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[olemars]

When I was a kid back in the late 80's my father got a "laptop" for work(wheighs more than 10kg and it needs a power cable but still), and on it was for some reason several games, which I ended up playing a lot. One of them I have never seen since, but recently it popped back in my memory and now I'm trying to find it.

Here are the bits I remember, somewhat jumbled together:

-Probably from mid 80's. Dunno how widespread it was, I've never seen it anywhere else other than on that laptop.
-I *think* the name was MONSTER, although I haven't been able to find any game with just that word as name. It was a sort of 2D puzzle/maze game where the objective is to kill "monsters" by squishing them between blocks.
-The graphics where simple ASCII, with a playing field seen from overhead. The playing field was the size of the screen (no scrolling). On the field were various blocks, a light gray movable kind, a darker immobile kind and I think one kind that killed anything it touched.
-The player was represented by a diamond-shape character, which could move around and push the blocks that covered much of the playing field.
-The monsters were represented by various forms of the capital letter H. There were several kinds:
"Regular H" which could only move in open spaces, not push blocks.
"Strong H" which could push the blocks and squish you.
"Queen H" which would burst and spawn several small baby H's in certain situations.
"Egg", which would burst after a while into a regular H.
Perhaps one or two others that I can't remember.
-There was a rudimentary menu system where you could set various parameters such as number of eggs, difficulty, whether the character could both push and pull (spacebar to pull), and also activate a 2player coop mode (the second character was hourglass-shaped i think).
-I don't think there were any levels or progression, you just set up the parameters for the game and played it, so it was more a simulator than a game in that respect.

To kill an H you had to set up a spot so that the H would move between two blocks and then move one block so that the H got squished between them. I also think the various H's required different methods to kill them, ie the strong H required you to squish it against an immobile block. Tactics involved setting up traps and paths, confining the H's into tiny jails and so on only by moving the blocks.

Extremely simple gameplay and appearance but equally addictive, and it also has a lot of nostalgia value for me, so any help is appreciated.

[olemars]

Never mind! Two hours after posting this thread I actually found it on my own!

Appears the name wasn't Monster but Beast, and it even has it's own Wikipedia page. There are a couple of modernized remakes as well, but the original game is available from here. Looks like it's definitely not sold or supported by anyone and it's even unknown who owns the rights to it anymore, so I'd say it is safe to consider it abandonware.

Edit: Upon running it it appears it was in fact freeware/shareware originally. Also seems like some of the things I thought I remembered about it was wrong. Anyway, experiencing nostalgic gaming bliss right now.

[Luchsen]

Beast | 1984 | Dan Baker | [APPROVED]

It's freeware, but since the maker asked for a contribution so nicely, you were quasi forced to pay (please note: irony to be able to approve it here; I don't think it would make it on Abandonia Reloaded. If you - yes, you (whoever you may be) - don't think so, post beneath).

[olemars]

You know you're on a hardcore site when something only gets approved if it is illegal enough

[bobson]

Archive inside Romano's Ultimate DOS Collection.

[zsr]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_(video_game)

[Paco]

Beast

[APPROVED]