[reidrac]

in reply to: Magazine Reviews #9200

I remember reading a review in Spanish PC-Mania back in the day! I found it, and they liked it.

https://imgur.com/dwoJLUl.png

from: https://archive.org/details/Pcmania20/page/n51/mode/2up

[reidrac]

in reply to: Strife (1996) #8953

I loved Strife BITD. Very immersive! There was a demo (or shareware levels) as part of the cover CDROM of a magazine I think it was and I got very deep into the story / action.

Not your usual Doom clone, but story and quests IIRC and cool weapons made it a bit different and worth your time.

[reidrac]

in reply to: How’s everyone going? #8883

I played it back in the day, but without the manual. So I gave it a go in the same conditions, and almost everything “came back to me”, but I have hit a wall (although I think I’m better now than then; suck it old me!).

I have the manual now, but it is 102 pages, so I’m undecided. I think I’ll bite the bullet and give it a read and play another couple of evenings before the end of the month.

[reidrac]

in reply to: 8086 Games Jam #8854

It will be fun!

I’m not sure what I’m targetting TBH, because being 8086 VGA is a bit difficult (the IBM PS/2 introduced it with the 286, I think). I don’t feel like doing CGA, and EGA sucks to program.

Not having restrictions on the memory model, I guess I can go 64K code and 64K data, but it is going to be awkward for sure if I do VGA 😀

[reidrac]

in reply to: Whale’s Voyage #8808

I love the look and mood of this game. +1 from me!

[reidrac]

in reply to: Ascendancy #8672

This is my favourite 4X game ever. Although flawed as it is (the AI isn’t great), I still play it every now and then because it is so fun.

My vote as well for Ascendancy!

[reidrac]

in reply to: Fallout (1997) #7976

+1

I started playing it not too long ago and I dropped the ball after 8 hours or so. Would love to go back, and the club is a good excuse!

[reidrac]

in reply to: Your questions for the devs #7956

The most obvious question is: why a commercial game targeting DOS in 2023? Look and feel is an artistic choice, but surely it could have been all “pretend”.

Looking forward to listen to the interview!

[reidrac]

in reply to: Star Control II #7877

I also recommend the open source version “The Ur-Quan Masters” that TigerQuoll mentioned. It is based on the 3DO version that was released as open source; I had to compile it on Linux, but runs beautifully.

Check it here: https://sc2.sourceforge.net/

(we would play the DOS version for the club, of course)

[reidrac]

in reply to: Star Control II #7872

This would give me a reason to play it 🙂

Starflight was on the club already, so it would be interesting to see how SC2 compares with that one!

[reidrac]

in reply to: Two new DOS games #7867

It is explained on the website and the game comes with what we could call a “digital manual” 🙂

Perhaps I should have added a help screen like I did on Traxtor!

[reidrac]

in reply to: Two new DOS games #7864

The original concept was for a Game Boy “alike” game I made back in 2014. Because the limited colours, that’s why it ended with shapes.

The Amstrad CPC version is more colorful: https://www.usebox.net/jjm/return-of-traxtor-cpc/

But because the shapes are using a variation of the main tile color, I had to include an alternative tileset that uses higher contrast for the shape because otherwise it would be unplayable for people that have problem seeing colors.

The CGA had to use those shapes! 🙂

[reidrac]

in reply to: Two new DOS games #7860

Both are coded in C, with some hand written ASM when needed.

Gold Mine Run! uses DJGPP (32-bit, needs DOS extender); the source is available: https://git.usebox.net/gold-mine-run/about/ — and I made the game mostly on twitch, the videos are available here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvI1iQmfH6UOkBSjL_EwtkmqRivM1bJk-

Traxtor was coded for GCC IA16 (it is a 16-bit game). In this case there’s little ASM and mostly for the CGA; see: https://www.usebox.net/jjm/notes/cga/

In both games I tried to make the game as smooth as possible on the target machine, and turns out the IBM PC/XT was easier than the 386! Probably because the CGA is 4bpp so there’s less data to move around.

EDIT: actually, let me clarify a bit 😀 The CGA game is simpler, and that’s a factor as well. For example: it doesn’t use masked sprites and all the drawing is byte aligned. The VGA is also moving more things on the screen at the same time.

[reidrac]

in reply to: Two new DOS games #7854

Thank you both!