Anayo’s Hunt for Mysterious DOS Games
Jan 2, 2023 19:23:08 GMT -5
Post by anayo on Jan 2, 2023 19:23:08 GMT -5
In the mid-90’s, my Dad was into PC gaming. He had some kind of Cyrix Pentium clone with MS-DOS installed on it. This gave me access to the latest PC games that were out of reach for a lot of people.
My Dad’s friends would distribute shareware at work. So, Dad would often come home with floppy disks full of new things to play. The obvious ones like Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, and Quake are no problem. I remember those and have since scored my own copies on CD-ROM and online digital distribution stores.
But there are others which remain mysterious to this day. I remember playing them, but I can’t remember what they were called. I’ve tried coming up with the right search terms on Google, but never with any success. Once, I went to the Tip of My Joystick subreddit and an facebook group dedicated to MS-DOS nostalgia, describing them to other people on the Internet. But nobody knew what I was talking about. I’ve even scrolled through hundreds of entries on archive.org and abandonware, but never found them.
Finally I got a hold of a resource called “ExoDOS”. It’s 7,200 DOS games bundled together. The purpose of this topic is for me to document my search. I intend to dig through these DOS games totalling 500 GB (compressed!) until I find the ones I’m looking for. Every time I investigate one that wasn’t what I wanted, I’ll document it here. It stands to reason that if I’m thorough and I keep track of everything that ISN’T what I’m looking for, eventually I’ll find it.
Here is a description of three games I hope to find:
Game #1
Description: A text crawl at the beginning tells you that sphere-shaped aliens have attacked the earth. You must fight them by being transformed into a sphere yourself and sent into space. Then the game places you in an arena where you collide with enemy spheres until you knock them out of bounds, killng them. The game had a strong sense of momentum, as though underlying physics calculations dictated the spheres’ movement. After killing all the enemy spheres, you would advance to the next screen, where the enemy spheres become more powerful and numerous. So, the game’s overall format is like asteroids combined with bumper cars.
I remember the graphics being 2D sprites, with a starfield and maybe nebulas in the background. I remember the orbs or spheres being bright primary colors, with an aesthetically pleasing quasi-3D appearance. I also remember a start menu with options like “start game”, “difficulty”, etc. One day I got bored and cranked the difficulty all the way up. I started my game and got overrun by impossibly strong spheres who blew me away in one hit.
Given the low barrier to entry for MS-DOS game development, it’s possible this was just made by some guy in his garage, never getting distributed widely enough to survive into the present day. But it’s the one for which I remember the most specific details. It’s also my highest priority to find.
Game #2
Description: I remember something similar to Marble Madness, where you roll around a ball in an isometeric, quasi-3D world. I remember gaining momentum to jump over ramps and avoiding running over edges and falling into holes leading to bottomless pits. I also vaguely remember enemies, but I’m drawing a blank on the form they took or how you fought them. I also remember a muted, grayish color palette.
I don’t have as much to go off of for this game. So, it’s possible I won’t even recognize it even if I were to find it again.
Game #3
Description: This is a first person, flat shaded 3D polygon outer space fighter pilot game. It was probably inspired by Star Wars, but they didn’t have Lucasarts’s blessing, so they had to make it copyright compliant. I remember fighting smaller fighters and bigger, more lumbering ships. I remember it being similar to Shadow Squadron for the Sega 32X.
I remember the least about this one. Even if I were to find it, my likelihood of actually recognizing it is very low.
My Dad’s friends would distribute shareware at work. So, Dad would often come home with floppy disks full of new things to play. The obvious ones like Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, and Quake are no problem. I remember those and have since scored my own copies on CD-ROM and online digital distribution stores.
But there are others which remain mysterious to this day. I remember playing them, but I can’t remember what they were called. I’ve tried coming up with the right search terms on Google, but never with any success. Once, I went to the Tip of My Joystick subreddit and an facebook group dedicated to MS-DOS nostalgia, describing them to other people on the Internet. But nobody knew what I was talking about. I’ve even scrolled through hundreds of entries on archive.org and abandonware, but never found them.
Finally I got a hold of a resource called “ExoDOS”. It’s 7,200 DOS games bundled together. The purpose of this topic is for me to document my search. I intend to dig through these DOS games totalling 500 GB (compressed!) until I find the ones I’m looking for. Every time I investigate one that wasn’t what I wanted, I’ll document it here. It stands to reason that if I’m thorough and I keep track of everything that ISN’T what I’m looking for, eventually I’ll find it.
Here is a description of three games I hope to find:
Game #1
Description: A text crawl at the beginning tells you that sphere-shaped aliens have attacked the earth. You must fight them by being transformed into a sphere yourself and sent into space. Then the game places you in an arena where you collide with enemy spheres until you knock them out of bounds, killng them. The game had a strong sense of momentum, as though underlying physics calculations dictated the spheres’ movement. After killing all the enemy spheres, you would advance to the next screen, where the enemy spheres become more powerful and numerous. So, the game’s overall format is like asteroids combined with bumper cars.
I remember the graphics being 2D sprites, with a starfield and maybe nebulas in the background. I remember the orbs or spheres being bright primary colors, with an aesthetically pleasing quasi-3D appearance. I also remember a start menu with options like “start game”, “difficulty”, etc. One day I got bored and cranked the difficulty all the way up. I started my game and got overrun by impossibly strong spheres who blew me away in one hit.
Given the low barrier to entry for MS-DOS game development, it’s possible this was just made by some guy in his garage, never getting distributed widely enough to survive into the present day. But it’s the one for which I remember the most specific details. It’s also my highest priority to find.
Game #2
Description: I remember something similar to Marble Madness, where you roll around a ball in an isometeric, quasi-3D world. I remember gaining momentum to jump over ramps and avoiding running over edges and falling into holes leading to bottomless pits. I also vaguely remember enemies, but I’m drawing a blank on the form they took or how you fought them. I also remember a muted, grayish color palette.
I don’t have as much to go off of for this game. So, it’s possible I won’t even recognize it even if I were to find it again.
Game #3
Description: This is a first person, flat shaded 3D polygon outer space fighter pilot game. It was probably inspired by Star Wars, but they didn’t have Lucasarts’s blessing, so they had to make it copyright compliant. I remember fighting smaller fighters and bigger, more lumbering ships. I remember it being similar to Shadow Squadron for the Sega 32X.
I remember the least about this one. Even if I were to find it, my likelihood of actually recognizing it is very low.
