Pixelmusement 2012 Archive Last Updated:
December 22nd, 2012

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2012 Archive

December 22nd, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #26 - Season 3 Update

Been very busy for weeks now. This is usually the time of year when I have very little spare time and all kinds of stuff happen, which is part of the reason why I don't really do any Christmas-themed episodes or such things.

In any case, very short filler this week just to fill everyone in on how Season 3 is going to work and the hint for the next episode.

Also, despite the lack of new public alphas, progress IS being made on Vectorzone, it's just everything I've been doing has been boring, technical stuff that isn't all that possible to show. Rest assured, more public alphas will be coming, though the switch the private betas isn't too far off at this rate. ;)



December 8th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #25 - Gemini's Music Showcase

Yeah, today's filler is a bit lazy, but I've been handling all kinds of stuff these past couple weeks and haven't really had a chance to work on something more substantial. Still, some people have been asking me if I could get some of my music online and while I'm not quite ready to get a music section going on my website, this should at least help for now. ;)

As for Vectorzone progress, there's been quite a bit, but nothing I could really demonstrate or release updates for. It's all been boring stuff like GUI routines, adding a system clock, getting a working title menu, special effects, etc. There'll be another public alpha soon, I just have to finalize all these additions so that they make logical sense to someone trying to play the game. :P

I also fixed some bugs, such as the "Ultra" quality glow shader being unnaturally bright. In fact, I had to make a bunch of changes to the glow shader so that it would be less obtrusive yet still enhance the presentation. In the process, I managed to break the quality of the translucent mapping mode, so that's yet another thing I need to fix. >_<;

Programming games is quite the process. :P

Lastly, the final filler of the year on the 22nd is mostly going to be me talking about how the next year is going to play out. I'll also be revealing the hint for Episode 101, so for those of you who enjoy guessing what I'm going to review, you'll definitely want to watch that one! ;)



November 27th, 2012:

The patch for PixelShips Retro is good to go and thus the game is now up to v1.13! :D

While the game is still natively a Windows 98 application, the palette problems that would occur with full-screen support on modern Windows Vista/7 computers are gone. I managed to fix the problem simply by running 16-bit colour instead of 8-bit paletted colour when a Windows XP or later OS is detected. (You can still get 8-bit full-screen support back if you shove the game into Windows 98 compatibility mode, but there should be no reason to have to do this.)

The free shareware version's updated too, so if you tried the shareware version once before and gave up on it because of the palette issues, give it another go! ;)

Unfortunately, to bring it up to being a native Windows XP/Vista/7 application would take a huge amount of time and I'd rather devote that time to future projects, especially with PixelShips 2 being one of them once I get Vectorzone and my tower defence idea completed. :)

Lastly, if you're having performance issues with the game despite it looking correct, try using the F8 key in-game to change the vSync mode, or try running in a window by cycling the screen mode with F9. Since the game has never used hardware accelerated graphics, some combinations of vSync and windowed/fullscreen will work better for some people than others.



November 24th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #24 - Castle of the Winds

A few pieces of news for today. Firstly, my next filler video is up. Two more to go before the year is over and then Season 3 of ADG begins! :3

Actually, in order to facilitate my continued work on my games, I'm considering a different approach for the next batch of ADG episodes: Three episodes a month for 10 months. This would equate to 25 regular episodes for the year and 5 fillers, including at least a couple fillers during the off months, plus it would give me the time and ad revenue to keep my supply of DOS games from running stale, as at this moment I will be very close to out of stuff to review if I continue to just go one episode a week for 50 regular episodes. I'd still deliver at least 50 more episodes regardless, but this approach may make it possible to deliver even more. :3

If you guys have any thoughts, let me know!

Also, I've almost got a patch ready for PixelShips Retro. Unfortunately, it would take far too much effort to get the game working as a native Windows XP/Vista/7 application, so it's still a Windows 98 game, but I'm aiming to fix the palette problem. It's been tricky though because NONE of my systems suffer from the palette issue. The patch is all ready, I just need to make sure it's tested and works before I release it. ;)

As for Vectorzone progress, it's been a little slow the past couple weeks because of all the stuff going on, but the next update will actually add a lot of context, including menus, a new, sleeker logo, and the beginnings of the user interface where you'll spend your time preparing your VACs and building new modules. :)

Lastly, a couple of my older ADG episodes, specifically Episodes 25 and 50-1, are not working at present. Hurricane Sandy did quite a bit of damage to Blip's NYC server building, which is where those two episodes were stored, so until the contents of those servers are recovered and put back into working order those episodes won't be accessible. I've no idea how much longer it will be, but I'll be asking Blip for an update soon and if I hear anything definite, I'll give you all a head's up!



November 10th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #23 - GemCraft: Labyrinth

So, how many of you are tower defence fans? ;)

One of my game ideas, and the one I'm going to be pursuing after Vectorzone, happens to be a tower defence game of sorts, though my idea has an incredibly unique feature that I've yet to see in any of the numerous tower defence games I've played. Likewise, in today's ADG filler episode, I decided to take a look at one of my favourite such games which also has some unique stuff going for it, such as being able to combine effects together and place traps inline with the enemies that do less damage but have amplified effects.

Not much else to say at the moment. I've been looking over the source code to PixelShips Retro and whatnot... I can fix the long-standing bugs for sure, but there's no easy solution to some of the other problems, like trying to run PixelShips Retro full-screen. I think the most I can do without spending weeks trying to revamp the games in their entirety is just fix the palette bug in PixelShips Retro, since that will literally take only three lines of code.

Delaying Vectorzone by too long a period would be a dumb idea, since it's got more potential than any of my games have ever had and I've already been hyping it since much earlier in the year. Really, focussing on it is the best thing to do. ;)

And yes, PixelShips 2 is still in the works. I'm fairly certain that will be my next project following my tower defence game, following Vectorzone, unless I get struck by lightning or something. :P



November 6th, 2012:

The next public alpha of Vectorzone is ready to try out, and finally, this thing's starting to actually play like a game! :D

As usual, there's a new development journal too for screenshots and development details. ;)

The two big additions this time around are particle effects and enemies. The particle effects help boost the visual presentation while the enemies help make life difficult for you. Granted, you can't actually die yet, but you can take damage and the methodology of the energy system will rapidly start to become apparent, since as you lose energy from enemy shots, you have less available to fire your own shots with. It will be incredibly important in the final game to keep your energy levels as high as possible to afford you as much firing of your weapons as possible, though there will be many ways to help keep energy levels high, such as by using plasma-modulated weapons which drain plasma levels instead or having a shield system and/or armour to buffer damage away from your energy levels.

I'm actually gonna be spending the next week or two going over the code to my old games and seeing if I can fix them up to run better on modern Windows systems. I know, this is something I should've done years ago, but I didn't HAVE a modern Windows system back then, and now that I do and know how to work with current versions of Allegro, and am back into the swing of programming, there's no excuse not to. :P



October 27th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #22 - Starship Cube Master

So here's the epic thing I've been working on in my spare time for the past three months: A giant freakin' starship, made in Minecraft!

Basically, it started out as just a quick little thing to see if I could make a Star Trek styled warp nacelle, but then expanded into making the entire ship! Took quite a bit of planning considering I wasn't just making the outside shape, but an inside that was appropriately sized to being a practical Minecraft creation. That way, the ship could actually be used as a base of operations in another Minecraft world if it was copied and pasted into it. (Dunno if this is possible, even with mods, but figured it'd be good to take this into account.)

I also created a page in my Miscellaneous Stuff section specifically dedicated to the Starship Cube Master, where you'll not only find a download link but will also get some nice, high-res, 1920x1080 screenshots! :D

...now I just gotta think of something else to do in my spare time. :P



October 22nd, 2012:

Got another public alpha ready for Vectorzone! To put it simply, you have a gun now! :D

New development journal too if you wanna see some screenshots. ;)

OK, a single puny pea shooter may not be too impressive, but at least it gets the point across as to how small the tiles are and how destructible the map truly is, and that's what I was aiming for with this release. Not quite sure what I want to add for the next release though... Particle effects and at least one kind of enemy would probably be a good goal to aim for... maybe get some more map pieces implemented...

Now that Vectorzone is back on track though I do want to quickly go over my other commercial games and see about fixing some long-standing issues, like the full-screen palette problems with PixelShips Retro among others.

Once again, don't forget that the next Ancient DOS Games filler comes out on Saturday! Have something epic to show everyone this time around and there will also be a download available! :)



October 13th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #21 - Bubble Bobble Part 2

It may've been three weeks since the last filler, but at least the next few won't be so far apart. ;)

When I found out how valuable Bubble Bobble Part 2 is for the NES, I figured it would be a good idea to take a quick look at it since so few people have probably even seen the game, let alone heard of it. Also, those of you wondering why I'm not on YouTube, well, the answer isn't quite so dramatic but I do finally answer that question. :P

Lots of work to do on Vectorzone among other things, so I'd better get back to all that!



October 8th, 2012:

Vectorzone is back on track and a new public alpha is finally available! :D

So yeah, it's been months since the last public alpha came out, but if you've been following the development journals, you'll know there's still been work the entire time, it's just that most of it has been design work in order to take out the spinning camera (that was making a sizable number of people motion sick) and give the game its own unique identity.

One of the big changes that had to happen was the removal of world-building aspects, which I'm still a bit sad about, but in its place, the environment is now highly destructible, with stray weapon shots easily being able to take tiny chunks out of the walls. With enough firepower you can even burn your own tunnels straight through into nearby rooms! At least, that's the plan. There's no weapons yet, but hey, they're coming! ;)

The big thing I'm proud of is the new mapping system, which is not only less GPU demanding than the previous system but looks a lot more like a digital world and also has a fun depth effect going on that makes the floor feel more glossy and reflective. The map generation code is also incredibly dynamic, though at present there's only 5 of the 64 planned pieces implemented. Each map piece itself also has its own dynamics going on, such as being able to be oriented in different ways or having walls generated in slightly different patterns.

So yeah, now that the new public alpha is up and progress is back on track, there will be more to come far more often. Also, don't forget that the next Ancient DOS Games filler comes out on Saturday! :)



September 22nd, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #20 - The Future of ADG

Well, with Season 2 of Ancient DOS Games over, today's filler is mostly just to talk about what's going to go on in the future and answer a few questions.

Other than that, I'm going to be spending most of the off-season working on Vectorzone, and since most of the re-design work is finished, there will be more public alphas soon enough! :D



September 8th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 100 - Bubble Bobble

Yes, seriously. ;D

While the DOS version is not my favourite port of the original arcade game, for the longest time it was my only way to play the game at home and it's still fun despite its age and bugs. Bubble Bobble is my all-time most favourite video game for a huge variety of reasons, but it can all be boiled down to a single sentence: It really got my imagination going! :)

The idea of having all kinds of different powerups and such, the massive number of levels, plus just the idea of being able to jump on top of super-huge bubbles without them exploding, it all sparked my imagination and is likely what triggered my interest in developing computer games, though up to that point I was already well on my way making card/dice/board games out of paper cutouts and whatnot. I suppose if Bubble Bobble wasn't responsible for jump-starting my digital game making interests it probably would've been some other game.

In any case, that marks 100 episodes of DOS gaming goodness! The next filler will be out on the 22nd, two weeks from now, and I'll have more information about the future of Ancient DOS Games then.

For now, it's time to really get cracking on Vectorzone! Once I have the next public alpha ready I'll take a break from it to get my other games more up-to-date so that they run better on XP/Vista/7 and to fix any minor, long-standing bugs. (Except for the Quicktips in PixelShips because those things never worked properly. :/ )



September 1st, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 99 - King's Quest

I think this turned out to be one of my best episodes... though next week's is going to be pretty epic too, because it will be the 100th episode!

Many fun things planned... sorta... OK, just one fun thing, but anyone who recognizes the parody will be pleasantly surprised. :3

In other news, got started programming the next iterration of Vectorzone finally, so I should have some progress to show for that soon, and I also discovered something neat if you use the seed "Wii" in Minecraft and take a short trek away from the sun. ;)

Also, just a reminder, even though only the first three correct guesses make the credits in ADG, for Episode 100, ALL correct guesses will make the credits! (Well, so long as they're sent in before I start rendering on Friday.)



August 25th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 98 - X-COM / UFO Enemy Unknown

Super-tired at the moment so I'm gonna make this quick: Getting close to Episode 100, have something fun planned for it, and due to being mildly sick I'm slightly behind on Vectorzone stuff. So long as I don't get any worse I should have a new public alpha ready within the next week to three weeks. ;)

Now, off to bed with me. :P



August 18th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 97 - Galactix

Nothing much to say about today's Ancient DOS Game, so I'll let the episode itself do all the talking. ;)

Also, I made some epic progress on the design side of things for Vectorzone. While the game is still going to be a 2D shooter at heart from an overhead perspective, it's going to lose both its world-building and dungeon crawl aspects... but is GAINING a very interesting building/customization system in the process. I should finally be able to start coding the new engine this weekend and with a little luck I'll have some new stuff to show and a new public alpha before too long! :)



August 13th, 2012:

I've uploaded a new Development Journal for my progress on Vectorzone for all who're interested.

...yeah, that's all there really is to say at the moment. ^_^;



August 11th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 96 - Amulets & Armor
(Please note that this is a mature-rated episode.)

So I decided to take a look at the shareware version of a game instead of the full version for once. The main reason being that the chance of anyone having a legitimate copy of the full version of this week's Ancient DOS Game is virtually nil. :P

And really, this game desperately needs some attention. I first played the shareware version back when it was brand new and I really wanted to get the full game, but this was long before I had any money of my own short of pocket change and years later when I finally remembered this game existed I discovered I had missed my chance. :(

I really want to see this game show up somewhere for a LEGAL digital download sooner or later. I would get it in a heartbeat. :)

In other news, I'm gonna have a new dev journal up for Vectorzone sometime Monday. The short of it though is that I've been running into lots of trouble trying to redesign the game without the rotating camera, primarily because without that one gimmick, it ends up playing too much like Terraria and it's REALLY important that this game have its own unique feel, otherwise what's the point? :/



August 4th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #19 - Modern DOS Games

Funny thing is, I thought there were more modern DOS games out there than there actually were, granted I decided to skip any DOS games which also had Windows versions since then it would be kinda pointless to talk about. :P

I've got enough of the new Vectorzone design ready that I can finally start coding the new engine and everything. With a little luck, I'll have some updates on it early next week or the week after! :)



July 28th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 95 - Commander keen

Now, here's something I found curious about this week's guesses. The first half of all the guesses sent in were correct. The SECOND half however, were almost all for Jazz Jackrabbit. If they were more scattered with each other, this would make more sense, but all but a couple of the Commander Keen guesses came in first, then all the Jazz Jackrabbit guesses started rolling in. Weird. :P

As much as I would like to cover Jazz Jackrabbit at some point, that's a very tricky game to get nowadays. :P

Not much else to report. Bad weather most of this week has kept me from working on much beyond my web show so I'm a bit behind with other things. I'll see what I can do to catch up. :)



July 21st, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 94 - Caverns of Xaskazien

At least someone got this game right, though truth be told, many of the guesses this week were for Menzoberranzan, which is a pretty difficult to pronounce name too. ;)

In any case, I actually chose this week's game before I even had a clue who really made it. In fact, I had been planing to cover this game at some point since I started Season 2 of ADG simply because of the nature of it. Getting in touch with the creator though was a bonus and you'll all see why soon enough! ;)

As far as Vectorzone is concerned, progress is slow, but steady, and that's what's important is that progress is being made at all. It'll probably be a couple more weeks before I have anything to show, but I'm fairly confident what I've got going now will be equally impressive. (And won't cause dizziness in 1/3 of everyone who tries it!)



July 14th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 93 - Star Quest I

Kinda surprised that half of the guesses for this week's ADG episode were correct. :O

Guess I'll have to make next week's game even MORE difficult to guess!

I should also have some more progress to report on Vectorzone soon. I'm finishing up some of the latest design details and getting a conceptual screenshot together of how the game will look with all of the new changes. Once all that's ready, I can start getting a new game engine made, using the previous one as a base to work from.

Lots or work to do!



July 7th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 92 - Catacomb 3-D Series
(WARNING: This episode contains mature content and is not suitable for children under the age of 18)

Don't really have too much to say at the moment. Got a new episode of ADG up and am still trying to work out how to proceed with Vectorzone. I was originally leaning towards Option 3, but as I developed the idea I was going to turn into Vectorzone more and more, it started to look less and less like vector graphics. Suffice to say, I'm going over my options again. Currently, I'm thinking that if I remove the world-building aspect and put more of an emphasis on finding stuff, performing upgrades, and kicking viral butt, it should turn out OK. :)

Also, because this week's ADG episode if mature rated, here's the hint for the next episode: A very obscure 3D space shooter that was made in Canada and is not listed on Wikipedia or on MobyGames. I will be extremely surprised if anyone gets this one right, so even if you have the most vaguest idea possible, make sure you send in your guess!



June 30th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 91 - Reaping the Dungeon

Fortunately, Blip was only down for about an hour, so I was able to get the week's ADG uploaded soon after reporting it was down. ;)

I'm kinda surprised no one even attempted to guess this week's game. This was one of my favourite games growing up despite the fact I sucked at it. Even now, it's a very hard game to get started, but once you get yourself going it's virtually impossible to lose. :P

In terms of other projects, I'm almost ready to begin making the new Vectorzone. It's not going to be the same game in the slightest. In fact, it's not even an action game anymore. :O

Also, due to renewed interest in my previous game projects, I'm considering updating them to work properly on more modern systems and fix some minor outstanding bugs. This is gonna be tricky to pull off though so it might be a few weeks before I'm able to find the time to accomplish it.



June 30th, 2012:

You may be having trouble playing back my ADG videos at the moment. This is because Blip, the host of my videos, seems to have disappeared off the face of the net. o_O;

I'll be keeping tabs on this for as long as I can stay awake. If Blip comes back online before I go to bed I'll get the next ADG uploaded, otherwise I'll have to do it later in the day.



June 24th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #18 - Gemini's Minecraft Bases

Sorry this weekend's filler is up a day late. Dealing with video codecs is one of the most annoying things a web show producer can ever expect to deal with. x_x;

Despite Minecraft's similarity to a game idea I had months before it was announced, that doesn't stop me from playing it. Besides, I don't have the kind of time I would need anymore to make my own such game. All that said, I've spent countless hours going around various Minecraft worlds building bases to opperate from, so this video is a tribute to the most important bases I've made since I first started playing the game. This is a VERY long filler and in a very different style than what I usually do, as it's meant to be a silent, atmospheric experience. Dunno how many of my viewers will enjoy that, but hey, it was worth a shot. :)

Also, as far as Vectorzone is concerned, I'm leaning towards Option #3 at the moment. I just need to find some time to finalize a particular idea of mine, then see if I can adapt it to the graphical style I had intended for Vectorzone. More info to come!

Lastly, I fixed the problem with the RSS Feed. Some of you may've suddenly seen a spike of May updates as a result. Apparently, all of the "May" updates were being input as "March". No idea how that happened. :P



June 23rd, 2012:

I'm sorry to report that due to technical issues, I've been unable to render this weekend's ADG filler on-time. I know how to fix the problem, but it requires recompressing ALL of the gameplay footage I have, which is going to take quite a number of hours, then I have to re-render, re-convert, and upload to Blip. To put it simply, it's not going up until closer to the start of Sunday. The lesson of today: Sony Vegas 9.0 doesn't like XviD. At least, not on my computer. :/

In any case, for those who're still curious, this weekend's filler is on all of the most interesting or important Minecraft bases I've made since I started playing the game. It's essentially a half-hour-long tour of 10 different locations, ranging from simple little places to massive complexes, all created in Survival Mode without the aid of inventory hacks or mods, all set to the ambient, serene music of Minecraft and nothing more. If you're into Minecraft in any way, you'll definitely want to check this filler out. ;)



June 19th, 2012:

Things are not going well with Vectorzone. I've put together another Development Journal to talk about what's been going on and also to gather some opinions as to how I should proceed given the difficulties I've run into. :/

Other than that, not much else going on at the moment.



June 15th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 90 - Populous

Very quick early update because I'm falling asleep at the seams. Enjoy the episode, everyone! :D

Although slightly un-quick, there's a new link up to the Nonosweeper website on my Links page. Nonograms are picture puzzles of a type, while Nonosweper is essentially turning nonograms into minesweeper puzzles. Not really my thing but I can at least understand why a lot of people like it. ;)



June 9th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 89 - Duke Nukem 3D
WARNING: This episode contains mature content!

This was an epic episode to make for a number of reasons. Firstly, Duke Nukem 3D is one of my favourite DOS games, and it's usually pretty high on the list of most people's favourites, so I had to make sure I did the game justice. Secondly, ever since I started thinking about doing the Duke Nukem games on ADG, I realized that this one in particular would make for the perfect episode to juxtapose with my own interests in cute and cuddly things; to subtly show that people can like both extremes. To that end, this episode had to wait until I had finished a particular project of mine.

Overall though, I think it turned out really well. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people are going to be confused and terrified at how the episode opens, but you know what? If you're one of those people, then just deal with it. I'm allowed to like anything I want, just like you and everyone else on the planet. :P

This week's also been stupidly busy beyond just ADG stuff, and I've barely had time to work on Vectorzone either so I'm seriously behind with it at the moment. I'm hoping to get caught back up soon and get another alpha out ASAP.

Also got some additional info about the S3 video mode in LineWars II posted on the ADG Episode 34 page.

Lastly, since this week's episode is mature rated, click this link to see the hint for the next episode, since it's visual and appears AFTER the credits.



June 2nd, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 88 - CD-Man

Almost 100% better from whatever virus I had. Hard to tell in today's ADG but my voice does lose its power at a couple moments, the most obvious one being right at the end.

Also, there was a record number of guesses this week: 24! A record number of correct guesses too: 24! ;D

However, I don't make a big deal about this in the episode because next week's episode is probably going to get even MORE guesses. Granted, that's just a guess. :P

...I'll stop now before the irony gets any worse. ^_^;



May 26th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 87 - Space Quest

Yeah, my voice still isn't perfect. Can't rush a recovery and for some bizarre reason whatever I had just doesn't want to completely go away. x_x;

In any case, I did the best I could given the circumstances and hopefully I got all the important stuff covered. I know there's a couple things about Space Quest that I may've been wrong about depending on the version, but I don't have previous versions to test out so I had to go with what I knew about the game. If there were any differences I could always add those details below the video. ;)

Now I need to start getting caught up on stuff again; Very behind with Vectorzone as a result of all this... x_x;

One exciting thing that recently happened is that I was interviewed by Matthew Nawrocki over at TechRepublic! Not only that, but the review made it to the top of their newsletter too! If you guys are interested to learn a little more about my DOS gaming interests, point your way over here: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/geekend/interview-with-ancient-dos-games-founder-kris-asick/9603



May 19th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #17 - Epic Stunts Crash

Sorry for this filler update but I ended up pretty sick most of the week and am still recovering. My voice was also affected, so I had to ask good ol' Dr. Sbaitso to step in and help out! :D

But yeah, this filler details one of the most spectacularlly unintentional replays I ever made. It was originally just an experiment as to what would happen if you crashed AFTER crossing the finish line in Stunts (4D Sports Driving), but... well... watch it for yourself and you'll see. ;)

I do seem to be getting better so hopefully I can get back into the swing of things next week.



May 12th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 86 - Moraff's World

Back to the Ancient DOS Games which aren't educational in the slightest! Well... unless you count throwing "Holy Hand Grenades" at Unicorns and Medusas educational. :P

Nothing too much else going on at the moment. Slowly getting back into Vectorzone development. Gotta change a couple fundamentals ASAP before they become a nightmare later on when I get multiplayer support added. As it stands, every item right now would take nearly a kilobyte of bandwidth per player to process... even items as simple as dirt... Gonna make some changes to the item system so that items can either refer to default details that don't need to be retransmitted at all, or can have custom details that are only retransmitted to the player that actually acquires the item, saving tons of bandwidth in the process.

...no, there's no multiplayer support yet. I'm thinking ahead now to prevent headaches later on. The next release will have tile collision and some basic tools for modifying the world around you. I've also made the water darker and slowed its animation down to see if it helps for the people who've reported it to be hard to look at.



May 5th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #16 - Space Fortress 2

Yes, I finally have released a free, unfinished version of Space Fortress 2 for all to play! :D

For those of you who are interested check out the Space Fortress 2 page for a download and some screenshots.

Nothing much else to say at the moment, except that now that this is ready, I'll be getting back to work on Vectorzone. ;)



April 28th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 85 - Treasure Mountain

And so, we finally come to the end of Edutainment Month. Once again, many thanks go to Clint Basinger, aka the Lazy Game Reviewer, not only for the idea of doing edutainment titles for the month of April, but also for appearing on the show (and allowing me to appear on his)! I actually don't really have much else in the way of edutainment titles, so whether I participate in edutainment month again next year or not will depend mostly on if I can get any more edutainment titles.

Progress with Vectorzone is really slow at the moment, though when next week's filler episode goes online, you'll all understand why. ;)

Afterwards, Vectorzone updates should be more frequent. :)



April 21st, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 84 - Word Rescue

It's not often I encounter something that was better left as nostalgia, but Word Rescue seems to qualify. I went into this expecting a great game much like I remembered from my childhood, but it turns out Word Rescue really only is an average game, with bugs and tons of graphical/audio reuse in the second and third episodes. :/

Ah well. Next week's game is one of my favourites and I still load it up at least once or twice a year when I'm really bored so I know for certain that it's awesome! ;)



April 14th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 83 - 3-D Body Adventure

It was a close voting, but the Human Body won with just a couple votes more than Dinosaurs! :D

Other than that, not much else to say at the moment. Been a very busy week and I'm pretty tired right now so I'm gonna make this short. Hope everyone enjoys today's episode! :)



April 9th, 2012:

Vectorzone

It's now official: Vectorzone is the next game I am making and it is set to become the first game of its kind, combining overhead, 360-degree, real-time 2D shooting with elements of world-builders and dungeon crawls, as well as full multiplayer support!

At least, that's the plan. v0.01a, the first public alpha is nothing more than moving a ship and exploring the beginnings of the random map generator. :P

Ancient DOS Games still takes priority over everything, so development of this game is going to be slow-going, but I want to get everyone involved as early as possible so that you can all share your opinions and such and so that I can make this the best game of its kind.

I've set up a number of pages here so everyone can get an idea of what's going on. The main Vectorzone index page has a list of intended features and some basic story information. The download page has the first public alpha readily available for download, though remember, we're talking very early alphas here, so don't expect much and don't expect that the game will run properly in the first place. There's an FAQ which I've premptively loaded with a number of questions and answers I'm sure people will have about the game. Lastly, I'll be keeping a Development Journal the whole while, even after switching from public alphas to private betas, and this will also be where you can find screenshots if you can't get the alphas working or want to see what's up with them first before trying to run them.

Very exciting times ahead! :D

Now if you'll excuse me... I need to get my taxes done... HOORAY!! >_>;



April 7th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 82 - Googol Math Games

At the moment, I don't have much extra to say about today's ADG episode because I'm busy getting the first public alpha of my next game ready for Monday! :D

Remember guys, it's not going to be anything special at first, but there's tons of features in the works for it and you'll all be able to help test and provide feedback for much of the development process! :)

So yeah, remember to check back Monday afternoon!



April 1st, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 81 - Animal Quest

All I really need to say about today's Ancient DOS Games episode is: Everyone loves crossovers! :D

That's actually the main reason why this episode is debuting today, rather than yesterday, since today is April 1st, commonly known as April Fools by 99.99999178275% of all of you.

However, the statement of taking a look at only edutainment titles this month IS valid, so the next four episodes will all be edutainment games! (And will all come out on Saturdays as usual! ;)

Also, on the Monday after next, I will finally be announcing my next game project and will have the first public alpha ready for everyone!

Now, I want all of you to keep a few things in mind here. This isn't like with Minecraft, where it had gone through a massive amount of development before it decided to call itself an alpha. Alphas are developmental builds, so what you are going to be treated with at first is something incredibly basic that will serve as the foundation for many gameplay elements to come. Likewise, I can't guarantee that these alphas will work for everybody, so there will also be an eMail address specifically for sending bug reports to. For those of you who can't play the alphas for whatever reasons, I'll also be keeping development journals to talk about the whole process.

So yeah, lots of exciting stuff happening this year! :D



March 24th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #15 - Gemini's Music Skills

Pretty tired right now so I'm gonna keep this as short as I can. Today's filler is mostly just a showcase of my limited but practical musical talents, thanks to my viewers I've made a number of corrections to some of the latest ADG episodes, and also, I've added a new link for budding game developers on my links page to the website for the Scrolling Game Development Kit 2, which is definitely worth a look for anyone who wants to make a tile-based game with minimal effort! :)



March 17th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 80 - TechnoVenture

Not surprised that no one knew what today's Ancient DOS Game would be. This is an obscure little title but one that I feel deserves some attention as it's the bare basics of what you would consider a game yet is still surprisingly playable. Let's put it this way: I'd MUCH rather play TechnoVenture over the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! ;D

My next game project's going along well too. Fixed a minor bug with its timing system and it now runs smooth as glass! Not too much left to implement before the first public alpha can go up! I would like to remind people again though that this first alpha release is going to be incredibly basic. In fact, it won't even play like a game really, it'll just be a program with game-like elements. Nor will I be able to guarantee if it will run on your system or not, but if it doesn't, let me know why it doesn't and I can fix it! ;)

Also, going to be covering nothing but edutainment titles for the month of April on ADG and in order to get a full set of five games in, Episode 81 of ADG will be pushed back one day for a Sunday release on April 1st, as opposed to the usual Saturday releases. I'll have a hint as to what game it will be in the filler next Saturday! :)



March 12th, 2012:

Just want to quickly let people know that the RGB Classics Website STILL EXISTS. All that's going on at the moment is that the domain name registrar of their .com address is changing. For the moment, you can use www.classicdosgames.org instead. :P



March 10th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 79 - Seek and Destroy

I'm really hoping that today's Ancient DOS Game sees the light of day again with a digital download release at some point. Until then, I guess there's still my own project...

Yes, the game I'm working on right now, while it looks nothing like Seek and Destroy, does have a similar play style where your vehicle is situated at the bottom of the screen facing towards the top and when you turn side to side the world turns around you. Programming has been going a bit slow due to ADG and so many other things going on in my life, but the fact that I have started programming the game is a very good sign.

What's also a good sign is that virtually every line of code I'm writing is working on the first try. So even though it's slow going, there's been little re-writing or debugging so far. At present, I have a basic mapping system and camera system implemented, as well as a special pixel shader routine to produce one of the key special effects the game will be relying heavily upon. Once I've finished writing the player object code, have basic player movement implemented, and have basic map generation working, the first public alpha will be released and the name of the game will be revealed along with all the details of what it shall become in the long run! :)

Keep watching this space as there's gonna be much more to come! :)



March 3rd, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 78 - Bio Menace
(NOTE: This game contains mature content!)

In all honesty, it was really hard to decide whether or not to put the mature content warning on today's review. It seriously boiled down to one particular image of a dead guy on a couch that I couldn't justify showing without the warning. I think Bio Menace is about as tame as you can get for mature rated. :P

Also, since this is a mature rated episode, here's the hint for the next episode: It's a game where you can climb into choppers and tanks and score all the overkills you can! :D



February 25th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 77 - Star Wars: TIE Fighter

Firstly, I didn't have anywhere near enough time to really scratch the surface of today's Ancient DOS Game, so you'll excuse the fact that I didn't have a lot of footage to pull from and mostly only show parts from the beginning of the game. It's part of the reason I reviewed X-Wing first: Despite TIE Fighter being the most requested game, I didn't want to have to go over all the basics a second time. :P

Secondly, work on my current game project is progressing slowly but surely. It'll probably be another few weeks at least before I can officially announce the project by name and release the first public alpha for testing.

Lastly, now that TIE Fighter has been reviewed, the current most-requested game is X-COM: UFO Defense, followed by Duke Nukem 3D, Jazz Jackrabbit, and Wing Commander. I should also point out that of the current 77 episodes of ADG, 10 of them so far have been requested games, so I do indeed do requests! The first request I ever did, and the first episode to be scripted, was Episode 16 - Star Wars: Dark Forces! ;)



February 18th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 76 - Ugh!

Today's Ancient DOS Game is a bit of an interesting case, despite the fact the game itself is incredibly simple. Made for an episode over the 12 minute mark for a game that really only should've taken 8 or 9 minutes to cover. :O

In other news, I've started programming my next game, so there will definitely be some alphas to check out soon! Don't really have a time-table in place as next week's ADG episode is going to demand a lot of my attention, but from my preliminary testing, the minimum system requirements will likely be a 1 GHz system with 512 MB RAM and a mid-range video card with 256 MB of video RAM.

More details to come! ;)



February 11th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #14 - Gemini's PC Joysticks & Gamepads

I'm gonna make this quick since I'm really tired and want to go to bed. The newest filler is up, my eye is all better, and I added a neat little tidbit to the additional info for the last episode of ADG, Episode 75. Enjoy! :D



February 4th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 75 - Excelsior Phase I: Lysandia

Sorry this episode is a little later than usual. I had a medical issue with my eye that resulted in lots of pain, delaying a lot of my work on this week's ADG. Don't worry, it doesn't seem like it was anything more than a "stye" in a really nasty, interior spot, and while I'm still in pain as I write this, it's VERY slowly feeling better. Also, I'm really surprised no one even attempted to guess what this week's Ancient DOS Game would be! :O

Ah well. In doing this web show of mine I've found it interesting how there's a lot of games I consider to be common-knowledge or staples, despite them being virtually unknown, and that I've gotten some requests for games that were really popular at the time, but which I had never heard of or had no interest in.

Also, lots of user-submitted corrections this week. For the Doom episode, I added some minor details about getting source ports working in general. For the SkyRoads episode I added a link to a modern remake titled "Tasty Static". For both the Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II episodes, I added a note that if you want to obtain these games from a Duke Nukem 3D CD, it has to be one of the original CDs and NOT the Atomic Edition! :O



January 28th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 74 - Crime Fighter

Once again, not too much to say about today's episode. I'm still hard at work on my next game project, but I still don't have anything to really show about it yet. Again, I am going to have public alphas once I've got it going. One thing I can say about the game though is that it will be controlled from an overhead perspective similar to the DOS game "Seek and Destroy", where you face forwards from the bottom of the screen and the world turns around you. ;)

Again, more information to come!



January 21st, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 73 - Catacomb

Not a lot to say at the moment, been busy with all kinds of stuff. I wanted to get information about my next game project up before this month was over but I've been having to redesign aspects of the game constantly and as a result, I haven't begun programming it yet as I had originally planned. I'll keep everyone up to date as I make progress.

Once programming of my next game DOES begin, I plan to offer routine Public Alpha builds for everyone to try out. Yes, ALPHA builds, as in they are not guaranteed to work and likely won't have much to hold the average person's interest, but the reason I want to make them available is to ensure that what I'm making will work on a variety of hardware, and knowing the quirks early on will save me headaches later on. ;)

More information to come as more developments take place!



January 14th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 72 - Duke Nukem II

I still can't believe no one guessed todays Ancient DOS Game correctly. :P

Anyways, nothing too much to say at the moment... My headphones are on the fritz though which made it difficult to get this latest episode posted. I've got a replacement cable on the way to fix them right up but it's gonna take a week or two before it gets here. :/

I'll do my best to ensure that next week's episode is presented the way it should be! :)



January 7th, 2012:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 71 - Star Wars: X-Wing

Well, finally managed to get around to reviewing X-Wing on Ancient DOS Games! Hope you guys enjoy it because I was about ready to rage-delete the thing. ;D

...yeah... it's not that it's a bad game it's just really frustrating. Next week's game hopefully isn't like that, but I haven't ever given it a serious playthrough so it should be an interesting experience.

I'm busy streamlining some aspects of my next game project and will be beginning the coding process soon. No timeline as to when I will have screenshots up, as it really depends on a number of factors, but I want to try to have SOMETHING to show before this month is over. Wish me luck... ^_^;

drex
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