2012 Archive

May 19th, 2012:

Sorry for this filler update but I ended up pretty sick most of the week and am still recovering. My voice was also affected, so I had to ask good ol' Dr. Sbaitso to step in and help out! :D

But yeah, this filler details one of the most spectacularlly unintentional replays I ever made. It was originally just an experiment as to what would happen if you crashed AFTER crossing the finish line in Stunts (4D Sports Driving), but... well... watch it for yourself and you'll see. ;)

I do seem to be getting better so hopefully I can get back into the swing of things next week.

May 12th, 2012:

Back to the Ancient DOS Games which aren't educational in the slightest! Well... unless you count throwing "Holy Hand Grenades" at Unicorns and Medusas educational. :P

Nothing too much else going on at the moment. Slowly getting back into Vectorzone development. Gotta change a couple fundamentals ASAP before they become a nightmare later on when I get multiplayer support added. As it stands, every item right now would take nearly a kilobyte of bandwidth per player to process... even items as simple as dirt... Gonna make some changes to the item system so that items can either refer to default details that don't need to be retransmitted at all, or can have custom details that are only retransmitted to the player that actually acquires the item, saving tons of bandwidth in the process.

...no, there's no multiplayer support yet. I'm thinking ahead now to prevent headaches later on. The next release will have tile collision and some basic tools for modifying the world around you. I've also made the water darker and slowed its animation down to see if it helps for the people who've reported it to be hard to look at.

May 5th, 2012:

Yes, I finally have released a free, unfinished version of Space Fortress 2 for all to play! :D

For those of you who are interested check out the Space Fortress 2 page for a download and some screenshots.

Nothing much else to say at the moment, except that now that this is ready, I'll be getting back to work on Vectorzone. ;)

April 28th, 2012:

And so, we finally come to the end of Edutainment Month. Once again, many thanks go to Clint Basinger, aka the Lazy Game Reviewer, not only for the idea of doing edutainment titles for the month of April, but also for appearing on the show (and allowing me to appear on his)! I actually don't really have much else in the way of edutainment titles, so whether I participate in edutainment month again next year or not will depend mostly on if I can get any more edutainment titles.

Progress with Vectorzone is really slow at the moment, though when next week's filler episode goes online, you'll all understand why. ;)

Afterwards, Vectorzone updates should be more frequent. :)

April 21st, 2012:

It's not often I encounter something that was better left as nostalgia, but Word Rescue seems to qualify. I went into this expecting a great game much like I remembered from my childhood, but it turns out Word Rescue really only is an average game, with bugs and tons of graphical/audio reuse in the second and third episodes. :/

Ah well. Next week's game is one of my favourites and I still load it up at least once or twice a year when I'm really bored so I know for certain that it's awesome! ;)

April 14th, 2012:

It was a close voting, but the Human Body won with just a couple votes more than Dinosaurs! :D

Other than that, not much else to say at the moment. Been a very busy week and I'm pretty tired right now so I'm gonna make this short. Hope everyone enjoys today's episode! :)

April 9th, 2012:

It's now official: Vectorzone is the next game I am making and it is set to become the first game of its kind, combining overhead, 360-degree, real-time 2D shooting with elements of world-builders and dungeon crawls, as well as full multiplayer support!

At least, that's the plan. v0.01a, the first public alpha is nothing more than moving a ship and exploring the beginnings of the random map generator. :P

Ancient DOS Games still takes priority over everything, so development of this game is going to be slow-going, but I want to get everyone involved as early as possible so that you can all share your opinions and such and so that I can make this the best game of its kind.

I've set up a number of pages here so everyone can get an idea of what's going on. The main Vectorzone index page has a list of intended features and some basic story information. The download page has the first public alpha readily available for download, though remember, we're talking very early alphas here, so don't expect much and don't expect that the game will run properly in the first place. There's an FAQ which I've premptively loaded with a number of questions and answers I'm sure people will have about the game. Lastly, I'll be keeping a Development Journal the whole while, even after switching from public alphas to private betas, and this will also be where you can find screenshots if you can't get the alphas working or want to see what's up with them first before trying to run them.

Very exciting times ahead! :D

Now if you'll excuse me... I need to get my taxes done... HOORAY!! >_>;

April 7th, 2012:

At the moment, I don't have much extra to say about today's ADG episode because I'm busy getting the first public alpha of my next game ready for Monday! :D

Remember guys, it's not going to be anything special at first, but there's tons of features in the works for it and you'll all be able to help test and provide feedback for much of the development process! :)

So yeah, remember to check back Monday afternoon!

April 1st, 2012:

All I really need to say about today's Ancient DOS Games episode is: Everyone loves crossovers! :D

That's actually the main reason why this episode is debuting today, rather than yesterday, since today is April 1st, commonly known as April Fools by 99.99999178275% of all of you.

However, the statement of taking a look at only edutainment titles this month IS valid, so the next four episodes will all be edutainment games! (And will all come out on Saturdays as usual! ;)

Also, on the Monday after next, I will finally be announcing my next game project and will have the first public alpha ready for everyone!

Now, I want all of you to keep a few things in mind here. This isn't like with Minecraft, where it had gone through a massive amount of development before it decided to call itself an alpha. Alphas are developmental builds, so what you are going to be treated with at first is something incredibly basic that will serve as the foundation for many gameplay elements to come. Likewise, I can't guarantee that these alphas will work for everybody, so there will also be an eMail address specifically for sending bug reports to. For those of you who can't play the alphas for whatever reasons, I'll also be keeping development journals to talk about the whole process.

So yeah, lots of exciting stuff happening this year! :D

March 24th, 2012:

Pretty tired right now so I'm gonna keep this as short as I can. Today's filler is mostly just a showcase of my limited but practical musical talents, thanks to my viewers I've made a number of corrections to some of the latest ADG episodes, and also, I've added a new link for budding game developers on my links page to the website for the Scrolling Game Development Kit 2, which is definitely worth a look for anyone who wants to make a tile-based game with minimal effort! :)

March 17th, 2012:

Not surprised that no one knew what today's Ancient DOS Game would be. This is an obscure little title but one that I feel deserves some attention as it's the bare basics of what you would consider a game yet is still surprisingly playable. Let's put it this way: I'd MUCH rather play TechnoVenture over the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! ;D

My next game project's going along well too. Fixed a minor bug with its timing system and it now runs smooth as glass! Not too much left to implement before the first public alpha can go up! I would like to remind people again though that this first alpha release is going to be incredibly basic. In fact, it won't even play like a game really, it'll just be a program with game-like elements. Nor will I be able to guarantee if it will run on your system or not, but if it doesn't, let me know why it doesn't and I can fix it! ;)

Also, going to be covering nothing but edutainment titles for the month of April on ADG and in order to get a full set of five games in, Episode 81 of ADG will be pushed back one day for a Sunday release on April 1st, as opposed to the usual Saturday releases. I'll have a hint as to what game it will be in the filler next Saturday! :)

March 12th, 2012:

Just want to quickly let people know that the RGB Classics Website STILL EXISTS. All that's going on at the moment is that the domain name registrar of their .com address is changing. For the moment, you can use www.classicdosgames.org instead. :P

March 10th, 2012:

I'm really hoping that today's Ancient DOS Game sees the light of day again with a digital download release at some point. Until then, I guess there's still my own project...

Yes, the game I'm working on right now, while it looks nothing like Seek and Destroy, does have a similar play style where your vehicle is situated at the bottom of the screen facing towards the top and when you turn side to side the world turns around you. Programming has been going a bit slow due to ADG and so many other things going on in my life, but the fact that I have started programming the game is a very good sign.

What's also a good sign is that virtually every line of code I'm writing is working on the first try. So even though it's slow going, there's been little re-writing or debugging so far. At present, I have a basic mapping system and camera system implemented, as well as a special pixel shader routine to produce one of the key special effects the game will be relying heavily upon. Once I've finished writing the player object code, have basic player movement implemented, and have basic map generation working, the first public alpha will be released and the name of the game will be revealed along with all the details of what it shall become in the long run! :)

Keep watching this space as there's gonna be much more to come! :)

March 3rd, 2012:

In all honesty, it was really hard to decide whether or not to put the mature content warning on today's review. It seriously boiled down to one particular image of a dead guy on a couch that I couldn't justify showing without the warning. I think Bio Menace is about as tame as you can get for mature rated. :P

Also, since this is a mature rated episode, here's the hint for the next episode: It's a game where you can climb into choppers and tanks and score all the overkills you can! :D

February 25th, 2012:

Firstly, I didn't have anywhere near enough time to really scratch the surface of today's Ancient DOS Game, so you'll excuse the fact that I didn't have a lot of footage to pull from and mostly only show parts from the beginning of the game. It's part of the reason I reviewed X-Wing first: Despite TIE Fighter being the most requested game, I didn't want to have to go over all the basics a second time. :P

Secondly, work on my current game project is progressing slowly but surely. It'll probably be another few weeks at least before I can officially announce the project by name and release the first public alpha for testing.

Lastly, now that TIE Fighter has been reviewed, the current most-requested game is X-COM: UFO Defense, followed by Duke Nukem 3D, Jazz Jackrabbit, and Wing Commander. I should also point out that of the current 77 episodes of ADG, 10 of them so far have been requested games, so I do indeed do requests! The first request I ever did, and the first episode to be scripted, was Episode 16 - Star Wars: Dark Forces! ;)

February 18th, 2012:

Today's Ancient DOS Game is a bit of an interesting case, despite the fact the game itself is incredibly simple. Made for an episode over the 12 minute mark for a game that really only should've taken 8 or 9 minutes to cover. :O

In other news, I've started programming my next game, so there will definitely be some alphas to check out soon! Don't really have a time-table in place as next week's ADG episode is going to demand a lot of my attention, but from my preliminary testing, the minimum system requirements will likely be a 1 GHz system with 512 MB RAM and a mid-range video card with 256 MB of video RAM.

More details to come! ;)

February 11th, 2012:

I'm gonna make this quick since I'm really tired and want to go to bed. The newest filler is up, my eye is all better, and I added a neat little tidbit to the additional info for the last episode of ADG, Episode 75. Enjoy! :D

February 4th, 2012:

Sorry this episode is a little later than usual. I had a medical issue with my eye that resulted in lots of pain, delaying a lot of my work on this week's ADG. Don't worry, it doesn't seem like it was anything more than a "stye" in a really nasty, interior spot, and while I'm still in pain as I write this, it's VERY slowly feeling better. Also, I'm really surprised no one even attempted to guess what this week's Ancient DOS Game would be! :O

Ah well. In doing this web show of mine I've found it interesting how there's a lot of games I consider to be common-knowledge or staples, despite them being virtually unknown, and that I've gotten some requests for games that were really popular at the time, but which I had never heard of or had no interest in.

Also, lots of user-submitted corrections this week. For the Doom episode, I added some minor details about getting source ports working in general. For the SkyRoads episode I added a link to a modern remake titled "Tasty Static". For both the Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II episodes, I added a note that if you want to obtain these games from a Duke Nukem 3D CD, it has to be one of the original CDs and NOT the Atomic Edition! :O

January 28th, 2012:

Once again, not too much to say about today's episode. I'm still hard at work on my next game project, but I still don't have anything to really show about it yet. Again, I am going to have public alphas once I've got it going. One thing I can say about the game though is that it will be controlled from an overhead perspective similar to the DOS game "Seek and Destroy", where you face forwards from the bottom of the screen and the world turns around you. ;)

Again, more information to come!

January 21st, 2012:

Not a lot to say at the moment, been busy with all kinds of stuff. I wanted to get information about my next game project up before this month was over but I've been having to redesign aspects of the game constantly and as a result, I haven't begun programming it yet as I had originally planned. I'll keep everyone up to date as I make progress.

Once programming of my next game DOES begin, I plan to offer routine Public Alpha builds for everyone to try out. Yes, ALPHA builds, as in they are not guaranteed to work and likely won't have much to hold the average person's interest, but the reason I want to make them available is to ensure that what I'm making will work on a variety of hardware, and knowing the quirks early on will save me headaches later on. ;)

More information to come as more developments take place!

January 14th, 2012:

I still can't believe no one guessed todays Ancient DOS Game correctly. :P

Anyways, nothing too much to say at the moment... My headphones are on the fritz though which made it difficult to get this latest episode posted. I've got a replacement cable on the way to fix them right up but it's gonna take a week or two before it gets here. :/

I'll do my best to ensure that next week's episode is presented the way it should be! :)

January 7th, 2012:

Well, finally managed to get around to reviewing X-Wing on Ancient DOS Games! Hope you guys enjoy it because I was about ready to rage-delete the thing. ;D

...yeah... it's not that it's a bad game it's just really frustrating. Next week's game hopefully isn't like that, but I haven't ever given it a serious playthrough so it should be an interesting experience.

I'm busy streamlining some aspects of my next game project and will be beginning the coding process soon. No timeline as to when I will have screenshots up, as it really depends on a number of factors, but I want to try to have SOMETHING to show before this month is over. Wish me luck... ^_^;