Exciting work ahead of you! Thanks for sharing.

well its a bit of fun and no body has really made a full dos game release in over 20 years 🤣

+1 for the e series Falcon.

doscore wrote on 2021-01-01, 10:25:

...no body has really made a full dos game release in over 20 years 🤣

Oh you'd be surprised 😉

doscore wrote on 2021-01-01, 10:25:

no body has really made a full dos game release in over 20 years 🤣

http://www.doshaven.eu/

I have enough experience of game development, can I join your team?

I developed games on ADS SDK, RapidM, Android, python, etc.
I'm not sure what platform you based, but I certainly have ever do.

If you interest on me, please contact to aaronglk1017@gmail.com

So ive been playing this for the last few days and its kinda fun to play with 3 missions and an extremely hard difficulty setting An update for those interested

some new game play
http://vediio.com/flash/newflash/video/664476d4eec07.mp4

Cheat codes are now available in the game and theyre kinda cool.
http://vediio.com/flash/newflash/video/6631dde3b5fc6.mp4

its pretty slow going i thought id have this done by time covid would have been all over with but nope 🤣.

i have let a few people test it.. its still a tad buggy i mean its a side project of love.

i worked really hard on getting it working for the mips architecture so i could play it on ps2 linux but its not quite there yet..

http://vediio.com/flash/newflash/video/6628c96092b9a.mp4

zirkoni wrote on 2021-01-02, 08:31:

doscore wrote on 2021-01-01, 10:25:

no body has really made a full dos game release in over 20 years 🤣

http://www.doshaven.eu/

oh yes of course but no commercial games i was meaning 😀

There are some commercial games listed on that site: https://www.doshaven.eu/licence/commercial/

Retro City Rampage and Planet X3 are probably the most well known of those.

The problem with such recent releases is though that they're all intentionally made "retro", I think.

Uber retro games like PakuPaku or MagiDuck, targetting XT PCs with CGA graphics.
That's all nice, of course, each to his own. I even admire their programmer's dedication!

But to DOS gamers like me who grew up with MCGA and VGA games, it's not "DOS" as we remember it.
DOS in my era was Beneath a Steel Sky, MS Flight Simulator 4+5 (hires), Sky Roads, Sam&Max, ST:A Final Unity, Frederik Pohl's Gateway, Desert Strike, Falcon 3.0, Virtual Chess, Battle Chess,
Flight of the Amazon Queen, Descent, Zeppelin - Giants of The Sky, Cobra Mission, Knights of Xentar or Princess Maker 2, etc.

Not Pac Man or ASCII text-mode games, in short. Though I would make an exception to IF games and Zork.
Those PC/XT homebrew games look to people like me like C64 games would look to Amiga users.

If you showed them a C64 game when they asked you for a new Amiga game, they would choke or be severely disappointed, I think.

But that's the point, really. Modern DOS development is done by fans of IBM PC and IBM PC/XT - like a counter movement to modern C64 development.

Games using 320x200 256c, 640x480 16c or 640x400 256c or 800x600 16c is not interesting to them.
Development for non-IBM standards such as Olivetti or Hercules isn't interesting, either.

Edit: This not meant as a complaint, it's merely a realization by a disillusioned person.
I'm just glad that VMs are still able to boot real MS-DOS, even if native boot nolonger is possible.
So sophisticated, resource hungry game development or engine porting is still possible, as it's for any current x86 OS. 🙂

Jo22 wrote on 2024-10-31, 15:43:

The problem with such recent releases is though that they're all intentionally made "retro", I think. […]
Show full quote

The problem with such recent releases is though that they're all intentionally made "retro", I think.

Uber retro games like PakuPaku or MagiDuck, targetting XT PCs with CGA graphics.
That's all nice, of course, each to his own. I even admire their programmer's dedication!

But to DOS gamers like me who grew up with MCGA and VGA games, it's not "DOS" as we remember it.
DOS in my era was Beneath a Steel Sky, MS Flight Simulator 4+5 (hires), Sky Roads, Sam&Max, ST:A Final Unity, Frederik Pohl's Gateway, Desert Strike, Falcon 3.0, Virtual Chess, Battle Chess,
Flight of the Amazon Queen, Descent, Zeppelin - Giants of The Sky, Cobra Mission, Knights of Xentar or Princess Maker 2, etc.

I think more it is that a single coder can achieve "simpler" games in reasonable timescales. Larger dos games, like those you list, had artists and other media contributors and used professionally built game engines.

that's a big undertaking, if 'unity' or some other popular modern tool could target DOS then i think there would be more of the later dos games around, but even then there would be limits on the time and resource teams would be willing to spend on it

gerry wrote on 2024-10-31, 16:11:

I think more it is that a single coder can achieve "simpler" games in reasonable timescales. Larger dos games, like those you list, had artists and other media contributors and used professionally built game engines.

that's a big undertaking, if 'unity' or some other popular modern tool could target DOS then i think there would be more of the later dos games around, but even then there would be limits on the time and resource teams would be willing to spend on it

I think there's some truth within, but if I think of the shareware scene and demoscene of the 90s,
then I can't help but wonder why no real VGA games are being cared for anymore.

On Windows 3.1, I've played a lot of games that ran in 640x480 16c and looked quite sophisticated.
WinTrek, Warpath!, Comet Busters, Castle of Winds, Dare to Dream, MicroMan, WormWorld..
They had been made by a one-man company, often.

Then there had been games like Mission Supernova on DOS, made by approximately three people whom which two of them were brothers.
https://www.mobygames.com/game/4582/mission-supernova/

I know that games with good graphics and music require some skills,
but when visiting places like Deviant Art or MOD-Archive,
I get the feeling that DOS coding is more of a niche activity than art and music.

Edit: This gives an idea of the type of more sophisticated DOS games I grew up with.
Especially the first two, which were shareware.
Re: VGA games with only 16 colors

Edit: Again, it's not meant as a complaint. I can't and won't force anyone to develop new DOS games that suit me.
It's just difficult to understand why games in 320x200 256c or 640x480 16c nolonger have fans. 🤷‍♂️
By contrast, the PC-98 platform in Japan had a huge user base of amateur coders that did all sorts of naughty things in hi-res (literally). 💃👯

Edit: In fact, I would already be excited if EGA saw some love these days.
640x200 in 16c does work on CGA monitors that all those PC/XT lovers are in love with.
Games and artwork designed for this resolution would be close to MCGA in 320x200 256c in terms of fidelity.
Zeliard for example looks almost better in EGA than in MCGA.

Jo22 wrote on 2024-10-31, 16:24:

It's just difficult to understand why games in 320x200 256c or 640x480 16c nolonger have fans. 🤷‍♂️

i wonder then if, sadly, the reason only relates to the time & effort rather than it explained by it

the implication is that coders interested in making the effort to produce more comprehensive s/vga games are now very few and far between 🙁

i'd guess that if an enthusiast, individual or group, wants to create a game they will also want an audience and so it makes sense to focus on html, windows, mac & maybe linux as having the broader reach

when i look at games playable directly from the browser i am sometimes amazed - so many, and so many with quite impressive art & sound. sure there are lots of repeated versions of the same games but among them are some fun driving, fps, 3rd person, puzzle and all kinds of games. Perhaps this is where the focus is.

i do remember the online scene back in the 90's and early 2000's though - ambitious projects in allegro & c, quick basic stretched to the limits, game libraries for turbo pascal - it was a "last hurrah" for dos and when it finally faded it faded fast

now its often new maps in doom, quake and duke plus rts and games and more - the use of "game as platform" thus having that audience and in many cases knowing that your map will work in ported versions of the game all over

doscore wrote on 2021-01-01, 10:25:

well its a bit of fun and no body has really made a full dos game release in over 20 years 🤣

There have been a few 😀 DOS Game Jam Demo Disc 2023

gerry wrote on 2024-10-31, 17:03:

i wonder then if, sadly, the reason only relates to the time & effort rather than it explained by it

the implication is that coders interested in making the effort to produce more comprehensive s/vga games are now very few and far between 🙁

Well, I've always assumed that certain interests do met when it comes to retro or vintage computing.
Drawing for example, making little sketches on paper, animation (who didn't have experimented with a flipbook),
composing melodies via PLAY command in Basic, watching cartoons or having an interest in science fiction or novels.

The nerdy, geeky stuff, so to say. That what we computer fans used to have in common. Before we became boring adults.

Personally, I got into drawing again when I played "The Last Half of Darkness".
The eerie atmosphere drawn using just 16 colours was inspiring.

In 2000, I tried to program my own version of the game for PalmOS.
I've used an Windows 98SE PC and the PalmOS emulator. I had an m100 handheld at the time, I think.

A simple programming tool (Visual Basic like) for PalmOS allowed me to design my own rooms.
I've used hidden buttons to give players the choice to move (it would load another page).
It was like an adventure book ("choose your own adventure"). Users of Hypercard on Mac remember this.

Such things can be programmed easily for DOS in all graphics modes.
Why is there no interest in the genre nowadays? Why?

I for one had lots of fun vack then, spending nights and weekends optimizing graphics for a monochrome screen.
It was very relaxing if you couldn't sleep or had real life problems.

What also was relaxing was to read novels from the internet, written by unknown users.
They were around on places like FTP servers as text files or in usenet, I think.

gerry wrote on 2024-10-31, 17:03:

i'd guess that if an enthusiast, individual or group, wants to create a game they will also want an audience and so it makes sense to focus on html, windows, mac & maybe linux as having the broader reach

True, but then I wonder following:

Are retro coders with their 486 PCs and CRTs no longer being interested in programming and making art?mAnd enoying them on real hardware?

Programming in Turbo C/Pascal/Basic or Quick Basic, VB DOS?

Or drawing graphics in Deluxe Paint or Dr Halo, use a vintage drawing tablet, making music in the favorite tracker,
use a DOS wave recorder and dad's old tape recorder microphone to record sound effects, record MIDI from a vintage keyboard (D-7, Casio CT-460 etc)?

Whenever I work on pure DOS it's more of an relaxiation than a burden. It's like going back to reality, it's an escape from the internet!
Looking at the old tools and working with a mechanical keyboards makes me creative. ^^

Let's take Basic, for example. You can use BLOAD/BSAVE to convert between graphics modes by crossloading video memory dumps! That's so cool! 😁
https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/35209

gerry wrote on 2024-10-31, 17:03:

when i look at games playable directly from the browser i am sometimes amazed - so many, and so many with quite impressive art & sound. sure there are lots of repeated versions of the same games but among them are some fun driving, fps, 3rd person, puzzle and all kinds of games. Perhaps this is where the focus is.

Well, there's still hope for "normal" DOS games. Itch.io comes to mind as an excellent indie platform right now. 😀 👍

gerry wrote on 2024-10-31, 17:03:

i do remember the online scene back in the 90's and early 2000's though - ambitious projects in allegro & c, quick basic stretched to the limits, game libraries for turbo pascal - it was a "last hurrah" for dos and when it finally faded it faded fast

Me, too. Programming in QB45 was fun! Power Basic, was neat, too! 😁
"QBasic Nerd" was a cult song on Youtube! It catched the atmosphere rather well! 😁
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mal6XbN5cEg

gerry wrote on 2024-10-31, 17:03:

now its often new maps in doom, quake and duke plus rts and games and more - the use of "game as platform" thus having that audience and in many cases knowing that your map will work in ported versions of the game all over

That's true. On other hand, platfoms like Amiga, ZX Spectrum (new model) or KolibriOS seem to attract people? 🤷

Edit:

thp wrote on 2024-10-31, 17:58:

doscore wrote on 2021-01-01, 10:25:

well its a bit of fun and no body has really made a full dos game release in over 20 years 🤣

There have been a few 😀 DOS Game Jam Demo Disc 2023

Good work! 😃👍

@doscore You, too! Sorry for being a bit OT in your thread, I got carried away. Hope you don't mind!
I was writing the posts while the kids were knocking at our door (Halloween). 😅

gerry wrote on 2024-10-31, 17:03:

i wonder then if, sadly, the reason only relates to the time & effort rather than it explained by it

the implication is that coders interested in making the effort to produce more comprehensive s/vga games are now very few and far between 🙁

Yup, there's definitely that.

For me there's another compelling reason to focus on something like XT/CGA: when this hardware was current, it was rarely the main target platform for a given game. Sure, tons of arcade/console/home computer games got XT/CGA versions, but even the best ports could rarely afford the time and effort of trying to use the hardware optimally. More often they were lowest-common-denominator conversions, if not simply afterthoughts.

The "typical" CGA game as it existed back in the day - flickering sprites, total disregard for vsync, clashing conversion artifacts, being able to follow the RAM buffer copy as it's transferred to the screen - isn't a very compelling target to try and match. But a larger fraction of the possibility space is relatively unexplored, and that's what's interesting to experiment with.

This goes even for the Tandy 1000/PCjr, where ports were able to match the capabilities of their original platforms more closely. With the exception of a few outliers, optimal exploitation of PC hardware only arrived with the 386/(S)VGA/sound card era, when the PC *was* the main target, and devs were driven by competition to a much more determined exploration of what it could do. So it's not just a matter of the hardware being more complex and requiring more effort to develop for - it'd take even more to come up with anything really novel.

Planet X3 did the targeting thing properly, IMO. It's true that there are other less-trodden paths - dithered 640x200 EGA, hi-res EGA, even 'proper' Hercules graphics (i.e. more than just upscaled/SIMCGA-ized 320x200 screens) have always been under-utilized, and I'd love to tinker with all of them.

Jo22 wrote on 2024-10-31, 17:59:

gerry wrote on 2024-10-31, 17:03:

now its often new maps in doom, quake and duke plus rts and games and more - the use of "game as platform" thus having that audience and in many cases knowing that your map will work in ported versions of the game all over

That's true. On other hand, platfoms like Amiga, ZX Spectrum (new model) or KolibriOS seem to attract people? 🤷

Yes, maybe its the stability of those other platforms (as well as their popularity) that draws developers in. DOS was ever changing with its graphics, sounds and varying hardware combinations. Having said that, maybe targeting dosbox would be an idea, its used a lot and can represent a "typical" (if such really exists) dos set up

still, dos of the 1990-95 period does seem under-represented in terms of new games

VileR wrote on 2024-11-01, 09:36:

For me there's another compelling reason to focus on something like XT/CGA: when this hardware was current, it was rarely the main target platform for a given game. Sure, tons of arcade/console/home computer games got XT/CGA versions, but even the best ports could rarely afford the time and effort of trying to use the hardware optimally. More often they were lowest-common-denominator conversions, if not simply afterthoughts.

that's a good point, by taking a fresh look at the xt era and trying to maximise the use of the limited hardware it kind of turns the early pc into a "console" of sorts, like folk trying to get the best out of a NES or gameboy - then the draw is a kind of technical one

Jo22 wrote on 2024-10-31, 15:43:

The problem with such recent releases is though that they're all intentionally made "retro", I think.

"Retro" is such a vague term that has been applied to a wide spectrum of different things recently. Also note that the games you mention, Paku Paku and MagiDuck, have a very low resolution because they actually use hacked text modes to achieve more colours on the screen in CGA mode at the cost of lower resolution. They are more of a marvel of programming trickery, than your usual "games with Very Big Pixels(tm)" that people have been trying to pass for "retro" since the 2010s.

Also MagiDuck is a full-fledged Metroidvania-esque platformer that could've very well come out on a console in the late 80s/early 90s as a commercial game. This is in contrast with vast masses of incomplete DOS game projects that have accumulated likely since early-2000s -- a brief visit to a QBasic site will give you plenty of examples, and with the recent resurgence of interest in DOS game programming, new contenders have appeared as well, being either straightforward demos (with the full version coming someday), or "full" games that are still, essentially, tech demos.

However, there are at least several notable DOS games that have come out this year, that are not intentionally "over-the-board retro" in any sense.

Anzu Castle Gracula is probably perfect or near perfect, with its authentic-looking stylised 16-colour visuals and classic Castlevania gameplay it looks better than the actual DOS version of Castlevania, and could've been a commercial title back in the early 90s (or a truly mind-blowing shareware game if it travelled in time back there). Also, for a QBasic game, it is extremely polished and smoothly flowing, at least in DOSBox. Now available on Steam too.

Betrayed Alliance, now, you might argue that this is not a "pure" new game because it still uses the original SCI binary, and the first version came out about 10 years ago, but you just have to appreciate the new art and music, which looks very authentic to the old Sierra's adventures.

Games by Cyningstan (Damian Gareth Walker) feel a bit niche, and I'm not sure they look very much like whatever equivalents for them you could find in the early DOS era, but they are certainly full, complete games and play as such.

Also I think you should not overlook recent Doom engine games/TCs that run in DOS, namely REKKR and Harmony Compatible (granted, the original Harmony came out in 2009) . Especially REKKR, which has a pretty strong authentic feel, with all the sprites pre-rendered in ways similar to what you could see in an actual 90s "Doom clone".

There are fairly decent racing games, RetroFuel (2020), Carser (2023) and RCross (2021), for example.

Death Taxi 3000 is modelled after Quarantine, although I've not yet played it and cannot tell how fully featured it is. It is available on Steam though.

MrFlibble wrote on 2024-11-09, 15:38:

Also MagiDuck is a full-fledged Metroidvania-esque platformer that could've very well come out on a console in the late 80s/early 90s as a commercial game. This is in contrast with vast masses of incomplete DOS game projects that have accumulated likely since early-2000s -- a brief visit to a QBasic site will give you plenty of examples, and with the recent resurgence of interest in DOS game programming, new contenders have appeared as well, being either straightforward demos (with the full version coming someday), or "full" games that are still, essentially, tech demos.

Incomplete software isn't period incorrect in itself, from the developer's perspective I think that sort of exploration is more period correct than attempting to break into a saturated sunset market.