Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Remembering the best shareware-era DOS games that time forgot (2019)

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 99 posts

Re: Remembering the best shareware-era DOS games that time forgot (2019)

#31

Post by Mezzie »

staindk wrote: post #16
hestefisk wrote: post #8

Secret Agent ftw! Wacky Wheels! Commander Keen!

Will always have a soft spot for CK! My dad introduced me to Keen, Prince of Persia (and other classics like Doom and Wolfenstein etc.) when I was tiny. I still recall how he contrasted the comical/arcade-y movement in Keen to the "realistic" movement in PoP. I was 3 or 4 years old, mind. It was great to see this [1] on HN the other day - it led me to this [2] video which kind of served to explain to my dad and I how…

I believe both TIM and Chip's Challenge are available on Archive to play in browser.

The first game I remember playing on my own is the first Commander Keen. I was very proud of being able to start and run it on my own from DOS (I was 3; using a text-only input mode is difficult when you're pre-literate!)

Re: Remembering the best shareware-era DOS games that time forgot (2019)

#32

Post by Mitzz »

staindk wrote: post #15
Mitzz wrote: post #4

I wish these were all available on Android so that I could play them on my phone. However, UI issues, my own technical incompetence and laziness (if they don't come up after a Play Store search then I don't check much further) stand in the way. Unless someone has any suggestions? I would think DosBox would not work well on a small screen?

DoxBox does IMO work well on Android but it's clunky to set up - you likely need some variant of a "hacker keyboard" installed to make initial setups easier for games, and then AFAIK you'll probably need to also install another keyboard of choice that supports the buttons your game needs. All in all it likely is worth it for some games if you're nostalgic enough for them but don't feel like playing them when you're a…

Thank you. Sounds like DosBox is worth it. I will give it a shot!

Re: Remembering the best shareware-era DOS games that time forgot (2019)

#33

Post by BMc2020 »

eesmith wrote: post #28
BMc2020 wrote: post #9

I played the hell out of a game that only had 4 colors. 'Pyromaniac' and the filename was pyroman.exe (It looked a lot like sleuth, the first game on the list). You had to go through buildings trailing a burning fuse that you couldn't let catch you, and also there were cans of gas that would explode across several walls. Higher levels required quite a bit of strategy, intentionally starting fires so they would burn o…

You might like Pyro II v2.2 - https://archive.org/details/PyroV2.2.3SW1991MichaelOBrienAct...

This is the game, thank you for finding it for me. I mis-remembered the name. I'll give it a go again when I get home.

Re: Remembering the best shareware-era DOS games that time forgot (2019)

#34

Post by Semaphor »

One of my favorite games was Liga [0] (German for league, a football managing simulation), got the shareware in some gaming mag, later sent 5 DM in an envelope to the author and got an envelope with a floppy disk of the full version back :D Not quite DOS Era, but still old. The only DOS game I played was Prince of Persia at my dad’s workplace because we didn’t have a family PC until Win 95.

[0]: http://www.ligapro.de/ (Not Liga Pro, scroll down further to "Liga 1.24 als Vollversion", apparently it’s free, nowadays :D)

Re: Remembering the best shareware-era DOS games that time forgot (2019)

#36

Post by marginalia_nu »

hestefisk wrote: post #8

Secret Agent ftw! Wacky Wheels! Commander Keen!

Commander Keen was the first game I ever played. Took me a long while to figure out he had a raygun. Shooting was some weird combination of inputs, like ctrl+space, not the first thing you try.

... also

* Raptor: Call of the Shadows.

* Magus.

* Jill of the jungle.

* Mystic Towers.

* Terminal Velocity.

The Psygnosis logo was legit the coolest thing I ever saw when I was single digit years old.

Post reply on HN