Everett Kaser games

[strtj]

Are any of the Everett Kaser games (http://www.kaser.com) going to be added to this site? I have no idea how popular they were in the rest of the world, but my whole family enjoyed Solitile. My father and I also enjoyed Sherlock for many years. Some of the other games (like Snarf, which his website doesn't even list) were HARD and I haven't played any of his more recent ones. I always really liked the guy, though, because he sent a personal letter and several demo games when my dad registered Solitile.

[DOSGuy]

I've never heard of him! The short answer is, if he wrote games for DOS that were marketed or distributed, then they're candidates for Classic DOS Games. That is to say, I don't consider a game that John Doe wrote in his high school computer class, that was never played by anyone other than his buddies, to be a "classic" game. If you and your family played and enjoyed these games, then they sound like classic games. I'll have to check out the games to find out if they can be legally distributed but, at first glance, this looks like a good find.

[leilei]

I always liked "Hero's Heart" which was super fun


I wasn't aware he even had a site :O

And yes, his games were distributed and found around in the early 90s, and on some shovelware though they're tougher to find there apparently

[DOSGuy]

Okay, we've got all of Everett Kaser's DOS games on the site now, and he's released Snarf as freeware. There will be an interview shortly.

[kilodude]

Everett lives near me (well he did the last time I talked to him which has been a few years ago) and I've been to his house and he's been to mine. He's a truly nice guy. He included a number of my levels as bonus levels on "Snarf."

[DOSGuy]

Neat! I like hearing about authors from other authors. David P. Gray related to me that he had turned down a number of interviews in the past, but it helped change his mind when he noticed that I had interviewed Nels Anderson, who he considers a friend. It's interesting to me that authors who never worked for the same company sometimes know each other well.

Incidentally, I did interview Everett Kaser, though the interview doesn't appear on the site yet. We talked about his DOS games, but I've found it almost impossible to find copies of his Win16 games, so the interview process kind of got interrupted while I took a break to do more research. I hope to wrap things up soon.

[leilei]

It'd be cool if the font used in his earlier DOS games were a .ttf font, since it seems to be shaped proportionally well to fit into Windows.

[kilodude]

Neat! I like hearing about authors from other authors. David P. Gray related to me that he had turned down a number of interviews in the past, but it helped change his mind when he noticed that I had interviewed Nels Anderson, who he considers a friend. It's interesting to me that authors who never worked for the same company sometimes know each other well.

Incidentally, I did interview Everett Kaser, though the interview doesn't appear on the site yet. We talked about his DOS games, but I've found it almost impossible to find copies of his Win16 games, so the interview process kind of got interrupted while I took a break to do more research. I hope to wrap things up soon.

Which Win16 games are you looking for?

[DOSGuy]

Hi Allen.

It was impolite of me not to answer, but for the last couple of weeks I've been involved in a government selection process in an effort to end almost 11 months of unemployment. It would have taken me a while to compile a list of the games I'm looking for, and my brain just rejected the idea of working on any project, large or small, until my competency overviews were written, signed by my validators, and reviewed ad nauseum to ensure that they covered everything that I need to convey within the 8 page limit. With so much at stake, this has been the most stressful process I can remember taking part in. I have no doubt that I possess the competencies that I'm having assessed, but the process is made to be so intimidating that you have to scrutinize every word you write. If you've ever considered trying to get a government job, be advised that you will take a mental and physical toll to get it.

So, that's why there's been such a big gap between updates on the site. I've just sealed the envelope and I'll be taking it to the office in about an hour. I added a couple of games this morning, and I'll try to calm my nerves long enough to get you an answer about those missing games. Hopefully things will return to normal over the weekend.

[kilodude]

Hi Allen.

It was impolite of me not to answer... If you've ever considered trying to get a government job, be advised that you will take a mental and physical toll to get it.

Not a problem.

P.S. I've had a government job for nearly 12 years so I DO understand.

[DOSGuy]

Okay, the long awaited answer to the Everett Kaser question!!! Here's a list of all of Everett Kaser's games, in chronological order.

Code: Select all

Snarf                   DOS from 1.0 to 2.61 (1988-1993)
Solitile                DOS from 1.0 to 3.61 (1989-1994)
Sherlock                DOS from 1.1 to 2.07 (1991-1996)
Hero's Heart            DOS from 1.0 to 1.52 (1992-1996)
Kosynka                 DOS from 1.0 to 1.1 (1992)

Sherlock for Windows    Win16 from 3.0a to 4.0 (1995-2000), Win9x for 5.0a to 6.0 (2002-2009)
Solitile for Windows    Win16 from 4.0 to 4.5a (1997-1999), Win9x from 5.0b to 5.1 (2001-2004)
Dinner With Moriarty    Win16 from 1.0 to 1.1a (1997), Win9x for 2.0 (2004)
MESH: Hero's Hearts     Win16 from 1.0 to 1.1c (1998), Win9x for 3.0 (2007)
MESH: Hero Defiant      Win16 for 1.1c (1998), Win9x for 3.0 (2007)
Descartes Enigma        Win16 for 1.1 (1998), Win9x for 2.0 (2003)
Floyd's Bumpershoot     Win16 for 1.0 (1999), Win9x for 2.0 (2007)
Honeycomb Hotel         Win16 from 1.0 to 1.0a (1999), Win9x for 2.0 (2006)
MESH: Falling Hero      Win16 for 2.0 (2000), Win9x for 3.0 (2007)
MESH: Hero's Friends    Win16 for 2.0 (2000), Win9x for 3.0 (2007) -- no shareware version
Knarly Works            Win16 from 1.0 to 1.1 (2000-2004), Win9x for 2.0 to 2.0a (2005-2006)

Lunatile                Win9x for 1.0 to 2.0 (2001-2008)
Knarly Mazes            Win9x for 1.0 (2002)
Latin Squares           Win9x for 1.0 to 2.0 (2002-2006)
Occam's Quilt           Win9x for 1.0 (2003)
Descartes Rainbow       Win9x for 1.0 (2003)
Crocotile               Win9x for 1.0 (2004)
Watson's Map            Win9x for 1.0 (2004)
Knarly Jigs             Win9x for 1.0 (2005)
Greek Squares           Win9x for 1.0 (2006)
Baker Street            Win9x for 1.0 (2006)
Fermat's Fences         Win9x for 1.0 (2007)
Knarly Branches         Win9x for 1.0 (2007)
Flipitile               Win9x for 1.0 (2008)
Scotland Yard           Win9x for 1.0 (2008)
Knarly Hexes            Win9x for 1.0 (2009)
Inspector Lestrade      Win9x for 1.0 (2009)
Knarly Combs            Win9x for 1.0 (2010)

The answer to the question is that I can't find any Win16 copies of Descartes Enigma, MESH: Falling Hero and Knarly Works. The zip files names were de.zip, meshfh.zip and knarly.zip.

Actually, I can't find Win16 copies of any game after MESH: Hero's Hearts. The shovelware era ended (and besides which, shareware compilation CDs would have moved on to Win9x by then), so cd.textfiles.com can't help me after 1997. Any sites that claim to actually have Win16 versions of the games for download are just hotlinking to Everett Kaser's site, and the links are now dead. I was able to get copies of MESH: Hero Defiant, Floyd's Bumpershoot and Honeycomb Hotel from archive.org. Links to zip files often don't work, and when they do work, the zip file is almost always corrupted. On very rare occasions, the damage is minimal enough that WinRAR is able to repair the archive for me, and that's how I managed to recover some of the zip files by basically grabbing them from the past. I haven't been able to download a salvageable copy of those three games, though, which is really frustrating.

Google and Clusty searches for meshfh.zip and knarly.zip produce nothing, and naturally searching for de.zip produces thousands of results. When I add search terms like "Descartes" or "Kaser" to reduce the results, eventually I get to a point where there are no results. It really doesn't look like anyone bothered to host any of Everett Kaser's games for Windows. A few dishonest sites claim to have copies, but kaser.com is always the only mirror.

Everett didn't seem hopeful that he could help me fill in the gaps in Classic DOS Games' collection, so I'm afraid that some versions, and perhaps three entire games (at least the Win16 versions), will be lost to time.

[ThreeHeadedMonkey]

Looks like you did quite a bit of research! This information could be helpful, thanks. Too bad about those missing games though. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.

[DOSGuy]

I spoke too soon! Everett Kaser was indeed able to find copies of his Win16 games, so we now have at least one version of every Everett Kaser DOS/Win16 game. Our sincere thanks to Mr. Kaser.