Howdy

[lemm]

Hello folks,

I grew up playing DOS games on my Dad's 386 all throughout the 90's, and a couple years ago, I fell in love with modding the Commander Keen games (I only wish I had started a decade sooner!) Last year I decided to continue the ongoing, yet sporadic, communal reverse-engineering of the Commander Keen Galaxy series. The end result was a multiplayer Keen game that can be played over the internet thanks to the DosBox IPX tunneling functionality. (If you wanna play, check my sig).

I've seen a few DOS gaming communities, but I'm really excited about this one since there appears to be a large contingent of programmers who are making DOS games! (I see a few familiar faces already )


Lemm

[MrFlibble]

Hello and welcome I'm not a programmer but I'm interested in modding old games among other things

I've also compiled a small list of various sites dedicated to DOS gaming (no warez or "abandonware", only legal stuff), you might want to check it out

[DOSGuy]

Welcome to the site, lemm!

It's a small community, but we have some very knowledgeable and friendly regulars. It's been many years since I made a DOS game, but I did create a game last week that I'm looking forward to sharing with everyone.

Thanks for the great review of RGB, MrFlibble. I think it's fair and accurate. The only detail I would correct is that the petitions never led to a freeware release. Unless you can get a million signatures, I don't think any copyright holder cares about a petition. All but one of the games that I created a petition for were eventually declared freeware or made available for sale again, but the petition never had anything to do with it. Every freeware declaration that I have had a role in has been accomplished by simply writing or phoning the copyright holder.

Since you mentioned Demu, I do have a few problems with that site. There's no question that they have an enormous number of games, but there's hardly any information about each game. That's a quality versus quantity tradeoff that I can certainly understand, given how many sites there are that provide extensive reviews. I have no problem with the quantity-only approach, but... it would be nice if they at least had the latest version of each game, and hosted only unaltered archives. Most of the games that I've downloaded from there lately have been v1.0 in games that had many subsequent versions. If you're going to only host one version of each game, host the best one! And since a lot of the stuff I've downloaded from there has been in the RAR format, I haven't been able to fill out RGB's missing versions with files from Demu.

[MrFlibble]

The only detail I would correct is that the petitions never led to a freeware release. Unless you can get a million signatures, I don't think any copyright holder cares about a petition. All but one of the games that I created a petition for were eventually declared freeware or made available for sale again, but the petition never had anything to do with it. Every freeware declaration that I have had a role in has been accomplished by simply writing or phoning the copyright holder.

I didn't know that, thanks for the info Petitions are still a nice initiative IMO, even if they actually don't help a lot achieving the goal.

Since you mentioned Demu, I do have a few problems with that site. There's no question that they have an enormous number of games, but there's hardly any information about each game. That's a quality versus quantity tradeoff that I can certainly understand, given how many sites there are that provide extensive reviews. I have no problem with the quantity-only approach, but... it would be nice if they at least had the latest version of each game, and hosted only unaltered archives. Most of the games that I've downloaded from there lately have been v1.0 in games that had many subsequent versions. If you're going to only host one version of each game, host the best one! And since a lot of the stuff I've downloaded from there has been in the RAR format, I haven't been able to fill out RGB's missing versions with files from Demu.

Ah yes, you've pointed out the things that I'm also concerned about. The lack of extensive information about the game is most certainly attributed to the fact that the site is maintained by a single person; as for the older versions of games, I'm in contact with the site's author, Swizzle, and I post info on games that have newer releases in the forums. I think he mentioned sometime that he'd like to add multiple versions for each game when possible, but there are some complications with the software the site runs on or something. Repackaging archives in RAR format was most probably done in order to conserve site space (the site's storage space had recently been increased greatly), and also maybe because RAR archives have the "rescue record" option, so perhaps it's also an attempt to increase the security of the files at the cost of archive authenticity.

[DOSGuy]

We're starting to hijack lemm's howdy thread, but what the heck.

The lack of extensive information about the game is most certainly attributed to the fact that the site is maintained by a single person

This site is also maintained by a single person, with the assistance of dedicated regulars like you. As far as hosting multiple copies of each game, that would sort of bring Demu full circle again. When Demu started as DOS Games Museum, the site was so similar to this site (right down to the mission statement) that I contacted Swizzle and asked if he wanted to just merge projects. He said that he had plans to take the site in a different direction, and he certainly did. If he ends up collecting every version of each game, it will end up being RGB all over again, but with more games and shorter reviews.

As for the RAR thing, what kind of hosting package doesn't come with unlimited storage? I used to have a package with 1&1 for $3.99/month that came with 10 GB of storage, but now we're with Host Gator for $7.99/month with unlimited storage and bandwidth.

[MrFlibble]

When Demu started as DOS Games Museum, the site was so similar to this site (right down to the mission statement) that I contacted Swizzle and asked if he wanted to just merge projects. He said that he had plans to take the site in a different direction, and he certainly did. If he ends up collecting every version of each game, it will end up being RGB all over again, but with more games and shorter reviews.

Well, I think Demu is certainly going in a different direction right now, expanding the database of games, utilities and other apps as well as "extras" for games like trainers and such kind of stuff. It is my understanding that Demu is aimed at paying equal attention to games and other software from the era, and also at collecting unofficial extras that are hard to find elsewhere or maybe have become obsolete and are only of historical interest.

As for the RAR thing, I honestly don't know, I'm just guessing I used to repack everything in RAR archives myself some time ago, it was a kind of a leftover from the days when my old PC had rather limited HD space so I had to conserve it whenever possible. This habit had stuck for some time even when there was no longer any real need for it. And, of course, part of my preference for RAR archives lied in the fact that it has the recovery record option which makes you feel that archiving with RAR is more reliable

[Litude]

Hey, nice to see a new face around here

The end result was a multiplayer Keen game that can be played over the internet thanks to the DosBox IPX tunneling functionality. (If you wanna play, check my sig).

That thing is totally amazing btw, I recommend everyone here to give it a spin.

[ThreeHeadedMonkey]

Welcome lemm! I will give NetKeen a try, thanks!

[developertn]

Well, for what is worth, Thanks Lemm for your contribution.