Piga Windows Entertainment Pack



The Piga Windows Entertainment Pack was a proposed package containing several simplistic free software computer games made by Piga Software for Microsoft Windows in Game Maker during the years 2005, 2006, and 2007. Development started in May 2005: after being inspired in game design by first playing the game Doom 3, Graham Wilson found the game development tool Game Maker, and started designing games with it.

Several different game concepts and genres were explored and several different game types and bases were created, however few of these projects ever created finished programs. Many of these concepts are left as possibilities for future current Piga Software projects. The games that were finished are the ones that have come to be known as the Piga Windows Entertainment Pack after the old Microsoft Windows Entertainment Pack.

These include various small or casual games, one of which is notable in that it includes a soundtrack by Malcolm Wilson Multimedia, who would continue this collaborative relationship with Piga. Work on releasing the pack had been a low priority, last really attempted in early 2010, and a pack of raw unsupported Game Maker projects had also been considered. Eventually, as Game Maker drifted away from its state at that point, and several of the titles were re-made by Graham L. Wilson in Gambas, often with more features and better graphics, it was ultimately decided that the originals were no longer of relevance.

Billy Bear
Billy Bear is a Pac-Man clone made in Game Maker 6.1 during the early summer of 2005. You take control of Billy Bear, who wanders in a maze of stop signs in search of hamburgers, and avoiding deadly moving flames, which he combats by smothering with rocks. There is also a four player hot-seat multiplayer mode with yellow, green, blue, and red players. It was the first Piga Software game made in Game Maker and was written after Graham Wilson studied the Pac-Man example, which lead to a development spree. The game's graphics are the originally public domain sprites that come with Game Maker, the music was composed by Malcolm Wilson Multimedia.

Chuck a Stone
Is a computer game where you drive a small bucket loader and use it to chuck rocks at lasers to gain points, and player's compete for a high score. It was inspired by a similar mini-game inside of Captain Crunch's Crunchling Adventure which the Piga Software staff received in a cereal box. Chuck a Stone was made in Game Maker 6.1.

Pirates of the Pacific
Is a computer game where you take command of a raiding party of pirates ransacking pacific island colonies for gold while avoiding government troops. There is also an additional mini-game where you race your pirate ship against another craft. It was made in Game Maker 6.1. Pirates of the Pacific is in the historical genre.

Piga Pong
Piga Pong is a Pong clone where the two sides bounce a Piga head across a green map competing for points gained when a ball gets past a defender. It was made in Game Maker 6.1. A GNU/Linux version of Piga Pong has also been worked on.

Piga's Thanksgiving Dinner Hunt
A simple mouse-click game in which you and fire at turkeys for thanksgiving dinner.

A GNU/Linux version of Piga's Thanksgiving Dinner Hunt was worked on in 2007.

On Canadian Thanksgiving 2010 a final GNU/Linux version was started, completed and released on American Thanksgiving 2010.

Piga's Pumpkin Carving
A game that allows you to virtually carve a Halloween jack-o-lantern pumpkin on you computer.

A GNU/Linux version was released on October 31, 2008 and expanded upon each year since.

Harry Rabbit's Easter Egg Hunt
Player as Harry Rabbit as he searches for randomly placed easter eggs in an peaceful garden and river area.

Development was done in early 2007 while Graham Wilson could not work on the early Gambas projects.