Mr. Spiff's Revenge (POW Studios)

Developed by POW Studios, Mr. Spiffs Revenge was the winner of the Best Windows Game Category.

The big prize, with $4,000 on offer, this was one of the most difficult to judge. But in the end our judges had to go for Mr. Spiff's Revenge on the basis that not only is it a clever modification of the Dr. Dobbs Challenge source, it also innovates in ways that we never expected!

Though a 2D platformer similar to the original title, the entire game is played using mouse gestures -- even movement of the titular skeleton Mr. Spiff – and while our judges took a while to get comfortable with the controls, they particularly enjoyed the gestures used to attack enemies and perform the huge, screen clearing "smart bomb" attack!

Betson Thomas, mod designer and programmer explains:

"The game was built on Vista, so you may need to update your DirectX to the latest versions. Specifically, you will need d3dx9_37.dll.

The game was originally an idea that I had for a multi-touch tabletop surface that never happened because of time restrictions. However, this summer a few of us got together and decided to give it a go at making a game or two and this challenge was a great learning experience for us.

The game is intended to be played by single input only (the mouse) and makes use of gesture recognition to accomplish this. Basic control of the player is done by left clicking and dragging the mouse and releasing the mouse button when the desired icon is over Mr. Spiff's head. We have also implemented mouse flicks to allow the person to have advanced control of Mr. Spiff without ever letting go of him. Flicking the mouse while controlling the character will send him dashing and double jumping throughout the level.

We're particularly proud of how well the control scheme really works. It's quite fluent to move Mr. Spiff around the level using mouse flicks and the gesture recognition works relatively well, given that your not too sloppy. We have included a boat load of new artwork to help give our story some backing.

Mr. Spiff was a treasure hunter in a previous life and the glowing orb (the mouse cursor) was his prize possession that he took to his grave. The Dobb's crew have been trying to get at this prized possession and the orb has reanimated Mr. Spiff to put that to an end. The orb can be considered to be controlling Mr. Spiff and guides his every action.

We hope that you enjoy playing ."

-Betson Thomas, mod design, programmer
-Justin Varghese, art, animation
-Chris Lau, user interface, logos