Bolo (1987 video game)

Last updated

Bolo
Developer(s) Various
Publisher(s) Various
Platform(s) BBC Micro, Mac OS, Mac OS X, Linux, Windows
Release 1987
Genre(s) Tactical shooter
Mode(s) Single player, Multiplayer

Bolo is a video game initially created for the BBC Micro computer by Stuart Cheshire in 1987, and was later ported by Cheshire to the Apple Macintosh. [1] Although offered for sale for the BBC Micro, [2] [3] this version is now regarded as lost. [4] It is a networked multiplayer game that simulates a tank battlefield. Currently, a Windows version known as Winbolo remains in operation and continues to have a small but active player base. [5] [6]

Contents

Name

According to the Bolo Frequently Asked Questions page, "Bolo is the Hindi word for communication. Bolo is about computers communicating on the network, and more importantly about humans communicating with each other, as they argue, negotiate, form alliances, agree strategies, etc." [7]

Another tank game with the same name was created for the Apple II in 1982. In the user manual, Cheshire wrote that this was "an unfortunate coincidence". [1]

Description

Screenshot from the game. Pillwar.png
Screenshot from the game.

Players are divided into two teams. Each player commands a tank that can be driven around a battlefield within an orthogonal, top-down view. The tank has a cannon, which fires forward, and it carries mines as a secondary weapon, which can be dropped while moving or be placed somewhere on the map. Tanks have a certain amount of "armor" (hit points), which is reduced by enemy shots. A tank is destroyed if its armor reaches zero or if it is driven into the sea.

Cannon ammunition and mines can be refilled by going to a friendly "base". The bases also repair damage to tanks, but this depletes the base's armor and enemy tanks can kill you faster than a base can heal. Bases' ammunition and armor regenerate slowly, however wood must be gathered by the engineer.

The goal of the game is to capture all of the bases on the map (and pillboxes). Neutral bases may be captured by driving one's tank over them. Hostile bases can be made neutral again by shooting them until their armor supply is reduced to zero.

Another game element is the "pillbox". Pillboxes are initially neutral and will shoot at any tank that approaches them. Like the supply bases, pillboxes can be shot at until destroyed, after which a player can restore it, making it friendly. Unlike the bases, pillboxes can be moved around the map by the players.

Inside the tank is an engineer aka builder, who places mines and moves pillboxes and is also nick-named "little green men" by the creator. The engineer can also perform building tasks, after collecting wood in a forest. The structures that can be built are roads, which speed up travel, boats, and walls, which act as a barrier. The engineer can be killed by enemies while out of the tank.

Networking

The Macintosh version of Bolo supported up to sixteen concurrent networked players, using AppleTalk over a Local Area Network, or UDP over the Internet. [8] [9] [10] All AppleTalk network connection types were supported, including LocalTalk, EtherTalk, TokenTalk, and AppleTalk Remote Access. [1] The current Windows version continues to support 16 players, who join via an active games page or the game's Discord channel. [11] [12]

Related Research Articles

AppleTalk is a discontinued proprietary suite of networking protocols developed by Apple Computer for their Macintosh computers. AppleTalk includes a number of features that allow local area networks to be connected with no prior setup or the need for a centralized router or server of any sort. Connected AppleTalk-equipped systems automatically assign addresses, update the distributed namespace, and configure any required inter-networking routing.

<i>Marathon Trilogy</i> Video game series

The Marathon Trilogy is a science fiction first-person shooter video game series from Bungie, originally released for the Classic Mac OS. The name of the series is derived from the giant interstellar colony ship that provides the main setting for the first game; the ship is constructed out of the Martian moon Deimos. The series is often regarded as a spiritual predecessor of Bungie's Halo series.

<i>Battlezone</i> (1980 video game) 1980 video game

Battlezone is a first-person shooter tank combat game released for arcades in November 1980 by Atari, Inc. The player controls a tank which is attacked by other tanks and missiles, using a small radar scanner to locate enemies around them in the barren landscape. Its innovative use of 3D graphics made it a huge hit, with approximately 15,000 cabinets sold.

<i>Ogre</i> (board game) Board game designed by Steve Jackson

OGRE is a science fiction board wargame designed by the American game designer Steve Jackson and published by Metagaming Concepts in 1977 as the first microgame in its MicroGame line. When Steve Jackson left Metagaming to form his own company, he took the rights to OGRE with him, and all subsequent editions have been produced by Steve Jackson Games (SJG).

<i>Star Wars: Dark Forces</i> 1995 video game

Star Wars: Dark Forces is a first-person shooter video game developed and published by LucasArts. It was released in 1995 for MS-DOS and Macintosh, and in 1996 for the PlayStation. The story is set in the fictional Star Wars expanded universe and begins shortly before the original Star Wars film, before flashing forward to a year after the film's events. The game's protagonist and playable character is Kyle Katarn, a mercenary working on behalf of the Rebel Alliance who discovers the Galactic Empire's secret Dark Trooper Project, which involves the development of a series of powerful new battle droids and power-armored stormtroopers.

<i>Space Ace</i> LaserDisc based videogame

Space Ace is a LaserDisc video game produced by Bluth Group, Cinematronics and Advanced Microcomputer Systems. It was unveiled in October 1983, just four months after the Dragon's Lair game, followed by a limited release in December 1983 and then a wide release in Spring 1984. Like its predecessor, it featured film-quality animation played back from a LaserDisc.

<i>Air-Sea War – Battle</i> 1978 video game

Air-Sea War and Battle are two games that were released together as the fourth cartridge in the official Philips line of games for the Philips Videopac. In North America, the same game was released as Armored Encounter! / Subchase! for the Magnavox Odyssey² console.

<i>Avara</i> 1996 video game

Avara is a 1996 first-person shooter written by Juri Munkki for Macintosh and published by Ambrosia Software. A fast 3D engine, integrated Internet play, and easy level editing were notable features at the time of its release. While not commercially successful, the game found a cult following. Munkki publicly released the source code in 2016, the game's 20th anniversary.

<i>Armor Alley</i> 1991 video game

Armor Alley is a computer wargame for DOS and Mac OS published by Three-Sixty Pacific in 1991. It is modelled on the Apple II game Rescue Raiders. Player can compete against the computer or other humans via LAN. The game supports cooperative multiplayer of up to two players per side. The player controls a helicopter armed with a limited number of munitions, such as missiles, bombs, machine guns, and napalm. As the player requisitions computer-controlled tanks, infantry, engineers. Mobile missile platforms, and vans round out available firepower.

<i>Strategic Conquest</i> Turn based strategy game based on Empire

Strategic Conquest is a turn-based strategy game based on the wargame Empire. It was written by Peter Merrill for the Apple Macintosh and released in 1984 by PBI Software, and later ported to the Apple II in 1986. Delta Tao Software took over distribution for later Classic Mac OS releases. It is sometimes shortened to Stratcon.

Stuart Cheshire is a Distinguished Engineer, Scientist and Technologist (DEST) at Apple. He pioneered Zeroconf networking while employed at Apple. Zeroconf was originally released by Apple as Rendezvous, but later renamed Bonjour. Subsequently, he co-authored the book Zero Configuration Networking: The Definitive Guide, published by O'Reilly, with Daniel H Steinberg.

<i>RoadBlasters</i> 1987 video game

RoadBlasters is a combat racing video game released in arcades by Atari Games in 1987. In RoadBlasters, the player must navigate an armed sports car through 50 different rally races, getting to the finish line before running out of fuel.

Mac gaming refers to the use of video games on Macintosh personal computers. In the 1990s, Apple computers did not attract the same level of video game development as Microsoft Windows computers due to the high popularity of Microsoft Windows and, for 3D gaming, Microsoft's DirectX technology. In recent years, the introduction of Mac OS X and support for Intel processors has eased porting of many games, including 3D games through use of OpenGL and more recently Apple's own Metal API. Virtualization technology and Boot Camp also permit the use of Windows and its games on Macintosh computers. Today, a growing number of popular games run natively on macOS, though as of early 2019, a majority still require the use of Microsoft Windows.

<i>Spectre</i> (1991 video game) 1991 video game

Spectre is a video game for the Macintosh, developed in 1990 by Peninsula Gameworks and published in 1991 by Velocity Development. It is a 3D vector graphics tank battle reminiscent of the arcade game Battlezone. One sequel, Spectre VR, appeared on a number of lists of best video games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wowhead</span> Database for World of Warcraft

Wowhead is a website that provides a searchable database, internet forum, guides and player character services for the popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft. It is owned by .I. Fanbyte, a subsidiary of the Chinese company Tencent.

Escape Velocity Override is a space trading simulator game written by Peter Cartwright, with the support of his school-friends, and developed by Ambrosia Software for the Apple Macintosh. It is the sequel to Escape Velocity with an extended version of the original game engine, but Override has an entirely new story line set in a different, larger universe.

<i>Tide of Iron</i>

Tide of Iron is a World War II based wargame designed and published in 2007 by Fantasy Flight Games, also notable for publishing other large games containing a large number of counters and/or other components such as World of Warcraft: The Board Game and Arkham Horror.

<i>Armor Battle</i> 1979 video game

Armor Battle is a video game written by Chris Kingsley for the Intellivision and published by Mattel in 1979. One of the earliest games available for the console, Armor Battle pits two players against each other in a contest to see which player can eliminate their opponent's stock of tanks first.

<i>Bolo</i> (1982 video game) 1982 video game

Bolo is a video game written by Jim Lane for the Apple II and published by Synergistic Software in 1982. It was inspired by Keith Laumer's 1976 science fiction novel Bolo: Annals of the Dinochrome Brigade, which featured self-aware tanks.

<i>Gundam 0079: The War for Earth</i> 1997 interactive movie video game

Gundam 0079: The War for Earth is a video game developed by Presto Studios and published by Bandai Digital Entertainment for Macintosh, Windows, PlayStation, and Apple Bandai Pippin.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "MacBolo Instructions". Archived from the original on 18 May 2007. Retrieved 27 May 2007.
  2. ↑ go-dax (January 1989). "Bolo!". Acorn User. p. 139. Retrieved 30 April 2021.
  3. ↑ idesine (November 2020). "Delos D.Harriman talks about unreleased Bolo". World in Pixels.
  4. ↑ "Lost and Found". Stairway to Hell. Retrieved 30 April 2021.
  5. ↑ "WinBolo.com: Downloads". www.winbolo.com. Retrieved 10 July 2023.
  6. ↑ "WinBolo.net: Index". winbolo.net. Retrieved 10 July 2023.
  7. ↑ "Frequently Asked Questions". Archived from the original on 18 May 2007. Retrieved 27 May 2007.
  8. ↑ Cory L. Scott (May 1995). "rec.games.bolo Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - Part 1".
  9. ↑ Cory L. Scott (May 1995). "rec.games.bolo Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - Part 2".
  10. ↑ Moore, Eric (1996). "The Bolo Game: Exploration of a High-Tech Virtual Community". Advances in Consumer Research. 23: 167–171. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
  11. ↑ "WinBolo.net: Active Games". winbolo.net. Retrieved 10 July 2023.
  12. ↑ "Join the WinBolo Discord Server!". Discord. Retrieved 10 July 2023.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.