IdleWild

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IdleWild is a plug-in based screen saver program for Windows 3 developed by Bradford Christian and first published by Microsoft with in the Microsoft Entertainment Pack For Windows in 1990. Entertainment packs two and three each added eight more screen savers. Bradford Christian and Tony Krueger wrote most of the screen savers, but a couple other programmers developed the others. The program was no doubt meant to duplicate the success After Dark had on the Macintosh.

Because my family had the first Entertainment Pack on out 1991 family computer, I saw the screen savers from the first IdleWild, but I didn't see the others until many years later. I thought the were kind of neat, but pretty boring over all.

Review

Good

  • Unlike most Windows 3 programs, the program works at any screen resolution.
  • Several features have been added like password locking and hot spot activation.
  • With the first three Entertainment Packs, you get 21 total screen savers.

Bad

  • Most of the screensavers are pretty dull to watch.
  • Compared to the zen style of After Dark, IdleWild falls short.
  • The programs aren't nearly customizable enough.
  • The programs don't take advantage of sound cards.

Ugly

  • Nothing.

Screensavers

Screensaver Pack Image Creator Description Opinion
Blackness 1 Bradford Christian Just blacks out the screen. 1 - Pretty dull, but certainly effective.
Boat Race 3 Tony Krueger Sailboats race around buoys. 2 - It's a nice attempt, but the boats look really weird rotating the way they do, and I would have liked to see water or waves.
Bricks 2 Ed Jalley Breaks the screen up into a grid and eliminates blocks, while the others fall into place. 1 - Pretty dull with clunky movement.
Chomp 3 Ed Jalley Bites are taken out of the screen starting at the corners. 1 - The bites occur at blocky even of intervals.
Dancing Lines 1 Bradford Christian Color-shifting lines bounce around the screen and leave behind a trail. 3 - Pretty, zen-like, and effective.
Divide & Conquer 3 Tony Krueger Doubles the screen alternating horizontally and vertically. 2 - Interesting to watch, but not an effective screen saver.
Dropout 1 Tony Krueger Parts of the screen pop out and bounce away like the ending of Solitaire (Microsoft). 2 - Fun, but still kind of dull.
Fade Away 3 Tony Krueger Slowly fades individual screen colors to black. 2 - A nice attempt at fading when stuck in 4-bit color, but doesn't work correctly with 8-bit or higher.
Fireworks 1 Bradford Christian Fireworks shoot up into the black screen and explode while a fountain continually jets sparks. 3 - The fireworks are nice, but the unending fountain should have been randomized.
IconBownz! 3 Doug Timpe Bounces a random icon across the screen. 1 - Boring.
Life 2 Bradford Christian Runs a random simulation of Conway's Game of Life. 3 - Fun to watch and bet on which color will be the victor. I wish it allowed file loading.
Mandelbrot 2 Matthew Bellew Cycles through random sections of the Mandelbrot set. 3 - I enjoy seeing the set, I just wish it would have taken advantage of 8-bit color.
Oriental Rug 3 Tony Krueger Draws repeating patterns in dots resembling a rug. 1 - The customization is nice, but the patterns are pretty dull.
Random 1 Bradford Christian Picks a random screensaver from the list. 1 - I wish you could blacklist unwanted screen savers from the random list.
Shuffle 2 Tony Krueger Turns the screen into a number slider puzzle and plays forever. 1 - Too basic.
Spider Web 2 Tony Krueger Draws line art spider webs. 2 - I wish the spiral would extend larger, and the width increase is too noticeable.
Spotlights 2 Tony Krueger Dims the screen and spotlights randomly move around. 2 - Kind of neat to watch.
Stars 1 Bradford Christian A basic star field simulator, a la Star Trek. 1 - The stars should increase in size as the near and vary in shade.
Stretch 2 Tony Krueger Randomly zooms and stretches the screen. 2 - Certainly interesting looking, but a poor screen saver.
Tinfoil 3 Ed Halley Embosses the screen in gray. 2 - Nice to see once or twice, but not that impressive.
Trails 3 Michael Gates Colored worms slowly eat away at the screen. 3 - Fun to watch, I just wish the worms looked better.
Wipe Out 1 Bradford Christian Performs a basic wipe to black and then jumps to a random screen saver. 1 - The variation of wipes is nice, but it's a primitive screen saver.

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