Pixelmusement 2013 Archive Last Updated:
December 21st, 2013

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2013 Archive

December 21st, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #35 - Words of Jesus

This... is one of the most requested games for me to take a look at. I've actually had more requests to look at the game in that "Jesus" directory that showed up in my 50th ADG episode than over 95% of my requests list and was in the Top-10 for most requested games that I hadn't yet covered! :O

So, I figured it'd be worth it to take a look. It is Jesus' birthday in four days after all. ;)

The other piece of news is that a game recently came out on Steam called "Vector"...

...yeah...

That... kinda derailed my Vectorzone progress for awhile. Most everyone's telling me not to worry about it and that I should just keep the name of my game anyways, but I talked it over with my sister (who has real experience with trademark laws) and the short of it is: While it's very unlikely the creators of Vector would sue me over my name Vectorzone due to the expense of performing an international lawsuit, if they DID, they'd have the stronger case, plus I wouldn't have the money to fight back anyways.

So, Vectorzone is getting a new name. I've already decided upon the new name and will be announcing it once I've made solid progress. Changing the name did require changing several aspects of the game to fit the name better and I'm still coming up with a lot of it, so it's gonna be a couple weeks at least before I have anything solid to show you all. Need to design a new logo too, but I have one in mind.

It was pretty distressing though. "Vectorscape", the original name for the game, took quite awhile to come up with, and when I discovered there were already games with that name, I spent over half a day trying to come up with something better, eventually settling on Vectorzone. The new name, which took FIVE DAYS to come up with, does NOT have "Vector" in the title, which is a big part of the reason why stuff needs to change because the new name invokes a very different perception of what to expect, but still allows for the glowing, vector-line graphics I'm already using. It's actually one of the most original names I've come up with so I hope it comes across well. :)



December 7th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #34 - Super Amazing Wagon Adventure
(NOTE: This is a mature rated episode.)

The past couple weeks have been a bit of a rollercoaster ride, but that's part of the reason why I take this part of the year off to myself, because I know how hectic it tends to get for me. I know some people would prefer I do some holiday-themed episodes of Ancient DOS Games but it takes a solid amount of time to do a regular episode, whereas today's filler took virtually no amount of effort to make, relative to how much effort goes into the regular episodes. :B

Things seem to be stabilized on YouTube and I'm past my technical problems and recent uploads have gone OK, so I'll get around to adding the links here on the website very soon now, though my top priority is finalizing the current Vectorzone design. The present design is working out extremely well, better than all prior designs, so I'm going through the process of finalizing all the major details so I can get back to coding the game. Then, I can work out the minor details on the days I don't feel like programming and can program on the rest. ;)

To that end, I'll probably be updating the main index page for Vectorzone here on the website soon to reflect all the changes that have been made to the design. Thankfully, a lot of what I already coded, I can still use, so once programming continues it shouldn't take too long to get back to the point I was at, though the very first thing I need to implement is the new GUI in order to work around some minor Windows 8 bugs with the game. :P

As for doing a new video series alongside Ancient DOS Games... it's probably not going to happen, simply because Vectorzone progress has been much more solid the past few weeks and I don't think I could handle coding a game and two video series all at the same time. I'm only one person! ^_^;



November 25th, 2013:

I've released a new Development Journal for Vectorzone.

...yes, I'm still working on the game. I never stopped working on it. The journal will explain most of what I have to say on the subject so I won't waste your time telling you about it in this news post. ;)



November 16th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #33 - DeluxePaint II Enhanced

I've looked at lots of DOS games on Ancient DOS Games, but I think it's about time I showed you all one of the DOS applications I still put to practical use! Though I must admit, with the way graphics are nowadays, DeluxePaint II Enhanced only gets me so far, but it's lightning fast to do really basic stuff with and is thus good for fleshing out ideas, then migrating those ideas to other more modern graphics programs when I'm ready to finalize their design.

Actually, the only other DOS application I still use really is Impulse Tracker, which has shown up more than once on the show by now. I still need to show you guys how that thing works, but coming up with music on the spot is a bit trickier than simple game ideas. :P

I really hope to have more progress to talk about with Vectorzone soon. I've sort of been putting off getting back into coding it, even though I'm completely ready to do so. Things just got so hectic with YouTube changes that were causing me numerous problems at first that I didn't want to stress myself out too much, so I stuck with design work this week, which has been going very well since a couple filler videos ago! ;)

Also, Clint Basinger of Lazy Game Reviews and I did another video together! Basically, we just played a couple rounds of Worms Revolution against each other, but still, much fun was had and you can check out the video on the LGR YouTube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fhb0XGfTb8



November 2nd, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #32 - So You Wanna Make Games?

Although people don't typically ask me the same questions multiple times, there is one exception: How to get into making games or game design in general. Today's filler video will hopefully address a good bit of that, as well as talking about the steps to take once you're ready to go from hobbyist game making to pro. I don't go into specifics about software or hardware to use and such because those are more going to depend on your own personal preferences than anything else, and trying everything you can get your hands on is a better approach to figuring that out than me telling you all what to use. :P

Speaking of game design though, my own efforts with Vectorzone are starting to balance out again. There's been an absolutely massive number of changes to the specifics of how the game will work, but the overall concept and story hasn't changed from the last time I said anything about it here on the website. Still, I'm gonna be getting back into coding soon, especially now that I've solved some technical issues I was having, so expect an official update on all of this soon! :)



October 19th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #31 - End of 2013 Update

Very short filler video this week to let you guys know what's up with the series and to answer a handful of questions you may've had over the past while, most of which I've already mentioned here on the site but not everyone who watches the show reads these news posts too. ;)

Anywhoo, making this short as I've got other stuff to get back to doing. ;)



October 12th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 125 - Magic Carpet 2: The Netherworlds

Sorry this week's episode is a few hours late. I ended up having to redo the entire voiceover track due to it sounding completely out of whack. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to record audio in my father's place without getting horrible amounts of echo in the background. :P

Also, for those of you watching the show on YouTube, the reason I haven't had a new upload lately is because I accidentally dried up my buffer of properly converted episodes right before starting work on this week's episode, which meant I had no time to get more converted. (The format I upload to YouTube is different than the format I upload to Blip in order to attain the best quality possible on either service.) With the latest ADG episode up finally though, I can go digging through my archive DVDs and pull more episodes out to convert and upload. :)

Vectorzone design work is still continuing as best as I can. I'm now on my 20th design revision since I started the project, most of which were from after the initial announcement. With a little luck, I'll hit on an idea soon enough that won't take me forever to make and will be nice and balanced, and with my break time from ADG coming up, there should be plenty of time to work on the thing. ;)



October 5th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 124 - Another World / Out of This World

This week's ADG episode was a challenging one to make. Another World is short, story driven, visually expressive, has sporadic but occasionally graphic blood effects, and I somehow had to make a review that wouldn't spoil the story or require me to set the episode on Red Mode. (IE: Mature content warning.) I think in the end, it came out really well. :)

Wish I could say the same for Vectorzone progress... I'm once again BACK in Design Hell. Apparently, my latest idea was working out really well... but started exceeding my capability to create on my own accord. (IE: I would need major assistance to make it.) Even the guy who made the game I just covered spent two years plus on his creation, mind you I think most of that was coding and not trying to work out the overall design concepts. Still, the point stands that when you work on something solo, it can take a lot of time to make something work. :/

But... that said, I've taken a step back with Vectorzone as I've been playing the recent 1.2 update to Terraria and I was remembering something that was somewhat important to me when I first started my project: Make a game I can expand upon without breaking it. I think it's time to reconsider Vectorzone's current mission-based approach and go back to a world-building approach. The trouble with doing this is I won't be able to use my own music exclusively and will need to license some additional music from other sources to fill the non-action parts of the game, but this might be the key to getting the project back on track...

I've given up with projects before in the past and on occasion, I've regretted it. Vectorzone is a game I WANT to make, more than any of my other ideas (including PixelShips 2) which is why I'm trying as hard as I can to get myself out of my Design Hell and bring all of you an epic game you'd want to play for hours on end. So yeah, I am doing a TON of work on the game, it's just there's nothing tangible to really show everyone yet until the design is solid.

Also, even though next weekend will be the last regular episode of ADG for the year, there will be some fillers following and I'll likely be starting a new webshow soon to go along with ADG, as it won't take nearly as much effort to make and will be more of just a thing to have fun and go nuts with, kinda like how Clint's main series is Lazy Game Reviews, but he also does a series called "LGR Plays" where he just haphazardly fools around with various games and usually manages to get things to break spectacularly, like when he launched a train into orbit. XD

Lastly, STILL having issues with YouTube, which is why I haven't added video links directly to my channel there yet.



September 21st, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 123 - Kiloblaster

Sorry this week's episode is a few hours late. The weather has been completely erratic for the past 24 hours, making it difficult to get any work done. :P

Other than that though, not much else in the way of news. Vectorzone work has been very slow going just because of having to focus on ADG, but since next week is my off week I'll be sure to get a lot more work done on it then. As I've mentioned, I don't want to do another update about the game here on the website until the reprogramming of the game gets back up to the point the game was at when I entered into my Design Hell.

...actually, that's an interesting thing to note... This week's Ancient DOS Game is terrible, but given a few more months it could've been made a lot better... but that would've cost Epic another few months worth of paycheques and may not have recovered those costs in sales if Epic didn't feel the game coule be improved enough to make up the difference. That's how we've ended up with so many bad games over the years. The companies don't want to make bad games, but financially speaking, releasing a bad game will often net more money in the long run than spending months or years fixing something up to make it good.

The market is definitely changing though... I think a decade or two from now the vast majority of games on the market may very well be indie titles, as a lot of the really good ones sell thousands of copies without spending any money at all (or very little) on advertising; a very different paradigm to publishers who spend thousands to millions on advertising since they're looking for equally extreme numbers of sales.



September 14th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 122 - Doom II: Hell on Earth
(WARNING: This is a mature-rated episode!)

Yeah, pretty much everyone knew what this week's ADG episode would be. It'll be interesting to see if anyone gets next week's right though! ;)

Otherwise, things have been a bit busy, coupled with a variety of annoying things going on, like YouTube asking me to prove commercial use rights for a video that's 99% footage of ME, and playback on YouTube acting weird as they perform updates to their player, causing it to completely stop working every now and then... yeah, most of them are YouTube related.

On the flip-side of that, Blip accidentally overpaid me. Yeah, it's gonna come out of what little the show makes over the next couple months but I'd still rather be overpaid than having malworking video playback. :P

Other things in the works too. Vectorzone progress has been slow due to all the other things going on, but unlike before where progress got me nowhere because of constant redesigning, progress for the past little while has been solid. Still, there's nothing new yet that you guys haven't already seen and until the new system at least matches what's currently available here on the website I don't want to release a "new" update that appears to be worse.

Also, since today's episode is mature rated, here's the hint for the next episode: I'll be covering a game that's reminiscent of Xargon, except that it's not a platformer.



September 7th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 121 - Echelon

New ADG video and solid progress on Vectorzone! ...not enough progress to warrant an update yet as most has just been design-related, but I have gotten back into coding again! Mind you, with thousands of lines of code to go through, it could be awhile yet before I can top what's already available, so give me some time to get Vectorzone back up to speed, then we'll be back to regular updates about it!

Nothing too much else going on presently. Hope everyone's enjoying my music and everything! :)



August 17th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #30 - Music Update & More

There's music on my website now! :D

Also wanted to quickly address a few little things so I do that during the last half of the video. The first half is mostly to talk about how I make my music and why I use Impulse Tracker specifically, despite how old it is.

Nothing much more to say at the moment that isn't said in the video itself, so go take a watch, then come back and have a listen to any of the music I've made available! ^_^



August 10th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 120 - Worms

Music update next weekend is now CERTAIN. I haven't had the spare time to get it going so I've now increased its priority in my list of things to do by making it necessary to have done in order to be able to make my next filler video next weekend. ;)

Beyond that, I think I may finally be making solid design progress with Vectorzone. Once I know for certain and have gotten back into coding, I'll post a dev journal update. I REALLY need to get the game back on track after all the stuff that's been going on.

Also made a couple minor updates to ADG episodes 24 and 56 to account for things that happened with the links I had in the additional information sections of these videos.

And yeah, Clint and I have actually exchanged at least a couple dozen GOG games since we started watching each other's web shows. Expect to see more games gifted to me by him in the near future. Actually, Episode 121's game was gifted to me by someone else of importance (you'll find out who soon enough) and is the first gifted game I've received the box and manual for and everything, so that'll be a fun thing to show! :D



August 3rd, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 119 - SimCity 2000

Sorry this week's episode is up a few hours later than usual. Strange sleep combined with stormy weather has a tendency to do stuff like that. :P

Spent most of my off week trying desperately to get out of the Design Hell that Vectorzone is in. I think I might've finally found the perfect answer to my design problems, but I've said that so often now I want to make sure I make solid progress before I confirm this to be the case. A good idea alone does not make for a well balanced design.

I should be good to get the music update going this weekend, presuming I don't forget to do it again. As said, it's not high on my priority list and as such I'm continually forgetting to get around to it. Yeah, it's not much of an excuse, but it's all I've got. That said, so long as you've watched every ADG episode and have beaten PixelShips Retro you'll have already heard a large amount of the music I'll be uploading.

Things seem to be stable on the YouTube side of things again and nothing's gone wrong since the Content-ID fiasco with Episode 11 of the show, so I'll probably start adding the YouTube links soon. ;)



July 20th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 118 - Worthy Opponent

Looks like the storms have held off long enough for me to get this up on time! ;)

Still behind with everything else though, but thankfully I've got a full week ahead of me devoid of ADG duties, so I'll do my best to get some things going. The YouTube Content ID thing doesn't seem to have amounted to anything, which is good, plus apparently, a Tandy 3-voice rendition of Moonlight Sonata doesn't trigger the Content ID system, so uploading Episode 12 to YouTube worked out fine. So long as stuff continues to go OK with YouTube, I'll get to adding the links here on the website. Again, I want to be sure my presence there will be stable before I go spending hours updating every single page on this website with appropriate links. :P

The music update is again, nothing difficult at this point now that the website is on an unlimited bandwidth plan, I just need to get around to it. ADG has been the main priority followed by life in general.

As for Vectorzone, still in Design Hell. My latest thoughts on how to get out of it didn't balance out nicely, but this weekend I'm gonna be trying out a VERY different approach, which hopefully will work out OK. If I wasn't going to be selling the game for money, I would've just stuck with one of my original design ideas, since people are, in general, more forgiving of free stuff than stuff they have to pay for. This is why I'm being absolutely certain that whatever design I settle on is solid before I get back into more coding. I want you guys to have the best game I can make given my present game making skills, and trust me, once I do get back into coding, there will be routine updates and plenty more alphas! (Which I'm told I should really be calling pre-alphas but whatever. Semantics.)

Though speaking of alphas, one of the games I've been keeping my eyes on for months now has gone into public alpha: Cube World. It may look like a Minecraft clone on the surface, but it actually has almost nothing in common with Minecraft since it's NOT a world building game, but an RPG. What I've played so far is pretty fun, though very repetative and with a few bugs, though I can't wait to see some of the features they have planned get added! :)



July 19th, 2013:

Weather is gonna be extremely unstable in my area for most of today so my next episode of ADG might be a little late. If it doesn't go up tonight then it should be up tomorrow afternoon.



July 13th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 117 - The Kroz Series

Very tired and going to bed so I'm gonna make this short: Still behind with the music update, have a new microphone I'll be testing out over the weekend, learned how to hack my own bitmapped fonts into some old drawing software to help speed along game development and ADG stuff, and still haven't put direct links to YouTube up here yet but I will soon once I figure out how well or sucky my Content ID disputes go in regards to matches with century-old classical music. :P



July 6th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 116 - Rogue / Dugneons of Doom

I hereby declare this to be Text Mode July! :D

I also haven't selected a third text mode game to review yet, so if you guys have any suggestions, now's the time to make 'em!

Things have been very busy. Have started getting old ADG episodes up on YouTube and as you're reading this I'll be well on my way to adding a "Videos" link to the side menu as well as "Watch on YouTube" links to any ADG videos that are up on YouTube. It's still better for me if you can watch them here or on Blip since I'm not partnered on YouTube... yet... but I have plans for that. (Not even going to attempt to click the partner button until I've got at least 30 or 40 ADG episodes up.)

Other than that, behind with the music update but making some solid design progress with Vectorzone finally. If the new design works out I'll be able to finally get back to work on the thing! :D



June 25th, 2013:

So, the new YouTube channel is online now: http://www.youtube.com/user/pixelmusement

I'm not making a big a deal about it just yet because all that's there so far is a quick little introductory video. While I intend to start getting ADG stuff uploaded there soon, the weather this entire week could end up being very hostile in my area, which isn't exactly good for productivity on an electronic device, such as a computer. I'll do what I can when I can but don't be surprised if things take a lot longer to really get going than intended.

Once I have a solid block of time that isn't going to potentially be interrupted by thunderstorms, I intend to add a "Videos" section to the main side bar here on the website. At first, it won't have much, but over time it'll have links to videos that aren't exactly related to Ancient DOS Games.

Other than that there's nothing major to report. I'll keep you all up to date as more stuff goes online! :)



June 19th, 2013:

Sorry it's taking so long to get the first YouTube video up. I ran into technical difficulties with the software I was gonna use to do the background of the video, and all of today I'm gonna be fixing my father's computer by formatting the heck out of it and reinstalling all of his software. :P

So yeah, will probably be a couple more days before it's ready. The state it's currently in: 720p background and logo sequence is done, voice track is laid in fully, all I need to do is overlay scenes from various ADG videos and add the credits scroll. Simple stuff but again, I won't have any time at all to work on it today. :/



June 15th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #29 - Amulets & Armor Classic
(Please note that this is a mature-rated video.)

Yup. Amulets & Armor now has a legit, free release of the full game, complete with bug fixes and new features. Beyond what I say in the filler video, I only have one word to say to that: EPIC! :D

Beyond that, I'm sure you're all wondering why it's taking so long to get my YouTube channel going, even though it technically already exists. I've sort of being trying to come up with a good introductory video exclusively for the channel before I start uploading tons of stuff there. I did finally come up with one and will be working on it this weekend. As soon as it's ready, it'll go online and there will be a bit of a change here on the website. The "Ancient DOS Games" tab on the side is going to become a "Videos" tab, which will link to more than just Ancient DOS Games stuff. Also, while this website will primarily link to Blip, I will have links on each page that has an equivalent YouTube episode to watch the video on YouTube instead. Alas, I can't really think of an elegant solution that doesn't require me to completely overhaul the website, so that's gonna have to suffice.

Music update will be soon too, and even if I don't get more work on Vectorzone done I'll at least get another dev journal up by the end of the month going into the details of what happens when a game enters "Design Hell" as it were. It's similar to the "Development Hell" movies can end up, except in this case, the trouble is that every single solution I've been adding to the design of Vectorzone to solve one major problem creates another and after FIFTEEN revisions of the design documentation I still haven't been able to find a solid approach. x_x;

If I was making a freeware game, I wouldn't worry about it. But when you're making a product you expect to people to pay you money for, it's gotta be darned-near perfect or it simply won't sell, especially when you're producing it as an independent developer. :P

Also, as usual, since the video is marked mature, here's the hint for the next episode of ADG: You know how Breakout was so incredibly popular that many games which came after with similar gameplay were called "Breakout Clones"? Well, the game I'm convering for Episode 116 had much the same effect on gaming, where its name has become synonymous with games that have similar gameplay.



June 8th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 115 - Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri

Seriously, Looking Glass Studios must've had some of the worst luck of any company in the games industry. They made a bunch of incredibly awesome games yet relatively few people played them compared to the more stand-out titles like Doom, to the point where the costs to make these games often exceeded what LGS made back in sales. :/

To that end, I think the gameplay in this week's ADG episode is more entertaining than my commentary. ^_^;

Slowly but surely making more design progress on Vectorzone. If what I've got now is solid enough I can get back to programming it and start getting more public alphas going. YouTube stuff I've mostly just been putting off because I want to have a sort of introductory video before I start uploading stuff, but I'm still deciding how I should go about making such a video. The music update should happen around the 20th, give or take a day or two.

I'll get to fixing Filler #1 and Episode 26 later this weekend. Remember, if you see an episode that's not working properly, let me know! ;)



June 1st, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 114 - Earthworm Jim

OK! Time to get this show on the road! ...err... back on the road! ;D

Now that I've got things back on schedule for the most part, it's time to start getting some new stuff going. I've already set up a new Pixelmusement YouTube channel, though at the moment it's still very preliminary and there's nothing uploaded. That will change soon enough. ;)

The music update will be happening around the middle of the month, provided I don't get distract by more life-changing events.

And as for Vectorzone, I basically made no progress on it last month. Even now, looking through the design docs and finding more problems, I'm a bit worried about its future. I REALLY want to make a game in the style that Vectorzone already has, but there's little point if no one's gonna play it because it's poorly balanced or too complicated. I'll think of something eventually but I've got a hunch there's gonna be more radical changes to it. I've even been thinking of putting it on hold temporarily to make another game idea of mine, then go back to it following... maybe... we'll see.

Also finally got a new office chair that isn't falling apart! ;D

Lastly, I'm aware that a couple ADG videos aren't working properly at the moment: Filler #1 and Episode 26. I still need to unpack all my backup DVDs for ADG, but once I do I'll get to fixing those videos. In the interim, remember to let me know if you guys ever come across a video that refuses to play, specifically after waiting a few minutes before trying again, as I usually have to reupload these videos to get them working. :/



May 18th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 113 - God of Thunder

Almost back on schedule! :D

Yeah, I'm sick and tired of being late constantly, even if this time around it was only by a few hours, but not only did I have to move but I had to set up a brand new computer system too and deal with all kinds of other non-technological issues like spiders, ants, overgrown vines, just to name the most major ones. All those problems are past now so it's simply a matter of getting back into my normal routine.

At least to some extent. I'm gonna be starting my YouTube channel sometime next week and once I'm cleared to upload videos longer than 15 minutes I'll start getting ALL of my ADG episodes copied over. I'm also going to have a general link in the description of each video to go to my website for more information and corrections related to each video.

I also intend to upload a video to YouTube that won't be showing up on Blip before anything else, just to explain what's going on and to assure people that I'm going to be maintaining both Blip and YouTube stuff, and to explain how even though I'm skeptical of YouTube, I'm giving them a chance because there's more potential pros than cons if it works out, and because lots of viewers have requested I start uploading to YouTube.

Haven't been able to get any more work done on Vectorzone yet, but I will be getting back to it soon. As for the music update, I'm gonna wait until next month to get that going. I wanted to do it this month but the amount of time remaining to get the website hosting upgraded and get all the music transfered over, sorted, and uploaded properly, is not comfortable. I'd have to rush to get it all ready in time, but I make mistakes when I rush and making a mistake with my hosting would be a TERRIBLE idea, so I'm gonna hold off for the moment.

Nothing too much else to say at the moment. Plenty more to come though! :)



May 12th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 112 - Lawn Mower

Sorry I'm still running late with the episodes guys. I stayed up virtually all night so I could get this done as soon as possible. And now, I'm gonna go crash in my bed for a few hours... even though it's past 8:30 in the morning... x_x;



May 5th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 111 - 3D CyberPuck

This past week has been pretty hectic. As you can see, I'm only just getting this week's ADG up now, nearly two days late. Monday was spent moving and cleaning. Tuesday was spent cleaning up stuff at my old house for the new owners and starting to get things arranged back at Dad's place. Wednesday was spent setting things up and we also had a dinner party with my sister and her husband. Thursday we went out and picked up stuff so I could build a new computer to replace my current rig, though I'm still waiting on a few ordered parts, and it wasn't until Thursday night when I was FINALLY able to start work on Episode 111. x_x;

I also had a ton of yard-work to do yesterday thanks to overgrown vines literally pushing the window for my new bedroom out of its socket! o_o;

Anywhoo, episode's up now, so that's what matters. Next week's another small game and I probably won't be able to start work on it until Wednesday, though I'm pretty sure I can get it out on time. Following that, I should have a lot more time on my hands as everything settles down.

There's a couple other things I should mention too. Firstly, Jeff Sinasac, Canadian actor and creator of Caverns of Xaskazien, recently uploaded a bunch of Let's Play videos of the sequel he's working on to YouTube, which you can check out on his YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/VirtuaSinner

Lastly, I'm not sure I'll be able to get to everything I intended to this month. Getting on YouTube will definitely happen, my music update will happen too, but getting the next public alpha of Vectorzone ready before the month is over... I'm not so sure about that. I'll see what I can do but as always, Ancient DOS Games takes priority since that's the reason why 99% of you are even here! ;)



April 19th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #28 - Life Stuff

Not much to say beyond what's in the filler, plus it's online early because I'm tried and want to go to bed. Goodnight, everone! :)



April 13th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 110 - Camrageddon
(Please note that this is a mature-rated episode.)

Got a lot of guesses for this week's game. Almost as many as Duke Nukem 3D! ;D

But yeah, kinda short on edutainment stuff so I decided to go the complete opposite direction with this one... kinda. I recall the term "educational" being used to describe things that would teach kids about stuff parents didn't want them to learn about, and in that respect, Carmageddon is HIGHLY educational! :D

In any case, I ended up with a lot of additional information for this week's episode since I ran short on time and didn't have enough time to really expand on the script. Heck, a couple of the paragraphs I came up with on-the-fly while recording because it would've been inexcusable not to mention them. :P

In terms of everything else, so long as things go according to plan this weekend, I'll have some rather important news in my filler video next Saturday. I'm gonna do my best not to let this news impact making ADG, though don't be surprised if Episode 111 is a day or two late as a result.

The plus side though is that if everything works out, I'll be building myself a new computer soon after made with high-end components to replace my current rig! X3

As for my music update and the YouTube stuff, I haven't forgotten about these things I just haven't had the time. This month has been hectic but next month and every month following shouldn't be nearly as bad if everything works out. Again, more info to come next weekend. :)



April 6th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 109 - 3-D Dinosaur Adventure

I'm kinda glad 3-D Body Adventure won the most votes last year... this week's game is almost intolerably bad. x_x;

Also, a lot of people have been requesting that I post my stuff up on YouTube. As much as I'd rather not since I'm not a fan of YouTube... this IS the most requested thing I do at the moment, and while there is a potential for losing ad revenue from doing this, which is what's paying for this webspace at the moment, there's also the potential to get more viewers which could help offset that change if it does happen. Plus, it'll make it easier for fans of my show who are more popular than I am (such as Clint and his awesome Lazy Game Reviews web show) to link back to my stuff. There's also a greater potential to get noticed by gaming sites who could support the show with their own advertising platforms which would actually be even better for me because the ads would be more relevant and I would get more ad revenue per view.

I know, some people would be quick to point out that I shouldn't be doing this for the money and they're right. I run my ADG webshow because I want to share the fun of old DOS games with everyone and sort of archive their existence. But, people still need money to live, so I have to concern myself with this sort of thing and ensure I make decisions that don't completely derail my ability to work on the stuff my fans love.

The only major catch to being on YouTube though is that I won't have time to really read/moderate the comments. Hopefully you guys, my fans, will be able to handle that for me and report any abusive, malicious or spammy comments because you are all made of win! :D

That's another interesting thing I've noticed. I personally have gotten extremely little negative feedback since starting the show, but I'm sort of expecting an influx once the whole YouTube thing is sorted out and I can start uploading there. I guess we'll see soon enough.

Vectorzone progress is still very slow at the moment but you'll notice I've changed the tagline at the top of the page a bit. In order to get progress of the game back on track I'm simplifying it a bit so that I stop running into conflicting design decisions. The game will be a little more arcadey than before and there's now an increased emphasis on collecting lots of stuff and customizing your items. In fact, the customization aspect is VERY prominent now. So much so that using non-customized items is balanced against the player. Believe it or not, this simplified the design process substantially since now, there's only a handful of non-customized items. Besides, it'll be really easy to get stuff customized after just a single infiltration anyways so it's not like this is gonna make the game worse or anything. Just easier to pick up and play. ;)

Also, it's extremely likely I'll be moving at the end of the month. I'm gonna do my best to ensure this doesn't disrupt ADG or anything but if anything does get disrupted, it's likely because I'm dealing with packing and everything. :P



March 30th, 2013:

So... let's talk bandwidth.

At present, my webhost provides me with 200 GB worth of bandwidth per month. Used to be only 25 GB but got bumped up when they started offering unlimited plans which are slightly more expensive. I never upgraded to an unlimited plan because I didn't really see a need to.

However, while prepping a whole bunch of my music to upload, the numbers started to worry me, so I ran them through and noticed that, if every regular viewer of Ancient DOS Games downloaded all 61 (yes, sixty one) of the music files I was intending to upload, it would burn at least 250 GB, 50 GB more than I'm currently provided! D:

So, for the moment, I'm gonna have to delay the music upload until I can upgrade my webhosting account, but at least you all have a better idea now of why I've been so hesitant to get all my music up: There's a TON of it! And this is just the stuff I'm willing to share! Most of my really old music is rather poor quality and thus isn't going to be uploaded anytime soon, while most of my recent music is some of the best stuff I've ever tracked and thus I want it to be first heard in Vectorzone. ;)

There's other things going on in my life outside of the internet too which is going to make April an extraordinarily busy month for me. Here's hoping it all goes well! :)



March 16th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 108 - Betrayal at Krondor

Sorry today's ADG episode is slightly late. Ran into some troubles while making it, not to mention this week in general has been rather difficult outside of website stuff. All things considered though, I think I did alright. :)

Gonna be a bit of a wait until the next episode of ADG. I plan to finally get my music up on here next weekend or the weekend after, plus I'm hoping to get some serious work done on Vectorzone. Development is almost at a standstill, though it won't stay that way forever as I really do want to get more work done on it. There's just been so much stuff going on...

...and I kinda got into Minecraft again thanks to FTB ^_^;

...OK yeah, that's been sucking up a lot of my productive time, but it's also been helping to inspire some design progress on Vectorzone, including a very neat way of actually accessing the Vectorzone itself in-game that should be extremely fun. ;)

Not much else to say at the moment. Gonna fix a graphical issue with ALL of my Season 3 ADG episodes over the weekend and I'll keep all of you up to date on things as they happen!



March 9th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 107 - Wing Commander

Lots of correct guesses for this week's Ancient DOS Game. Not surprised. ;)

Though, this was my first time playing through the DOS version and I was kinda surprised at how badly the DOS version has aged compared to other ports like the SNES version, which is the one I first played many years ago.

Ah well. Wing Commander was one of the most requested games for ADG so I had to cover it sooner or later. ;)

Vectorzone progress has been very slow still, though I have come up with a few neat design ideas which may help solve some of the more minor issues I've run into, such as how the level progression will actually work, ie: how random is everything and what control does the player have over the non-random aspects?

I still need to graphically plan out a lot of this. Once I make some real progress, then more real progress is sure to follow. :)



March 2nd, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 106 - Aquanoid

Really tired at the moment, so just getting the latest ADG uploaded then going to bed. Goodnight everyone! :)



February 16th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Filler #27 - ScummVM

Beyond uploading the first filler video of 2013, I do have a couple pieces of news. Firstly, I've got the design for Vectorzone back on track again. In doing so, it's no longer an open-world game, but it once again has its dungeon crawl aspects back. Yeah, the design has been through so many iterrations now I would've lost count if not for me keeping my design docs numbered. However, it's pretty solid for the moment, so if it continues to stay solid I'll get back into programming it soon enough and should have a new public alpha ready soon. Once that's up I'll update the FAQs and banners and everything to reflect how the game will now play. :)

A much bigger piece of news though is that the Good Old Games website has managed to secure the rights to System Shock 2! As such, the game is now for sale from them for $10. Considering this is one of the best games ever made and follows up very well to the original System Shock, it's definite worth checking out if you've never played it before. Just follow this link if you want to get a copy: http://www.gog.com/gamecard/system_shock_2

I know it may seem kinda weird having only three videos a month now, but I really do need the extra time so I can work on my other stuff. I'm just hoping I can deliver some solid games to all of you in the coming months! ;)



February 9th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 105 - Star Trek: 25th Anniversary

Beyond getting the next ADG episode up, I also have a new Vectorzone Development Journal up to explain why there hasn't been any public alphas recently, despite the fact I've been trying to get one out virtually every week for the past several weeks. x_x;

Other than that, not too much to say at the moment. Been a long day and I'm pretty tired. Goodnight! :)



February 2nd, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 104 - Roketz

I'm running a little behind with Vectorzone stuff at the moment, as I had to redesign a rather important aspect of the game, which is why I haven't been able to get the next public alpha up yet. Progress on Vectorzone has slowed down much more than I anticipated, but I AM still making progress, and that's what's important. :)

Also in the process of selling my house at the moment, which is cutting into my time for doing everything, since I have to keep it clean, have to be ready for people who make requests to see the place, etc.

Basically, a lot's going on. :P



January 19th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 103 - Quest for Glory

Lots to mention today. Firstly, as I said before, I'm doing three episodes a month now, so today's Ancient DOS Games episode is the last for the month. The next one will be on February 2nd. ;)

Secondly, I found out that Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II are now being sold together on the Good Old Games website for $6, so I've added links to those on the appropriate ADG episodes. Also, Leisure Suit Larry has showed up on GOG.com as well as a package of games 1 thru 6, including BOTH versions of the original, for $10! Considering the difficulty I went through trying to get both versions of the original game for ADG, this is welcome news to anyone who's been wanting to get these games! :)

Thirdly, DOSBox, the program that I use for capturing all the footage for my ADG episodes, the program that makes it so easy to play old DOS games on modern computers, has become the first project ever to be declared "Project of the Month" by SourceForge for a second time! Just goes to show useful this thing is! ;D

Finally, I haven't made any recent progress on Vectorzone for about a bajillion and twentyseventeen reasons. With my week off from ADG coming up though, I plan to get a TON of work done next week. Upcoming features to the alpha include being able to select a different VAC, being able to adjust the game's options, a preliminary title screen and GUI, and possibly the beginnings of the adventure aspects of the gameplay. There's still a ton of work to do and I'm not nearly as far along as I wanted to be by now. But, I need to make this game, plus I have so much more I want to make afterwards. Plus I need to start making money again since ADG's ad revenue doesn't really pay for much beyond a game or two a month and my webspace. ^_^;



January 12th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 102 - Xenophage

The next ADG is finally up and I'm extremely tired. Goodnight everyone. ^_^;



January 5th, 2013:

Click here to watch Ancient DOS Games Episode 101 - Descent II

Season 3 of Ancient DOS Games has begun! :D

I decided to start things off with one of my most favourite DOS games and have also changed the format of the show slightly. The different asecpts of the games are now split up a bit to cut down on awkward transitions, plus the ticker bar may be larger but now it goes away for most of the video, leaving a nearly invisible watermark in its place. The ticker bar was the biggest complaint I ever had about the show, if you can believe that. :P

Also, some good news for people who want to watch the show on their Android devices: Blip FINALLY has an app for watching Blip-hosted videos! Since a number of you have asked about this in the past it's good that there's finally a solution! :D

In terms of Vectorzone, I haven't made much progress the past couple weeks due to getting ready with the start of Season 3 of ADG, but now that I've got everything going I should be able to get back to work on it soon enough. I know it's been awhile since the last public alpha and everything but the game is still on track, don't worry. ;)

Lastly, just a reminder that new episodes of ADG will be on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Saturdays of every month. Any Saturday's following in a month won't have new videos. This is to help pace myself better so that I can build up my DOS game collection more reliably. This way, it should be possible to do a Season 4 following.

Plenty more to come so make sure to keep checking back!

drex
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