2010 Archive

July 24th, 2010:

The latest episode of Ancient DOS Games is simply EPIC. Even at roughly half an hour, I still only cover a fraction of what the game entails. I do regret that my tenth episode is also the first to have a violent game, but it had to happen sooner or later. PC games, unlike console games, are far more likely to have mature content because there really weren't any restrictions unlike when it came to licensing for a console.

I have a warning about the content in the video itself too. I don't really have the resources to age-gate my videos, and even if I did, it still would only stop the honest and not the curious. Really, the most I can do is politely ask that all viewers under 18 not watch any of the mature-rated ADG videos. (They will be marked in red.)

Also, as previously mentioned, I will be taking a break from ADG after every 10th episode. The video that goes up next Saturday will be a filler episode just to talk about random stuff or answer any questions anyone has. You'll also get to see what I look like... be afraid! :O

After that, ADG will resume as usual. :)

July 17th, 2010:

Just a reminder that Episode 10 of ADG is going to be epic! ;)

Which doesn't mean Episode 9 isn't worth watching. On the contrary, it's perhaps one of the best FMV-based games in existence.

Also want to remind viewers again that after every 10th episode I'll be taking a week break during which I'll be posting a filler video to talk about various things. If there's anything anyone wants me to talk about in my filler videos, let me know!

July 10th, 2010:

Still not much to say at the moment. The conceptual work for PixelShips 2 is very slow going and I also have another far simpler game idea in the works to just to get me back into programming.

I'm also going to be taking a week off from doing ADG videos after every 10th episode just to keep from burning myself out making them and to give me a chance to continue working on my other projects.

I'll still have some fillers up though when the next ADG would normally go up. The fillers will simply be me on camera talking about some aspect of gaming that I have some input on.

Episode 10 is also going to be the first ADG episode to get a Mature rating since it covers a violent game. (Which is surprisingly hard to avoid on the PC.) I haven't really found and good solutions for age gating so instead I have a really good idea for a pre-episode screen that's designed to encourage anyone underage to pause the video and get their parents involved. I figure since I have very limited control over this sort of thing, the best I can do is encourage a more active approach on behalf of the person watching.

Makes sense, right? ;)

July 3rd, 2010:

I'm not feeling too well so today's update is going to be quick. I've already got a bit of the next episode done too so I should have it up in time too.

June 26th, 2010:

No one managed to guess today's episode. I guess the hint was a little difficult, but I'll be surprised if no one can guess what's in store for Episode 7! ;)

Other than that, not much else to say at the moment. If anyone has any good ideas of how to spread the word of my new Ancient DOS Games series, let me know. The more viewers there are, the more easily I'll be able to take ADG in directions that will ensure its continued existence!

Oh yeah... Episode 10 is going to be the first episode to cover a game that, were it rated when the ESRB was around, probably would've gotten an M, which means the gameplay may not be suitable viewing for the younger visitors here. I'm a little curious if anyone has any recommended ideas for age-gating. I know it's not the most effective way to keep youngsters from viewing such stuff online, but half of the visitors to my website are children or young teens so I have to have SOMETHING in place. Any ideas?

June 19th, 2010:

Mention goes out to Nucking for correctly guessing which game would be reviewed this episode, his name also appears in the credits at the end! :D

I should probably mention that if anyone wants to guess which games come next, make sure you let me know how you want to be credited (real name, screen name or both) and keep in mind that I can't use any names that might be considered too offensive. (Basically, no profanity.)

And yeah, the new episode is WAY too long... I'm going to have to learn to cut these episodes down. I think if I focussed more on the environments and less on the weapons it would've made a huge difference.

I've had a few good suggestions about what to add to the website too. I'm currently figuring out the best way to show both the game stats and recommended DOSBox settings for each episode here on the website, but I don't want the pages to become TOO complex or become hard to navigate.

Anyways, I'll also be keeping the latest five episodes at the bottom of the main page now so keep checking back in case you miss any!

June 12th, 2010:

Once again the upload may be a little early. In any case, enjoy! :)

Also, from now on, the first person to guess what the next episode will be, based on the hint at the end of a current episode will get their name mentioned in the next episode when it debuts! There were some compitent guesses for this episode as there have been a few decent games made by people in Finland!

A couple things I could use some help on. Firstly, I want to find more avenues of promotion for the webshow, but I haven't many ideas where the best places would be where self-promotion would be welcome. Also, I'm still at a loss as to how to get many of my older commercial games working thanks to the copy protection methods used... and the slow but steady degredation of the disks in question isn't helping. I was hoping to review the original Test Drive next, but I just can't get it working in DOSBox because the copy protection just stops it from loading. LAME. >:(

Suffice to say, I won't be reviewing the original Test Drive anytime soon. :P

Nothing much else to report at the moment. If you missed the first few episodes, here's the links to them!

June 5th, 2010:

Bypassing the Blip conversion process makes it so much easier to get episodes online in a timely manner. Tonight's update will actually be online a little early as thunderstorms are moving in and I want this to be up before they hit.

Thus I shall be cutting this short. If there are any problems I'll fix 'em tomorrow. Also, if you missed the first few episodes, here you go!

May 30th, 2010:

Sorry for the delay everyone. The conversion on Blip.tv failed so I decided it was time to get the necessary software and figure out how to make and upload the Flash videos directly, bypassing the entire conversion process. In short, the next episode of Ancient DOS Games is online! (And in higher quality!)

I'll be uploading higher quality versions of the first two episodes tomorrow as well. The quality difference isn't too noticable but it does make a difference. The high quality files also aren't TOO high quality. So long as you have a 1.5 Mbps connection or faster they will downstream perfectly fine. ;)

I also remembered to update the Contact page to indicate that there's a new ADG eMail address and fixed a couple minor graphics details with the ADG webpages.

So that's all for this update. If you missed the first couple episodes of Ancient DOS Games, here you go:

May 29th, 2010:

I'm having difficulty getting the next episode of ADG online, but the website will be updated as soon as it's up!

In the meantime, check out the first couple episodes if you haven't already:

May 22nd, 2010:

I hope everyone's ready for this, because today marks the beginning of: Ancient DOS Games!

Granted, many of you are probably thinking, "Uh... didn't you try to make an Ancient DOS Games series two years ago?" Well, I'm making a reset to the entire series. Thanks to some new software I'm now able to produce ADG episodes at a consistent pace and without the many insane difficulties I was running into before, such as clips skipping or having to calculate strange values to scroll images and such. New episodes will be released every Saturday so keep checking back!

Follow these links to watch the premiere episodes:

You'll also find corrections and other additional information for each episode on the episode pages. If you have any questions, comments or requests related to ADG, please send them to adg@pixelships.com. I can't guaratnee a response, but I WILL read every eMail you all send me! :)

May 17th, 2010:

I'll keep this short and sweet since things are really busy:

I have a new webshow I will be debuting very soon, hopefully this Saturday, and it will be updated once a week. Watch for it. ;)

Also, PixelShips 2 is officially being worked on, which you would think I'd make a bigger deal of considering how long it's taken me to realize the best way to make it, but my webshow is taking a ton of effort to make which means work on PixelShips 2 will be extremely slow going.

That's all for now...

April 18th, 2010:

At least this time I have an excuse for not making an update in over a month... I've been rather sick. x_x;

Basically, a few Tuesdays ago I lost my voice, then came coughing, a fever, sore throat, all that fun stuff, and the symptoms lasted for just over two weeks straight. It was very nasty and while I am feeling much better now, my voice is STILL not working properly. I've yet to see a doctor about it but I will soon. Doesn't help that my day-job requires me to talk all day, so with my voice knackered my managers are none too impressed. >_>;

In any case, I suspect I'm gonna have lots of time to myself soon depending on if my voice comes back or not. Either way, I have a ton of stuff in the works. To be honest, I've sort of forgotten what state I've left this place in and it's kinda annoying that so many of the features I had planned are still offline. I will get everything up eventually, but projects that will actually get me personally going places take priority over this place.

The most notable of those projects is a web show I have in mind that will be a documentary style, but I can't do too much with this idea until my voice comes back... IF it comes back. So, for the interim, I've been planning a variety of game ideas to make with XNA, most of them are fairly small ideas. I'm also thinking of going with a 16-colour EGA-style format for my future games, mostly because I can make decent 16-colour pixel art far more rapidly than 256-colour or full-colour pixel art.

Lastly, I know I don't have the unfinished version of Space Fortress 2 up yet, but before I put it up I intend to do some investigating to see if I can simplify the game in such a way that it would be suitable for console play. As it stands, it REALLY needs a mouse to be played, but if I can make it playable without a mouse and can change the interface to work with television standards (IE: no drawing in the overscan area) then I could really make something special out of it! :)

Oh, and I'm also investigating bringing back some of my old game ideas such as Battlesuits, CGA Solar Warriors and SGX. Dunno if I'll get to them, but you never know. It all depends on which of my ideas looks like it will work out the best given the time I have to work on stuff.

Anywhoo, I'll try to keep this place up to date from now on with bi-weekly updates as I was while working on Space Fortress 2. Many thanks to all of you who keep checking back and sending me your comments! You guys are the reason I've kept this website up and running for over a decade! ^_^

March 1st, 2010:

Wow, has it really been a whole month since the last update? :O

Well, I haven't anything new to report yet. I've been busy looking over the basics of XNA and trying to figure out what to make first. I had some good ideas for what to do first, but I've had to set aside each one as they all had something about them that wouldn't make them good starting projects.

I do have one potential idea that so far fits within my ability to make... It's a 360-degree shooter along the lines of the Descent series originally made by Paralax Software before they split to form Volition and Outrage. I've only just started brainstorming it so I'll know soon enough if it'll be worth pursuing.

I'll try to have some new stuff up soon, but I want to get at least something started with XNA first before I devote more time to the website. I know some people really want to be able to play Space Fortress 2 and I hope I can find some time to get it ready for a release in its abandoned state.

And please, someone remind me if I go an entire month without making an update here! ^_^;

February 1st, 2010:

Been doing a lot of planning for the past month, trying to figure out which direction will work best when I start making games using Microsoft XNA, considering I have only a limited amount of time to work on my projects at the moment. I'm leaning towards a first person shooter at the moment as I have a very unique idea for one which returns to basics and would have a very retro feel.

As for the website, I've got the PixelShips Guides back online! The original Strategies and Complete List of PixelShips are back, along with a quick little section detailing the Weaponry! Please note that this information applies only to the ORIGINAL PixelShips game, not PixelShips Retro. I'll have a bunch of guides for PixelShips Retro up soon enough. Next on the list is the Star Gladiators 2 guide, then I want to get Space Fortress 2 prepped so that it'll be completely playable in its unfinished state.

As for the Miscellaneous Stuff, there's a lot of content I want to put in there, but I'm pondering what to add first: My Console/Portable/PC game collection, MP3s of all the music I've made over the past decade, my custom-made levels for Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Descent 3 and Stunts, or my 2D and 3D artistic works... If there's any particular one of those you want to see first, drop me a line from the contact page and let me know! ;)

January 10th, 2010:

With the launch of my new website format, you're going to see a distinct change in the way I do things around here. No more will I be hiding the fact that I do indeed work by myself. Contrary to everything everyone else told me not to do because it would be bad for business, you're going to be seeing more of the sincere me around here. So let's start with the first big change, the Miscellaneous Stuff.

The new Miscellaneous Stuff pages will house all of the things I've done in my spare time just for the heck of it or to learn new things. You'll find my artwork, my music, my musings, and I'll even be compiling my entire game collection into a list to give everyone a good idea of just how much experience I have with gaming. Those lists will also indicate which games I've beaten and with what skill settings. Unfortunately, these pages are not quite ready to go yet, but with any luck they should be ready soon!

Also, new versions of PixelShips Retro and Super Minesweeper have been released. These versions have primarily been updated either for compatibility or to update pricing information. Super Minesweeper also now includes the expansion pack by default! If you purchased the original game without the expansion simply head to the downloads page and patch yourself up to the most recent version to obtain the expansion boards! (NOTE: Anyone still using v1.1 specifically will need to contact me to obtain a new download link from Share-It. The patch only works with v1.11 and v1.12.)

Space Fortress 2 is now officially abandoned as it does not fit in with my new game development plans (as it would make a lousy console game) and because I simply don't have time to work on it anymore. I will soon be releasing the unfinished version for free and will let everyone know when that happens. I'm also going to be setting up pages for other games I've abandoned and will even have a download up for one of them just for sake of curiosity. ;)

I'm also going to be adding a section for my REALLY old stuff, some of which dates back, seriously, to 1993, the beginning years of my programming. It'll be like a time capsule, pulling these files up, provided anyone can get them working! ^_^;

Last but not least, I've added a couple more links to the personal pages of two particular software developers who have not only made software I've loved growing up, but whom I've had direct digital contact with at some point or another, and thus follows the websites of Patrick Aalto, the creator of the Line Wars games, and Ken Silverman, known originally for Ken's Labyrinth, mostly for creating the Build Engine, but nowadays for his special programming application EvalDraw and his interest in voxels.

Stay tunned as there's many more developments to come! :)

News for January 2nd, 2010:

Sorry folks, but despite having two weeks to myself to get my website update done, it's not until you have a working framework and start re-building off of it that you realize how difficult it is to reformat over 100 webpages... x_x;

I'm going to aim to get the most important sections of the new website up next Sunday on the 10th and will then get more sections up and going on a weekly basis.