So this Pharaoh from Egypt comes to me and says: “Love your Bikez 2 game, but I have a kinda stupid question – was there any Bikez 1 game? It bugs me and my friends 
” Well, Ramzes and friends, you’re in luck, because it’s time for part 2 of our oldies list.
Bikez 1 was a GTA 1/2 style top-down deathmatch for two players split screen style. There was a level editor, a shop for choosing from a dozen or so weapons, and more importantly, you could shoot the civilians.
Sadly time has not been so kind on Bikez 1, as the transparency function doesn’t work on any modern hardware. You can download it, but be warned, it’s in Finnish! And if you see the pink borders on everything, it’s not playable. 
I somehow managed to make Magebane 1 without ever learning to use things like arrays, for loops, while loops, or even any kind of structures. This time I had used actual DirectX, and most of the code that actually worked came from DirectDraw example code. I still have no idea how the whole thing took 7000 lines of code, whereas the simplistic game I do at work goes well into 200 000 and counting.
Bikez 1 was probably my least downloaded game. At first I released it as shareware, but sadly I really didn’t know how to use the internet to sell it. Later on in 2004 I released it as freeware, but I could never really get it working with modern hardware. Surprisingly it seems to work fine on my Windows 7 right now.
I’m still hoping to do another split screen game someday. Now that I have a wife I can force to play with me, it should be much easier than in 1999, when I had to wait for my brother to come and play with me.
I’m really hoping someone asks of The Forge next, so we can do this chronologically.
“I somehow managed to make Magebane 1 without ever learning to use things like arrays, for loops, while loops, or even any kind of structures.”
For the love of god, HOW? How is that even possible?
Four million lines of Basic!
Apparently these basic structures never occurred to me, and I didn’t bother to read about them. You just avoid long loops because they require a lot of writing.
I went “WAT” when I read that. Seriously! :O
Also, I’d like to know more about The Forge.
Hey, don’t ask that now. You’ve got to wait for a few weeks.
And by “chronologically” you mean reverse chronologically? Also, programming w/o structures, arrays and loops just ROCKS!
Huh? I do?
Finally, one of the biggest mysteries of humanity solved ;D Stupid question again: how old you were while coding this? It’s funny how many young gamemakers decide to make GTA-like game, just few days I turned down one of my friends with The Games Factory 2, who wanted to make GTA: Warsaw (basically), but dude didn’t even know how to make a proper control scheme for main character
to not speak about AI.
Also, I heard that making games for earlier DX was tedious and irritating at the same time, but it looks like nifty little game in vein of, oh my, I forgot name of that freeware Finnish top-down shooter.
Thanks for answering, Ville!
Ramzes
I guess I must have been about 16 at the time. GTA 1 was just released in 1997, and I played a lot of it at the time.
Could you give a link to downlad?
“You’d actually need a computer from 1999 to actually play this, so I’m not posting the download”
Reading can be fantastically useful sometimes.
Well I guess I could post the link if you’re all so persistent. Wait till I get home.
What about us who happen to have an old computer in their closet? It sure would be nice to try that game.
I know but, Zex do not want to try Bikez 1?
Ok, so I updated the post with the link http://www.monkkonen.net/download/bikez10.zip. The game is in Finnish, so you really won’t understand anything, and also you’ll more than likely see a pink background on everything indicating that the transparency didn’t work.
Thank you very much Ville
Yes, I’m going to ask for the Forge next. Explain how it all happened! ^ ^”
I guess I must have been about 16 at the time. GTA 1 was just released in 1997, and I played a lot of it at the time.