Kia ora from New Zealand

[Martli]

#8202

Hey DOS gamers!

I’m Martli from New Zealand. I first started playing and appreciating DOS games when I was 5 years old (so over 31 years ago now) and have been listening to the podcast for the past few months. I’m really enjoying the deep dives on these awesome games and it’s been a great source of inspiration as I revive my gaming hobby in my old age ;-).

I’m a bit slow at this sort of thing as life is pretty busy nowadays, but I’ve finally managed to pick up Dungeon Keeper this month (I had intended to start with Karateka in November!) and I’ll make sure to pop in every now and then as I love what you’re all doing and it’s so cool to have a community devoted to these old classics. I’m looking forward to picking up Empire in February, and of course the infamous WOLF3D for the March FPS! (Who doesn’t enjoy killing Nazis?!)

I started my DOS gaming on an IBM 286 (the original PS/2!) in the early 90s. This was (I think) our second family computer, but I was too young to remember the first (which from what my dad describes was most likely an 8088 clone). Dad got our 286 from his work and its 19mb hard drive was packed full of games. It was on the old side at that point (386s were all the rage), but I was too young to care and as time dragged on Dad decided to wait for these new things called Pentiums to arrive before we upgraded. I’m hoping to share my love of computer gaming with my two sons (oldest is almost 3 and the other is still cooking for another 2 weeks) just like my dad did.

The games we had were World Class Leader Board (Golf), Frogger, Alley Cat, and my #1 favourite game to play on that machine… Leisure Suit Larry. Wildly inappropriate for a 5-9 year old, but hey… I really had no idea what was going on.

I started by watching my Dad play, then eventually got old enough where I could play and navigate DOS by myself with some instructions Dad wrote down. I grew up living next door to a bunch of cousins who also had DOS computers, and so that exposed me to games like Police Quest, King’s Quest, Mother Goose, and Wolfenstein 3D. My cousins in another part of the country had Duke3D (more inappropriateness!) and Dune.

But Larry was always my favourite. It was just such a quirky game, and to this day I probably play it at least once a year. It’s because of Larry that I learned to touch type from an early age (I was always too slow waiting for the taxi and that forced my to type faster) and it also helped me learn to spell. Eventually, I got old enough to figure out some of the inappropriate aspects of it, and my mum banned me from playing when I showed one of my cousins some of the things you could do… yes, I’m a bad influence.

Funnily enough, our version of Larry was corrupted and had an error when you left the honeymoon suite after the taking the rope. I discovered this after my cousins and I put in a very concerted effort to actually finish the game. Despite years of playing I never actually finished the game until much later when I finally got my hands on a working copy. What a moment! But for me that’s kind of what DOS gaming was all about – replaying that same E1M1 over and over again and still enjoying it like its your first run.

Anyway, my gaming moved mostly to Windows in 1996 when we got a pentium 133. Dad was a bit of a computer nut and so always bought top shelf equipment, it was just a shame that it was all obsolete within 6 months (and we upgraded on a 4-year cycle)! I still played a few DOS games (or windows 95 ports of DOS games). Doom II and Mechwarrior 2 were the big ones in our household. And of course I still played Larry when mum wasn’t around.

I sort of left DOS behind for a while, but I’ve always been a kind of nostalgic guy and played some of the old Sierra games from time to time. In my early 20s I played some of the later Larry and Police quest games but they never really stuck with me like the originals did.

I’m what I consider an ‘angry old man’ gamer. My interest in gaming stops at about 2007. I have no idea what an Nvidia RTX is and I don’t care. I hate steam and I don’t use it. I love GOG but only to the extent that I can get the game working on an old machine (which is often). All my modern computers are Apple, so are mostly useless for gaming anyway.

I also SUCK at games. Like, actually terrible. I always play on easy, and I still struggle, and I don’t bother putting too much effort into getting better. I’m happy to repeat the same level on DOOM over and over again. I’m better suited to the Lucas Arts games like Monkey Island and LOOM where I can’t actually get anything wrong. I love racing games but can never turn a corner properly. I watch Marco plays dos gams, marvel at his skill, and feel ashamed at my own relative insignificance. I still enjoy the hell out of playing though!

These days I do most of my DOS gaming on a Pentium MMX machine I built myself. I also built a Pentium 4 which is primarily for Windows 98 gaming, but can do later-era DOS games at high quality settings. I’m building a Pentium III primarily for Windows 98 gaming with the Glide API, but also for something that does late-era DOS games with better sound compatibility.I guess I probably enjoy the hardware side more than the gaming side, but it all comes back to the games at the end of the day…

Anyway, that’s me. Thanks for doing what you do, and looking forward to sharing some cool games with you all!

[DJ_HiP]

#8203

G’day fellow Oceanic gamer.

What an epic introduction, you’ve found a new home, Welcome!

Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on Dungeon Keeper as you play through 🙂

Just keep your kids on your lap as you play and they’ll develop a natural interest, just as you did.. except maybe leave LSL until a few years later 😉

[Martli]

#8210

Thanks for the warm welcome, mate. Definitely using the ol’ lap technique and the wife certainly appreciates it. Racing games are a hit, especially when I crash spectacularly in stunts, and I’ll definitely be going with Kings quest or space quest over Larry!