9 years ago

5 Early Notch Games

Mining gems from the famous indie developer's jam days.


Way back when Minecraft was barely in alpha, before the name Notch was known outside of indie gaming circles, Markus Persson had time to enter some game jams and make some small, brilliant games.

In 2009, Notch uploaded 5 of these games to Game Jolt. They’re still fun to play, and they’re marvels of rapid game development. Each of them was made in Java and is playable in any browser that still supports it.


Breaking the Tower

Made for Ludum Dare 12

This is a stripped-down, rather grueling, single-player real-time strategy game. You’re in charge of a settlement of people that shares an island with a tall, stone tower. The tower is home to a group of raiders who periodically attack your people. You harvest resources to build structures, produce food, increase the population, and eventually convert peons into warriors. Warriors are key to winning the game; they attack raiders and hack away at the tower itself, ultimately leading to the victory promised in the game’s title.

NOTE: Unfortunately, the game file seems to have been removed from the game page, as well as from the Mojang site, where it also used to live. If anyone can find a working link, let me know!

Left 4k Dead

Named after a certain co-op zombie FPS that was popular at the time, Left 4k Dead was one of 2 Notch entries in the Java4K 2009 Competition. It doesn’t have much in common with its namesake besides zombies and the goal of getting to safe zones. It’s a single-player top-down shooter featuring line of sight, blood spatter, and zombie-like AI. And it does all of this in under 4k.

Muh

Created for the Game Jolt “Minimal” Contest, Muh is a precursor to the kind of super-hard one-tap games that are popular today on mobile. You’re driving an off-road pickup across a lovely mesa, and you have to jump over the cows that, for some reason, are hanging around up there. It’s all about the timing. This might be called “Jumpy Truck” nowadays.

Blast Passage

Blast Passage caused controversy (not really) when it was entered in the Retro Remakes 2008 Competition because it was no mere remake; instead, it mashed up 2 classics, Gauntlet and Bomberman, into a single game. It shouldn’t have worked—maybe it shouldn’t have even been attempted—but the bombing mechanics and the monster-mobbed labyrinths go together like peanut butter and chocolate (yum).

Left 4k Dead 2

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Continuing the stunning drama that began in—nah, it’s just more zombie shooting. This is the sequel to Left 4k Dead, as you might have deduced. It’s basically the same game, but it has more detailed graphics (especially the buildings), bigger blood spatters, and better shadows. And it still clocks in at under 4k.

UPDATE: In case you didn’t get it, Notch has clarified that this game was largely a joke about how Left 4 Dead 2 was pretty much the same game as the original.


Notch has made several other interesting free games (that were not posted on Game Jolt), some of which I’ll be looking at in a future post.

#notch #gamejolt #breakingthetower #left4kdead #muh #blastpassage #free #gamejam #gamedev



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