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Platform(s): Sun SPARC/Sparcstation/Ultrasparc

Genre: Platform/Arcade

Estimated year of release: 1994-1997

Graphics/art style: Window application started from within the Sun SPARC UNIX window manager

Notable characters: Many men appearing on platform level. The men looked somewhat like military and the platform level looked like an industrial environment or a military base, with grey steel constructions.

Notable gameplay mechanics: It displayed a platform arcade style with many men who looked the same

Other details: I think is was a free or shareware game from MIT. It reminded me of the game named Green Beret but it wasn't Green Beret.

Screenshot of Green Beret

Greenonline
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Niklas Rosencrantz
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    What did those many men do? Who or what did the player control? My first thought was Lemmings (but that was not available for Unix) or a Lemmings clone (but Pingus only came out in 1998). – Michael Graf Jul 15 '23 at 07:48
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    industrial environment or a military base, with steel constructions - Are you thinking of Syndicate? However, I am not aware that it was released for SPARC. That has many men dressed the same. I wouldn't describe it as a platform game though. – Greenonline Jul 16 '23 at 06:45
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    @Greenonline That looks similar, but the Syndicate view is from an angle or isometric, while the view I saw with the game I'm looking for has been a straight classic 2D platform view similar view to the first level of Donkey Kong or Lode Runner, with grey platforms in this case. – Niklas Rosencrantz Jul 16 '23 at 07:21
  • Lode Runner clone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lode_Runner – Kingsley Jul 17 '23 at 00:15
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    @Kingsley I wish it was that easy. In fact the game was installed in the computer lab at my university so it could be an idea to trace it from people who'd been there at that time – Niklas Rosencrantz Jul 17 '23 at 06:59
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    Similarity to Green Beret is a better clue https://www.arcade-history.com/images/game/1014_1.png – Niklas Rosencrantz Jul 17 '23 at 07:06
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    Those are also bad, and I would have edited them if it weren’t for the strike. (Some of the bad titles I have already, in fact, edited before.) My examples show that it’s possible to write decent game ID question titles. If crap titles also appear here, so what? – user3840170 Jul 17 '23 at 07:41
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    @user3840170 Now that we know it's XEvil, I suppose it would be correct to call it a platform game, or would another category have been a better description? I'm happy that at last I found out, having asked around for the latest years almost believing that the game doesn't exist and I was only delusional – Niklas Rosencrantz Jul 17 '23 at 08:18
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    @user3840170 if other titles are crap it looks like the norm if they are positively voted on and wrong moderation: inconsistent to judge equal cases differently – Niklas Rosencrantz Jul 18 '23 at 10:40

1 Answers1

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The description sounds a lot like XEvil.

Screenshot of XEvil

It is available as a Debian package (and in Ubuntu as well), and the copyright years are given as 1994–2000, so the time period fits. The game is released under the GNU GPL (v1+, later v2+), and the official website used to offer binaries for SunOS and for Solaris. All in all, this seems like it.

user3840170
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