Waking Up To Glider PRO!

Check out Glider PRO on Facebook!

A proud member of

The History of Glider PRO
Way back when john calhoun was about 12 years of age, he would amuse himself by making and flying paper airplanes. He would use common household objects to try to extend the flight of his airplanes.

Years later he would take to a cheap Commodore VIC-20 computer and try to write a computer game for it. His programming abilities were meager at the time but he did learn how to do sort of crude graphics on the screen. He made a concept for a game, in which there was a vent and a paper airplane. If you moved the plane off the vent, it would fall to the ground. If you moved it back onto the vent, it would rise again.

And I endeavored very quickly to learn how to do graphics on the computer so that I might write a little amusing game or two. And I must say too at this point that I am indebted to a few individuals and publications at the time -- it might have taken me much longer to learn to do graphics on the Mac.

I'll skip over the programming esoterica, but suffice it say, when I learned how to move a small image across the computer display, I started at once on what would become Glider.

I can't say how that began exactly. Certainly when I learned to do these various things the thought occurred to me, “What sort of game should I write?” I had always remembered the little Commodore experiment and I remembered too that it was somewhat amusing simply to fly the plane off and back on the invisible column of air. If that obstacles would be even more entertaining.

The first of the obstacles was the table. With the tables you now had a challenge: rise up over a column of air from a floor vent and then try to deftly cross a simple room, dodging the tables and making it safely across to the next vent. Of course avoiding the floor as well. When you made it through one room, you could proceed to the next.

Initally, points were scored as to how fast you could cross the room. But then came the clocks. Then the shelves... Candles were added as another “lift source”, but they were also a hazard. If you got too close, you’d burn. And we all know what happens when paper burns. The game caught on. A handful of people found it creative and a non-violent diversion from other games.

Then came the upgrade- Glider 4.0, the Casady & Greene release. They asked that the game be in colour, and that players could ahve a way of making their own houses. A 48 room house shipped with the game-and it all fit onto 800K floppy disk. When the game was released, it became Best Arcade Game of the year by MacWorld magazine. AOL was starting to pick up speed at this time and people started uploading houses they had created for Glider.

And too I tried a number of follow-on games that were published through Casady & Greene, but none of them held a candle to Glider and so, perhaps it was inevitable, I came around and did a sequel -- Glider PRO. To differentiate Glider PRO from 4.0 as best I could, I wanted to make it Glider 4.0 times ten. Everything would be up a notch or two. The house we shipped originally (Slumberland) had hundred. There would be 60 or more objects (switches, mailboxes, more clocks, more, appliances, etc.). There would be background music. The ability to go up and down stairs, out windows, etc. Additional bonuses like batteries and helium gas. The colors were kicked up to 256 colors and there were more elaborate backgrounds and artwork. The editor was integrated into the game so that you didn't need to run a separate program to design a house. People could add their own artwork (backgrounds and objects) to the game in order to create their own "custom" houses. Later, minimal Quicktime support was added such that you could have a simple movie running in a loop on the TV sets added to Glider PRO. The calendars on the wall showed the correct month, the clocks in the game showed the correct time....

The stratergy was changed slightly. Because players could now fly in and out of windows and doors, the game couldn’t end there. And so the magic stars were invented. When a player collected all the stars in a house, the game would end. John Calhoun found a couple of players to help him make the Sluimberland house...

I found a couple of individuals because of their prolific work on creating Glider 4.0 houses (Jonathan Chin and Steve Sullivan) and Ward Hartenstein was a sort of lark -- he had done an amazing Hands Off House for Glider 4.0. All three agreed to help and after blocking out multiple houses and areas of Slumberland, each person took a portion of the house to work on. I worked primarily on the first house you enter. When you exit it and fly next door you enter Jonathan's portion (his picture is in the room), underground you enter an elaborate series of sewers and this devilish bit was Steve Sullivan's work (originally it was to be a short stint through the sewers but Steve greatly expanded it). Also, as you cross the breezeway from Jonathan's house, the house you enter was also by Steve Sullivan (his picture too is framed and in the breezeway). Ward did most of the last house (although the ballroom was mine). Later, the CD-based version of Glider PRO would contain numerous houses they did by themselves after Glider PRO was released. I too contributed 3 or so new houses to the CD.

Is john calhoun through with Glider PRO? With the closing down of Casady & Greene a few years ago, he now has his own Glider website where you can download all versions of the game, along with all the houses from the CD.