Long time no post, I know. 🙂
Still, I couldn’t resist sharing the new web-based version of Blagtron (or BlaGTroN, if you prefer the classic capitalization)—my light-cycle game from 1994! Originally crafted in Turbo Pascal starting back in 1989 (yes, I was still in high school then) and later ported to Borland Pascal 7, it’s a nostalgic trip back to the MS-DOS era and the chaos of having a bunch of friends hunched over a single keyboard. It’s also genuinely fun to play!
There’s no installation and no ads. It supports 2 to 5 players (plus a 1-player practice mode), works with keyboards and game controllers (no touchscreen controls; those wouldn’t suit this style of game), and more features are on the way. Eventually, that might include bots, though not anytime soon—I want to preserve its multiplayer roots for now.
one single keyboard with 3 more people. 🙂
I lost the original Pascal source code about 30 years ago. However, modern AI managed to decompile the old 16-bit MS-DOS executable (available from my previous post, for instance) and reconstruct a working Pascal codebase, which was then translated to JavaScript. I took the opportunity to implement a few ideas I’ve toyed with over the past three decades, but I deliberately kept the core logic true to the 1994 original.
Give it a spin, especially if you have a friend or two around (the fun factor scales exponentially once you hit 3+ players). If you have feedback or suggestions, feel free to drop me a line via the contact link on the game’s page. (Keep in mind I won’t be adding anything that radically alters the core gameplay, though I might stash good ideas for future projects!)
What you need to play:
- PC, Mac, or Linux: Supports up to 4 players on a single keyboard. Alternatively, any player can use a gamepad.
- 5-player matches: Requires at least one gamepad (or up to five, if you have enough controllers for everyone).
- Mobile / Tablets: While touchscreen inputs aren’t supported, you can connect Bluetooth keyboards and controllers just like on a desktop.