One Must Fall: 2097

One Must Fall: 2097
File:One-must-fall-cover.jpg Official box art of One Must Fall: 2097
Developer(s)	Diversions Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Epic MegaGames
Designer(s)	Rob Elam
Platforms	PC (MS-DOS)
Release date(s)
Genre(s)	Fighting
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

One Must Fall: 2097 is a fighting video game for all IBM-compatible computers, programmed by Diversions Entertainment. It has a sequel, One Must Fall: Battlegrounds. The game was later patched to include multiplayer support. On February 10, 1999, the game was declared freeware by the developers.

Gameplay

File:Omf-2097.png

Screenshot showing Crystal (in the blue Jaguar HAR) fighting Jean-Paul (in the red Shadow HAR).

One Must Fall: 2097 replaces the human combatants typical of contemporary fighter video games with large Human Assisted Robots (HAR). These HARs are piloted through a physical and mental link to the human pilots; however, this is merely a plot concept and is never shown on-screen.

Eleven HARs and ten selectable pilots are available for play, along with five arenas and four tournaments. The pilots vary in strength, speed and endurance, thus the many HAR/pilot combinations allow for large replay value.

Unlike in most fighting games of its time, the arenas (except one, the Stadium) contain hazards. For instance, one arena features spikes coming out of the darkness that can damage a robot.

The game has two main play modes: One-Player Mode, in which the company that markets the robots, World Aeronautics and Robotics (WAR), is holding a competition among its employees to decide who will be selected to oversee the establishment of the first Earth base on Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. The second mode is Tournament Mode, where HAR battles have become the premier source of entertainment for Earth and the player as a new competitor, must win prize money to improve the machine and ultimately become the World Champion.

Each HAR has three special attacks that can be discovered (except for Shadow and Nova, who both have four), along with a "scrap" and "destruction" move (similar to fatalities in Mortal Kombat) that can earn bonus points and, in some cases, unlock secrets.

Using destruction moves in the tournament mode in the higher difficulty levels sometimes results in the player being challenged by an unranked opponent. Defeating that opponent and using a destruction move on their robot occasionally yields secret components which can be installed on the players HAR, significantly improving the effectiveness of certain special moves and sometimes adding new ones.

History

Development

File:Omf eva.jpg

Eva Earlong from Jazz Jackrabbit.

File:Omf devan.jpg

Devan Shell from Jazz Jackrabbit.

One Must Fall was originally released in beta form on May 18, 1993, while later released in full form in 1994 by Epic MegaGames.

The music was created by Kenny Chou of the demoscene group Renaissance. The music was done with Scream Tracker 3.0.

An early freeware beta was released of this game simply titled One Must Fall, featuring two characters who greatly resembled the karatekas of Karate Champ, as well as Ryu and Ken of the Street Fighter series.

Different versions of the game had varying AI flaws. For example, certain versions had all AI opponents not guarding themselves against a Shadow's or Thorn's special moves.

In addition to the full game, the full retail version also includes shareware versions of Radix: Beyond the Void, Tyrian and Jazz Jackrabbit, of which the game also features secret characters.

Legacy

On February 10, 1999, the game was declared freeware by the developers. The game runs well in DOSBox.

On January 2013 a remake project was posted to GitHub, named OpenOMF. Development goals are cross platform compatibility of the engine and the substitution of the IPX-based network functionality.

External links

• www.omf.com — Homepage (archived 1999)
• www.openomf.org - A fan based remake of the game using C and SDL
• animehunter.github.com/omfbrowser - Play OMF 2097 inside a browser
• One Must Fall: 2097 can be played for free in the browser at the Internet Archive