Game wishlist

Requests for games to be added to the site
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leilei
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Game wishlist

Post by leilei »

Another game to put up is Civil War Battleset by W. R. Hutsell.
The latter EGA version was released as freeware some time ago though the files look tampered (1998 files on a 1992 game just does not feel right).
The earlier ANSI version is much, much harder to find (and shareware, but fully featured, with scenario editor). I have only seen it on the modern internet in ARJ form (converted from ZIP to make more space on the cd.)
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leilei
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Post by leilei »

Nitemare 3D by David P. Gray is another possible candidate for the 3D Shooters section. There's several shareware versions (most notably between 1.0 and 2.0 is the status bar face). The game is still sold. [Added to the site]

Another possible game to add is Amulets & Armor, a very good 3D first person RPG game from 1996. Unfortunately i've been unable to contact Janus Anderson about its status, maybe you could have better luck getting it released for free (especially since it was self published until some point in january 97, stopped being sold since). Three shareware versions are available that I know of (1.0, 1.2 no music and 1.2 with music).
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Post by DOSGuy »

I like that you're proactive about contacting authors. My name doesn't carry any weight, so you're as likely to get a positive response as I am, if a way can be found to contact him. If he self-published until 1997, he probably hasn't seen any revenues in a while, and would probably appreciate hearing that his work still has a following. I bet if you asked him, he would consider a freeware release. Point me in the right direction and I'm happy to ask him myself, but you know more about the game than I do.

I did a search for Janus Anderson and the first page that came up said that he was Lead Systems Designer for Westwood Studios in 2002. Westwood's old website redirects to EA (which acquired them in 1998), and that's where the trail goes cold for me. I don't like contacting big companies because I usually don't get a response, or customer service responds but can't answer my questions. My suggestion is to go to EA's website and click on the Feedback link so that your email will be read by someone who cares about your opinion. Ask them if Janus Anderson still works there, or if they know where he works now, and ask if they can pass along a message for you in case they refuse to give out his information for privacy reasons. Say everything that you want to say in your first email, because subsequent emails will probably be read by a different representative who will have no record of your previous emails.
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leilei
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Post by leilei »

If you read the mobygames link I posted he's working in the NCSoft USA division, most probably working on the upcoming Tabula Rasa.
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leilei
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Re: Random submissions

Post by leilei »

Kye's a classic Win16 game [Added to the site]
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Re: Random submissions

Post by leilei »

Other notable Win16 games:

Comet Busters! (1994, Hamco released this formerly shareware title as freeware)
Dare to Dream [Added to the site]
Defendroid (1994, Defender clone though, and it's probably too cloney for CDG's own good)
Warheads (1994) [Added to the site]
Micro Man (1993) [Added to the site]
Stellar Explorer (1993, probably uses too many Star Trek sounds to be included)
WinTrek (1994, ditto, also this one was released freeware with source code)
Sinksub (?) [Added to the site]
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Re: Random submissions

Post by DOSGuy »

I've been working on Dare to Dream for a few days now, and I probably would have added it yesterday if I hadn't gotten so involved in researching the history of Kye. I was able to contact the author, so hopefully I'll have some more interesting news to report soon.

I've also been preparing to add Micro Man. It seems to me that it's basically a Windows version of Electro Man, but the graphics are much more computer-oriented... like Solder Runner. Anyway, I really enjoyed the game back in the 90s.

I used to play both Atmoids and Hyperoids, but being basically straight clones of Asteroids, I doubt that they're going to make it. If Defendroid is a clone of Asteroids (or Defender) it may not be suitable.

I think Warheads was a Missile Command clone, but I'll have to check again. I definitely played a game like Missile Command for Windows, but it might have been something else.

I was planning to add WinTrek just because it was made by TSoft, but frankly, I don't like it. It's practically impossible to beat on the easiest level, and the energy system doesn't make much sense. When you power down the shields, that power doesn't go back into the reserves, it's just lost. So, okay, maybe that was intentional to force you to be conservative about how much power you divert to shields before a battle. But let's say I get damaged in battle and want to add more power. If I have 100 power in the shields, and I say that I want 200, I'll lose 200 from my reserves, but I'll only have 200 in my shields. What happened to the 100 that was already there?! It should either take 100 from the reserves and put me at 200, or take 200 from the reserves and put me at 300. Why should it dump the power in the shields before taking 200 more? Maybe that's just the version that I've been playing, but I find it pretty amateur compared to the text-based version that I used to play on my Kaypro 4, which may have been a straight port of the original mini-computer version. That game made sense, and had 9 difficulty levels, so it was actually possible to win! I can add WinTrek, but Arcanum's EGATrek is way better.

I'm not familiar with Comet Busters!, Stellar Explorer or Sinksub, but I'll check them out.
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Re: Random submissions

Post by leilei »

Axia is a particularily late (1998) shareware DOS game in 640x350 where it was pretty much asteroids with more enemies. It played similar to SWARM by Reflexitive [Added to the site]

Also Champions of Zulula (1994, 1995) is a very average fighting game that had several versions with notable changes. The game can still be 'registered' by buying the OSP Complete Archive.

Time Slaughter (1996) is another shareware fighting game which was liberated by its own author years later.
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Re: Random submissions

Post by DOSGuy »

It turns out that there were two MicroMan games: a short (but difficult) freeware game that served as an advertisement for Brian Goble's Windows Animation Package, and a two episode shareware game called The Adventures of MicroMan. Both games are on the site and also have shrines now, and I also included an AVI of myself beating the first game in 2:57 and the second game in 11:37. If anyone can beat either of those times, I'll host the video.
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Qbix
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Re: Random submissions

Post by Qbix »

awesome!
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Re: Random submissions

Post by DOSGuy »

I've gotten my Adventures of MicroMan time down to 8:43, almost 3 minutes less than the first attempt. It's definitely improvable by at least a few seconds, but I think this is pretty close to the limit.
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leilei
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Re: Random submissions

Post by leilei »

MORDOR for Windows by MakeItSo software is another great Win16 shareware RPG.

By the way, if you come across any win16 games that use the knp engine and has a setup program like this:
Image
or contain knps/knpg.dll in its folder, or setup.bin,
Please let me know as i'm wanting to collect these 'atrocities'!
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Re: Random submissions

Post by ThreeHeadedMonkey »

Why would anyone collect old Klik & Play games? Just curious. :)
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leilei
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Re: Random submissions

Post by leilei »

This site's missing SilverBall. [Added to the site] Epic and Microleague, like Epic Pinball, developed this game. Microleague published it however. It's more obscure because it's never in any Epic catalogs.

Also since you're doing video mode listing, you should put some of moraff's games on the list for 1024x768x256 and the like. Some of them look drastically different between 16 and 256 color modes (particularily Dungeons of the Unforgiven, which has awful looking walls as a tradeoff for good looking sprites, as the versa for 16 colors)
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Re: Random submissions

Post by DOSGuy »

I thought Silverball was a commercial release only.

The Moraff games are a thorn in my side. Because Steve Moraff was an early adopter, his games aren't standard VESA SVGA. I have to create an SVGA chart for the various proprietary chipsets the Moraff games required, as well as the dozens of resolutions. It will be a whole table -- like the existing table that covers all non-SVGA modes -- when it's done.
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