Packing into one floppy disk

[leilei]

Say you had one floppy disk of any supported size (360k, 720k, 1.2mb/1.4mb) and you wanted to use that one very disk to play a lot of variety on some old computer with a floppy drive. on a desert island. and it's not an apple ][ it's an ibm computer sans hard disk (of no particular model)

What would you fit on it for maximum funnage?!


RULES: no installers/compressed archives, no modern windowsey 3d cardey stuff that'd need a harddrive to operate anyway (sorry .kkrieger)
don't share your images unless it's legal of shareware/freeware then it's okay (but beware of the allegedly 'PUBLIC DOMAIN' games that are hexed commercial releases)
hardware support whatever
booting is totally optional, infact booting is really cool

[DOSGuy]

Challenge accepted!

1.44 MB

Since the computer has no hard drive, I went with a bootable FreeDOS disk. Normally it would be tempting to go with small text-based games (quantity over quality), but I realized that there are a number of games with graphics that used Assembly language to keep the file size small. I prioritized complete games (whether shareware or freeware) over partial games. I managed to fit 4 VGA games, 1 EGA game, 1 CGA game, and 1 ASCII game on a 1.44 MB disk. The disk is also pretty well rounded, featuring an arcade game, two arcade puzzle games, a ball and paddle game, a platform game, a war game, and a dungeon crawl, with 10.5 KB to spare for high scores or saved games.

The Adventures of Captain Comic Release 5
Brix v1.0
Cybersphere Registered Version
DND v1.2:1
Paku Paku v1.3
Scorched Earth v1.0
VGATetris v1.1

I usually picked the smallest version of each game, with the rule that no unnecessary files are to be removed, since documentation sometimes contains license information that can't legally be removed if you distribute the game. I removed only the source code folder from Paku Paku. I included a mouse driver for Cybersphere and Scorched Earth, and himem to increase conventional memory, but I didn't bother with emm386 since any game that fits on a floppy wouldn't be large enough to need extended memory. I ended up running out of space, and the obvious thing to remove was the HTML file from Paku Paku. An HTML file wouldn't be very useful on a computer with no browser, and the game is public domain, so there are no legal requirements to keep any of the files.

1.2 MB

My ultimate 1.2 MB floppy got rid of the mouse driver and swapped VGATetris for Vadim Gerasimov's ASCII Tetris, and got rid of everything else except for Paku Paku and Brix. This allowed me to add Chopper Commando, Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons, and Jetpack.

Brix v1.0
Chopper Commando v2.0
Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons v1.3
Jetpack v1.0
Paku Paku v1.3
Tetris v3.12

There are 2 VGA games, 1 EGA game, 2 CGA games, and 1 ASCII game. This image has two platform games, an arcade game, two action puzzle games, and a simulation game, with 47.5 KB left for high scores and saved games.

2.88 MB

Making a 2.88 MB disk may seem like a loophole, using an obscure format to squeeze in more awesome, but I actually own a 2.88 MB drive, so I feel entitled. If you're trapped on a desert island with a late model PS/2, you can play any game from the 1.2 and 1.44 MB disk (keeping VGATetris over Tetris), plus Mah Jongg -V-G-A- and Monuments of Mars.

There are 6 VGA games, 2 EGA games, 3 CGA games, and 1 ASCII game. This image has four platform games, an arcade game, two arcade puzzle games, a traditional game, a ball and paddle game, a dungeon crawl, a simulation game, and a war game, with 17 KB left for high scores and saved games.

The Adventures of Captain Comic Release 5
Brix v1.0
Chopper Commando v2.0
Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons v1.3
Cybersphere Registered Version
DND v1.2:1
Jetpack v1.0
Mah Jongg -V-G-A- v1.1
Monuments of Mars Registered Version
Paku Paku v1.3
Scorched Earth v1.0
VGATetris v1.1

[leilei]

if you go for 2.88, you can update your Scorched Earth to the awesome superior 1.2 versions

here's my 1.2mb disk. What it has:

Kentris (sounds had to 5khz and trimmed a bit for space, though that is the only modification)
Paku Paku 1.3
Super Worms (VGA)
American Civil War Battleset (not on CDG)
Chopper Commando 2.56
Arcade Volleyball
Sopwith - Author's Edition (not on CDG and it should be imo)
Off Road (not on CDG)
Battleship Program 1.6 (not on CDG)
Chess 88 (not on CDG)
Cavequest (not on CDG. Was gonna put Nethack, Hack or Dungeons on, but couldn't fit those.)

I was going for a balance between competition and single play while shooting for the XT platform. it's a disk i'll test xt emulators with too