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A game demo is a trial version of a video game that is limited to a certain time period or a point in progress. A game demo comes in forms such as shareware, demo disc, downloadable software, and tech demos.
In the early 1990s, shareware distribution was a popular method for publishing games for smaller developers, including then-fledgling companies such as Apogee Software (now 3D Realms), Epic MegaGames (now Epic Games), and id Software. It gave consumers the chance to try a trial portion of the game, usually restricted to the game's complete first section or "episode", before purchasing the rest of the adventure. Racks of games on single 51⁄4" and later 3.5" floppy disks were common in many stores, often very cheaply. Since the shareware versions were essentially free, the cost only needed to cover the disk and minimal packaging. Sometimes, the demo disks were packaged within the box of another game by the same company. As the increasing size of games in the mid-1990s made them impractical to fit on floppy disks, and retail publishers and developers began to earnestly mimic the practice, shareware games were replaced by shorter demos that were either distributed free on CDs with gaming magazines or as free downloads over the Internet, in some cases becoming exclusive content for specific websites.
Shareware was also the distribution method of choice of early modern first-person shooters (FPS).
There is a technical difference between shareware and demos. Up to the early 1990s, shareware could easily be upgraded to the full version by adding the "other episodes" or full portion of the game; this would leave the existing shareware files intact. Demos are different in that they are "self-contained" programs that cannot be upgraded to the full version. An example is the Descent shareware versus the Descent II demo; players were able to retain their saved games on the former but not the latter.
Magazines that include the demos on a CD or DVD and likewise may be exclusive to a certain publication. Demos are also sometimes released on cover tape/disks, especially in the United Kingdom and mainland Europe, but given the increasing size of demos and widespread availability of broadband Internet, this common practice throughout the 1980s and 1990s gradually lost cover focus to full games. With the advent of online services for consoles, demos are also becoming available as a free or premium download. [1]
Console manufacturers also often release their systems with a demo disc containing playable previews of games to be released for their console.
The availability of demos varies between formats. Systems that use cartridges typically did not have demos available to them, unless they happen to be digital, due to the cost of duplication, whereas systems supporting more cheaply produced media, such as tapes, floppy disks, and later CD-ROM and DVD-ROM, do. Now, the Internet is the main source for demos, as nearly all game developers and platforms focus on online distribution.
Game demos come in two variations: playable and non-playable (also called a "rolling demo"). Playable demos generally have exactly the same gameplay as the upcoming full game, although game advancement is usually limited to a certain point, and occasionally some advanced features might be disabled. A non-playable demo is essentially the gaming equivalent of a teaser trailer.
Generally, playable demos are stripped-down versions of the full game, restricting game-play to some levels, only allowing access to some features, or limiting the amount of time playable in the game.
However, some demos provide content not available in the full game.
In other cases, a demo may differ from the equivalent section in the full game, when the demo is released as a preview before the full game is completed.
Demos for platform or other action games generally only include the first few levels of the game. Demos of adventure games are often limited to a very small number of rooms, and have the "save game" feature disabled. Demos of sports games usually limit play to an accelerated half-time or complete match between a small number of teams (which at the same time led to the practice of "demo expanders" that allow the tweaking of some of those settings). Likewise, demos of racing games are ordinarily restricted to a single race with a pre-selected car.
A non-playable demo is a recording of game-play, either recorded in a video, or played through using the game's own engine showing off the game's features. They are mainly displayed at gaming conventions, such as E3, when the game is still in early production as a technology or game-play preview. Such demos might also be distributed through the Internet or with magazines as trailers for an upcoming game, or featured at retail stores (often among playable demos). Most games also play demos if the title screen is left running.
Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. Shareware is often offered as a download from a website. Shareware differs from freeware, which is fully-featured software distributed at no cost to the user but without source code being made available; and free and open-source software, in which the source code is freely available for anyone to inspect and alter.
Shovelware is a term for individual video games or software bundles known more for the quantity of what is included than for the quality or usefulness.
MAME is a free and open-source emulator designed to recreate the hardware of arcade game systems in software on modern personal computers and other platforms. Its intention is to preserve gaming history by preventing vintage games from being lost or forgotten. It does this by emulating the inner workings of the emulated arcade machines; the ability to actually play the games is considered "a nice side effect". Joystiq has listed MAME as an application that every Windows and Mac gamer should have.
The Family Computer Disk System, commonly shortened to the Famicom Disk System or just Disk System, is a peripheral for Nintendo's Family Computer home video game console, released only in Japan on February 21, 1986. It uses proprietary floppy disks called "Disk Cards" for cheaper data storage and it adds a new high-fidelity sound channel for supporting Disk System games.
A live CD is a complete bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than loading from a hard disk drive. A live CD allows users to run an operating system for any purpose without installing it or making any changes to the computer's configuration. Live CDs can run on a computer without secondary storage, such as a hard disk drive, or with a corrupted hard disk drive or file system, allowing data recovery.
A ROM image, or ROM file, is a computer file which contains a copy of the data from a read-only memory chip, often from a video game cartridge, or used to contain a computer's firmware, or from an arcade game's main board. The term is frequently used in the context of emulation, whereby older games or firmware are copied to ROM files on modern computers and can, using a piece of software known as an emulator, be run on a different device than which they were designed for. ROM burners are used to copy ROM images to hardware, such as ROM cartridges, or ROM chips, for debugging and QA testing.
The Tapwave Zodiac is a mobile entertainment console. Tapwave announced the system in May 2003 and began shipping in October of that same year. The Zodiac was designed to be a high-performance mobile entertainment system centered on video games, music, photos, and video for 18- to 34-year-old gamers and technology enthusiasts. By running an enhanced version of the Palm Operating System (5.2T), Zodiac also provided access to Palm's personal information management software and many other applications from the Palm developer community. The company was based in Mountain View, California.
Homebrew, when applied to video games, refers to games produced by hobbyists for proprietary video game consoles which are not intended to be user-programmable. The official documentation is often only available to licensed developers, and these systems may use storage formats that make distribution difficult, such as ROM cartridges or encrypted CD-ROMs. Many consoles have hardware restrictions to prevent unauthorized development.
Covermount is the name given to storage media or other products packaged as part of a magazine or newspaper. The name comes from the method of packaging; the media or product is placed in a transparent plastic sleeve and mounted on the cover of the magazine with adhesive tape or glue.
A disk magazine, colloquially known as a diskmag or diskzine, is a magazine that is distributed in electronic form to be read using computers. These had some popularity in the 1980s and 1990s as periodicals distributed on floppy disk, hence their name. The rise of the Internet in the late 1990s caused them to be superseded almost entirely by online publications, which are sometimes still called "diskmags" despite the lack of physical disks.
The Sango Fighter games are a series of fighting game for DOS made by the Taiwanese Panda Entertainment. Set in the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history, it is very similar to Street Fighter and Samurai Shodown, but with historical context.
Epic Pinball is a 1993 pinball video game developed by James Schmalz and published by Epic MegaGames. The initial release pre-dated Schmalz' Digital Extremes name. The game is played seen from a 2D top-down view within a scrollable window with plain raster graphics in 320x240. It was noted for being programmed entirely in x86 assembly language for MS-DOS systems. On November 30, 2017 the game was re-released on GOG.com, with support for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux pre-packed with DOSBox.
Inside Mac Games (IMG) started in 1993 as an electronic magazine about video games for the Mac. It was distributed on floppy disk, then CD-ROM, and eventually became a website.
Zone 66 is a top down, multidirectional shooter released in 1993 for IBM PC compatibles as shareware. The game was created by a North American demoscene group called Renaissance, and was published by Epic MegaGames. The game shipped on a self-booting disk, so it could bypass MS-DOS and load into a custom protected mode environment.
A ROM cartridge, usually referred to in context simply as a cartridge, cart, or card, is a replaceable part designed to be connected to a consumer electronics device such as a home computer, video game console or, to a lesser extent, electronic musical instruments.
A game backup device, informally called a copier, is a device for backing up ROM data from a video game cartridge to a computer file called a ROM image and playing them back on the official hardware. Recently flash cartridges, especially on the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS platforms, only support the latter function; they cannot be used for backing up ROM data. Game backup devices also make it possible to develop homebrew software on video game systems. Game backup devices differ from modchips in that modchips are used in conjunction with systems that use generally available media such as CDs and DVDs, whereas game backup devices are used with systems that use cartridges.
A video game console emulator is a type of emulator that allows a computing device to emulate a video game console's hardware and play its games on the emulating platform. More often than not, emulators carry additional features that surpass limitations of the original hardware, such as broader controller compatibility, timescale control, easier access to memory modifications, and unlocking of gameplay features. Emulators are also a useful tool in the development process of homebrew demos and the creation of new games for older, discontinued, or rare consoles.
In the video game industry, digital distribution is the process of delivering video game content as digital information, without the exchange or purchase of new physical media such as ROM cartridges, magnetic storage, optical discs and flash memory cards. This process has existed since the early 1980s, but it was only with network advancements in bandwidth capabilities in the early 2000s that digital distribution became more prominent as a method of selling games. Currently, the process is dominated by online distribution over broadband Internet.
Game-Maker is an MS-DOS-based suite of game design tools, accompanied by demonstration games, produced between 1991 and 1995 by the Amherst, New Hampshire based Recreational Software Designs and sold through direct mail in the US by KD Software. Game-Maker also was sold under various names by licensed distributors in the UK, Korea, and other territories including Captain GameMaker and Create Your Own Games With GameMaker!. Game-Maker is notable as one of the first complete game design packages for DOS-based PCs, for its fully mouse-driven graphical interface, and for its early support for VGA graphics, Sound Blaster sound, and full-screen four-way scrolling.
VGA-Copy is an MS-DOS program to copy floppy disks. It is able to read defective floppy disks.