"Lush graphics, realistic digital sound effects, and a wonderful sound track set the stage for a thrilling flying experience. Just collect fuel! This is no game of pure destruction, but it sure can be!"

-- Evasive Maneuvers text file, 1994

DOWNLOAD LINKS!

For over a decade the registered version of Evasive Maneuvers has been unavailable. Thanks to outcry from the fans, about three fans to be exact, and Colin finding his source disk, we can now proudly present to you...

EVASIVE MANEUVERS
FULL REGISTERED VERSION

We're no longer charging for Evasive Maneuvers but if you'd like to say thanks for the hard work 15 years ago, or thanks for Colin's efforts at recompiling the source code in 2008, please consider hitting that donate button!

You will also need DOSBox to run Evasive Maneuvers

NOTE: The cheat keys don't seem to work.

If you're looking for the original single-level shareware version for some reason, please download it from DOSgames.com

The upcoming level screen shots don't do the game justice. Thank god this instruction screen reveals that yes, there are more than 2 sprites. That radar dish animated? Exquisite! When you scroll down and see the level screen shots, picture a bunch of cool shit happening there.
--Colin

ABOUT EVASIVE MANUEVERS!

Super Cobra?!? Never heard of it... Evasive was a simple experiment. An intentional budget title. It's not going to be Bitmap Brothers quality, but decent and most importantly, built in 3 weeks. We had one legit game [Tubes] which we got a small piece of, and one budget title that we had all off. Which would make more money? Stay tuned...
--Colin

In 1993 Chris and Colin set out to make their third shareware game. They decide that their love of Scramble and Super Cobra will be the basis for their next shareware homage. Most people would be discouraged by not having access to either game for reference, or even the internet, but Chris and Colin are undeterred. Using only the foundation of Chris' fuzzy Scramble memory played at the Smoke 'n Gift shop in the Etobicoke Towers ten years earlier, and Colin's fuzzy memory of the Vectrex port his brother owned, Evasive Maneuvers is crafted one mistake at a time...

I remember being disappointed with the pace of the game in 1994, but playing it fresh in 2008 I had renewed appreciation for the deliberate tone of the game. It's like a dry independent foreign movie instead of the usual Hollywood blockbuster action game. If Scramble is Armageddon, Evasive Maneuvers is Last Night."
--Chris

In the end there are few similarities to Scramble and Super Cobra except for the odd retro game trope of shooting fuel tanks in order to gain fuel, which made perfect sense at the time and is not some sort of satiric commentary on US middle east policy.

The game that did result is a brutally difficult and deliberately paced flying... puzzle game? Instead of cranking up the number of bad guys on screen, Evasive Maneuvers makes the terrain and your ship's terrible fuel mileage the enemies. Again, this is not intended as any sort of commentary on oil dependence. Gas prices were awesome in 1993!

THE RESURRECTION!

In 2007, a thread sprang up on DOSgames.com, asking "Evasive Maneuvers - Does Anybody know this game?" After a short discussion about lack of information on the game, the veracity of names on the internet, and the idea of tracking down Chris with threats of violence, a nice German man named Jens took the path of peace. He wrote Chris a letter.

Chris had already informed the DOSgames.com forum that he couldn't find his Evasive Maneuvers disks anymore, and all seemed lost. But the letter from Jens sparked new resolve, and Chris showed the letter to Colin and asked him to look for the Evasive files (that's a pun!) one more time. During a watching of Mad Men, Colin took a shot at compiling the original source code as a last resort, and to his shock, it worked.

So many thanks to Solidarity_296, and Jens. And Colin.

IMPERIAL CITY

There were no torrents in 1994, but that didn't stop me from stealing that background...and photoshoping the shit out of it.
--Colin
Overall I say the monochromatic palette and chrome Streamline Moderne look holds up pretty well! This was always my second favourite level, which is why it was the one chosen for the shareware.
--Chris
Evasive Maneuvers was created when Chris was at the height of his Star Wars devotion. He worked Empire this and Imperial that into everything and Evasive Maneuvers was no exception. This is also why the player is part of Red Squadron, as we learn from the voice-overs from Red Leader.

INFRASTRUCTURE!

Every game in the 90s needed a sewer level, and here is the one for Evasive Maneuvers.

Colin thinks this might be his favourite level, but I always hated it. I thought flying through a bunch of girders would be interesting, but in practice it just looks ugly.
--Chris
(Are we admitting to a shitty level?) NO REFUNDS!!!
--Colin

ENIAC 9!

An inspired level choice! Inside a giant computer!

I remember this level being a real bitch to make, especially the backgrounds, making all the solder leads line up correctly in the tile editor. I think I disliked this level for a long time because of the bad memories, but now I'm back to loving it. Forgive and forget.
--Chris

DESERT VALLEY!

The final level is an epic assault on... some pseudo-Egyptian ruins. This level is so named because Chris was infatuated with the Kyuss album Welcome to Sky Valley. Neither Colin nor Chris can finish this level in 2008. Be sure to let us know what happens at the end.

My favourite level by far. Those pillars look professional, man! I had really mastered Autodesk Animator by the fourth Evasive Maneuvers level.
--Chris

DIFFICULTY!

Evasive Maneuvers is sometimes a very difficult game. It's easy to imagine 18-year-old Chris laying out the tiles in such a way to make you furious.

I think the difficulty is a direct result of the game being made by an angry teenager. At 18 I would think nothing of a game this difficult, if I even found it difficult at all. Also, the only other beta tester was Colin, and he's the first to tell you he's not very good at these games, so I would instantly ignore all of his data. Me, in my bedroom, laying tile after tile, with no external feedback or input... Eventually despising the tile editor and taking my frustrations out on the player.

Having said all that, replaying in 2008 I was amazed at how much I enjoyed the level design. The levels really feel like they were made with a single vision, a single bitter voice. Often it felt like a tug of war between modern me and the 18-year-old me.
--Chris

TRIVIA!

The rocking title track is an instrumental version of one of the first real songs Chris' high school punk band ever played. Written by the guitar player Jason Armstrong, it's called Venice, and was inspired by Jason's trip to Venice Beach!

The icon carved into some of the pillars in Desert Valley is from the TV miniseries V. It's the Nazi-like insignia of the alien Visitors. They apparently also built the ruins of Desert Valley!

The chips in ENIAC 9 have a tiny "AM" printed on them in the shape of the "Absolute Magic" logo. Absolute Magic was the name of the shareware company Chris and Colin used for both Catch! If You Can! and Tubes! No one remembers why exactly Chris and Colin changed their pretend company name so often, but all agree it was "probably for some dumb reason."

The flying 3D logos were created by Colin with Pixar Typestry. Pixar!

CHRIS AND COLIN!

Chris and Colin began their shareware career with the bizarre and horrible Kaboom! clone, Catch, If You Can!

The second game was a more serious affair, a puzzle game called Tubes. Tubes gained interest from Scott Miller and Apogee Software, Ltd. but ultimately was passed off to the newly created low budget shareware arm, Software Creations. This webpage says that Software Creations BBS was Boardwatch Magazine's Reader's Choice Poll as the Best BBS two years straight!

Evasive Maneuvers was the third and last game Colin and Chris completed together. Still in the planning stages were the following games:

  • CURSOR: A side-scrolling platform game about a boy who gets turned into a computer cursor and trapped inside a computer. Chris never understood exactly how to draw this Cursor character, but that didn't stop Colin from writing the theme song LYRICS.

  • UNNAMED CAT GAME: A side-scrolling platform game where you control a rotoscoped cat. Colin was adamant about filming his cat walking across a homemade blue screen. Chris always questioned why we'd want to play a game about Colin's cat running away from dogs or whatever. Later when Chris gave a positive review to Disney's PC port of the Lion King game, Colin got extremely annoyed and said "But you DIDN'T want to do a game about a cat!"

  • Unnamed cat game?!? This slander is outrageous. I demand to see the minutes to those meetings and I wish to personally apologize to Bill Williams -- nothing will ever top Alley Cat.
    --Colin

  • TWISTER: A side-scrolling platform game where you play as a little tornado. Chris drew a few sprites for this, but he could never get the tornado to look as good as Colin imagined it should look. This was another game that lacked a clear villain. What does a tornado fight? Chris remembers drawing some lobster men.

  • SNEAK: A side-scrolling platform game stressing stealth as the player controls a cybernetic thief. Over a decade later, Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw unveiled "The Art of Theft", which is basically what Sneak would've been, right down the the low-res VGA graphics, except The Art of Theft is much much better.

  • EVIL WAYS: A top-down scrolling shoot-em-up. With 1943 as the inspiration Chris and Colin added the twist that you'd play on the side of the bad guys, shooting down good guy planes. This was another game that has a lot of sprite work completed, and Colin had even converted the Evasive Maneuvers tile editor. Neither can remember why this game fell through.

  • The real twist with Evil Ways was the AI controlled wingman. There is no greater moment in pinball then having your ball saved. Imagine Iceman at your side, waiting to take a bullet for you, keeping you level headed over this Scientology nonsense...that's what your wingman was going to do for you. How great would that be? Exaggerated Software? How about Innovative Software! Who dropped that ball on that? Chris, clean out you desk and go.
    --Colin

  • BREAKOUT PONG: A game of Pong with Breakout/Arkanoid bricks separating the players! A brilliant idea that still deserves to be made! Chris finished all the graphics for this but Colin ended up throwing in the towel because he couldn't work out the geometry math!

  • GAME AND WATCH GAME: Halfway through the development of the Game and Watch parody title, Colin accidentally formatted Chris' hard drive! Most of the graphics were lost and morale hit a new low!

Colin: Dude, I've just started writing my comments, and I say bull shit! I don't recall any cat game. I have all that shit somewhere. Including all the sprites, if you want to include graphics on those games. I'm shocked you leave out Swat and Grudge, games that actually received some effort.

Chris: Swat and Grudge! I don't remember SWAT getting any work at all other than the one dude sprite... The cat game absolutely existed. You were going to film your cat walking in front of a homemade bluescreen and then I would rotoscope that. Prince of Persia: Cat Version. But I fought it because I couldn't imagine the game aspect. Which made you incensed that I liked Lion King, a game where you control an animated (jungle) cat.

Colin: Film my cat with what?! There was no video camera...

Chris: You were going to borrow a camera or something. It was the only thing stopping you from doing it immediately

Colin: Don't make me dig out my notes...

Chris: Dig out the notes!

...

Colin: Fuck, I found the cat game...

Colin: Though it's way better than you say...

Colin: "Ecco like game, only we're using a Hobbes like tiger.

I don't know what he's doing, or who would attack him. Could be humans, maybe larger predators. I don't think we can have him kill small prey for food, seeing something attack a cute furry animal always upset me even if Lorne Green keeps reassuring me it's just nature's way.

A huge bush fire is ravaging the land. It's moving swiftly and the animals are fleeing for their lifes, our tiger is among them. With the loss of his home, he's exploring the African continent looking for a new home. After many adventures, he comes across a herd (or is that a pack) of tigers, he moves amongst them and lies down on a rock and goes to sleep accepting this as his new home."

Colin: This part is totally awesome and I so want to make this game: "Ends each level by lieing down in the shade, but he only goes to sleep when he finally finds his new home. "

Colin is re-inspired! Look for his African Tiger game, coming soon!

Today Colin is a web developer and Chris is a freelance writer.

So which game made more money? Neither. Neither made any. With DOS on the way out, and Windows with WinG but without DirectX on the way in. It was time to get a real job. And what exciting times it was. Netscape Navigator was just released. Writing games was hard. Writing bullshit like this? Easy...
--Colin

Don't be fooled, Colin just makes writing look easy. His secret? Lots of swearing!
--Chris

evasivemaneuvers08!!!@!!!gmail!!!.!!!com