on the planet's near constant downfall of rain. Taken from the author's own words, "VHEL is a game about visceral actions, exploration, relationships, and storytelling". This is a game that shouldn't fail to impress.
• Finding the hippo by Chroelle on 09.07.2008
  The Gamehippo was sold off last year. We talked about this in the previous news-article. We also explained that going to gamehippo.com let you to a highjacked site now instead of the classic freeware site that we all know and love(d). Gamehippo has been reported to be going downhill lately thogh people were trusting the new owner to relift the giant by its neck and get it standing again after some member-stampede away form the site. So it came as somewhat of a shock when suddenly a search on the domainname gamehippo.com suddenly let you to a highjacked site with lots of ads and lots of no-hippo. Searching for the site would only bring up lots of old articles about the site, so it didn't help to do that. Now a few days later the sites loss has gained so much uproar that some members have started to spread the word of how to access the site again. You can use the IP-adress instead of the domain-name to get to the site. That of corse means that you have to change the adress...
• Where the Hippo went by Chroelle on 07.07.2008
  The original owner and writer of Gamehippo Boson sold off his famous site last year. Gamehippo has been known for its high quality and lots of freeware game downloads, so many were afraid what would happen to the site once taken over. Boson calmed the crowds by telling everyone that the new owner was a good guy "like himself". Rumours had it that trouble was brewing on Gamehippo and we can now see the result. It seems the site has been hijacked, since the before so well-visited domain of Gamehippo.com now leads to another of those typically highjacked sites wheer lots of keywords are supposed to lure the unsuspecting visitor into clicking and thereby earning the owner a small fee. When you do this with big enough sites, the income it will generate is good enough to cover the expenses. Another example of freewaresites highjacked would be faind.com, where Fallen Angel Industries unfortunately lost their domainname to a similar example of domainsharks. It is unknown yet wether we...
• June is so yesterday... by Chroelle on 07.07.2008
  Well further back yet really. June has passed and once again I try to wrap my head around what has happened within a specific month. One thing is for certain - June was dominated by the European Soccer Championship. All talk more or less vanished from any other topic besides the one regarding that specific event. We had some good times in there trying to figure out who would win, and not just the European Championship. Pater Alf drew the honor of being the champion, BUT he was also the gamemaster so some backhanded under the table action has propably been going on. We do not believe he achieved the victory in an honest manner. We believe he has used some sort of time travelling device to figure out the results of games. Enough about my hurt pride of coming in fourth. Pater Alf has once more gone to great lengths and added a handfull more games to our site. You can enjoy them by using the link to the top right that says "CWF Freeware". I will also use some text here to sum up on...

June 2008

• May - What to tell about it? by Maz on 11.06.2008
  Hi deee Ho peeps! May went past. That's about all I can tell considering CWF. And that's why I hope PA, eMTe, Scythe or Chroelle would consider adding their summary about the month :) So Maz online has been a rare sight on CWF lately. Reasons behind that are many, warmed weather in Finland has lured me out of the house, I changed my job and decided to get married. I also revived my old 'learn some graphical C library by writing a pong game' project, and I have devoted some hours to it too. It may sound lame to write a pong game in C, but actually that is a nice learningproject for someone time-wise-limited like me. It is quite strange, I write C for my work, but writing a pong game is far more interesting than writing platform SW for WCDMA basestation :D However CWF has NOT been at standstill. It seems that GH-team has been active. Even though the 200 different games milestone was not reached at may (it was at june), most of the work have been done during may. It was a...
• Release date for Ben Jordan - Case 7 by Pater Alf on 08.06.2008
  Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator - Case 7: The Cardinal Sins will be released on August 12th, 2008. The game will be fully voiced and also feature an optional designer commentary, just in case you want to listen to Grundislav talking about the BJ design process.