After HyperCalm, I wanted to start learning C, so I did. I recreated a whole bunch of stuff I made in Blitz some years before, and some plasma stuff Edd had sent me. After I had recreated the background off the Tetris Attack menu, I decided the next step was to create an entire game using C and Allegro. I hit IRC in search of inspiration. One of the folks I know, coolsi, was talking about getting a doctorate and how we'd all have to call him Dr. Coolsi... or, more properly, Dr. Kain.

Suddenly, I remembered something I'd observed through all of my experiences as a programmer: Everybody makes bloody Tetris. Everybody. I decided I wasn't gonna make a Tetris, I was gonna make a Dr. Mario. Suddenly, in the channel, I yelled "I WILL MAKE GAME OF COOLSI!" and scooted off upstairs to see if I could create Dr. Kain.

Well, it's not exactly Dr. Mario. It's more like a totally cut down Dr. Mario. There's less music, and the scoring works a little differently. I never truly finished Dr. Kain, unfortunately. I'm not that hot at making music, so the only track is my brother's ingame theme which he originally wrote for HyperCalm. Plus, I... uh... kinda forgot to make a game over screen. I must've got sidetracked or something.

Dr. Kain isn't completely totally finished, the music's all over the shop, and various stuff is really poorly put together... sorry about that. ._.

Dr. Mario is a little bit more complex than Tetris, ya know. For an novice-intermediate programmer, the switches between the different game states such 'player interaction window', 'pill fall time' and 'complete line checking' make for interesting challenges. When you stare at a grid of shapes for ages and then suddently get a flash of inspiration for modelling this kind of simple puzzle mechanic, it's a pretty cool feeling. Plus, Tetris is pretty dull to look at, and I wanted to draw something. You don't get much chance to draw stuff with games like HyperCalm and Snowdon.

Left, Right and Return navigate the main menu.
Left, Right and Down move the pill ingame.
Escape ingame pauses and brings up a menu.
S and M turn the sound and music on and off.

Dr. Kain wasn't really made as a game to show other people, to be honest. It was basically just C practice. Doesn't mean it was time wasted though, I know a hecka lot more because of our dear Dr. K.

And don't think just because he was in a haphazard remake of Dr. Mario he's done for, he'll be back. You'll see. You can't keep a good doctor down.

You're telling me you can't find a decent homebrew Dr. Mario to play? ^_^