Related Research Articles
Wolfenstein 3D is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software and FormGen. Originally released on May 5, 1992, for DOS, it was inspired by the 1981 Muse Software video game Castle Wolfenstein, and is the third installment in the Wolfenstein series. In Wolfenstein 3D, the player assumes the role of Allied spy William "B.J." Blazkowicz during World War II as he escapes from the Nazi German prison Castle Wolfenstein and carries out a series of crucial missions against the Nazis. The player traverses each of the game's levels to find an elevator to the next level or kill a final boss, fighting Nazi soldiers, dogs, and other enemies with a knife and a variety of guns.
Commander Keen is a series of side-scrolling platform video games developed primarily by id Software. The series consists of six main episodes, a "lost" episode, and a final game; all but the final game were released for MS-DOS in 1990 and 1991, while the 2001 Commander Keen was released for the Game Boy Color. The series follows the eponymous Commander Keen, the secret identity of the eight-year-old genius Billy Blaze, as he defends the Earth and the galaxy from alien threats with his homemade spaceship, rayguns, and pogo stick. The first three episodes were developed by Ideas from the Deep, the precursor to id, and published by Apogee Software as the shareware title Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons; the "lost" episode 3.5 Commander Keen in Keen Dreams was developed by id and published as a retail title by Softdisk; episodes four and five were released by Apogee as the shareware Commander Keen in Goodbye, Galaxy; and the simultaneously developed episode six was published in retail by FormGen as Commander Keen in Aliens Ate My Babysitter. Ten years later, an homage and sequel to the series was developed by David A. Palmer Productions and published by Activision as Commander Keen. Another game was announced in 2019 as under development by ZeniMax Online Studios, but was not released.
The Gravis PC GamePad is a game port game controller produced by Advanced Gravis Computer Technology first released in 1991. It was the first gamepad for the IBM PC compatible in a market then dominated by joysticks. Included with the gamepad was a shareware Commander Keen game, episode 1, Marooned on Mars, which was later replaced with the shareware episode 4, Secret of the Oracle which supported all 4 buttons. The gamepad is no longer manufactured, as Gravis was acquired in 1997 by Kensington Computer Products Group.
Descent is a first-person shooter (FPS) game developed by Parallax Software and released by Interplay Productions in 1995 for MS-DOS, and later for Macintosh, PlayStation, and RISC OS. It popularized a subgenre of FPS games employing six degrees of freedom and was the first FPS to feature entirely true-3D graphics. The player is cast as a mercenary hired to eliminate the threat of a mysterious extraterrestrial computer virus infecting off-world mining robots. In a series of mines throughout the Solar System, the protagonist pilots a spaceship and must locate and destroy the mine's power reactor and escape before being caught in the mine's self-destruction, defeating opposing robots along the way. Players can play online and compete in either deathmatches or cooperate to take on the robots.
ZZT is a 1991 action-adventure puzzle video game and game creation system developed and published by Potomac Computer Systems for MS-DOS. It was later released as freeware in 1997. It is an early game allowing user-generated content using object-oriented programming. Players control a smiley face to battle various creatures and solve puzzles in different grid-based boards in a chosen world. It has four worlds where players explore different boards and interact with objects such as ammo, bombs, and scrolls to reach the end of the game. It includes an in-game editor, allowing players to develop worlds using the game's scripting language, ZZT-OOP.
Jazz Jackrabbit is a series of platform games featuring the eponymous character, Jazz Jackrabbit, a green anthropomorphic hare who fights with his nemesis, Devan Shell, in a science fiction parody of the fable The Tortoise and the Hare. Created by Arjan Brussee and Cliff Bleszinski and developed by Epic Games, the series debuted on MS-DOS in 1994 with Jazz Jackrabbit. The series consists of two PC games and a handheld game.
Hugo's House of Horrors is a parser-based adventure game designed by independent software developer David P. Gray and published as shareware in 1990. The game follows the character Hugo as he searches for his girlfriend Penelope in a haunted house. To progress through the game, the player uses items and interacts with the environment to solve puzzles and access more rooms in the house. The gameplay was inspired by Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards. Hugo's House of Horrors was praised for its environment and atmosphere, but it was criticized for its plot and visual design. It was followed by two sequels: Hugo II, Whodunit? and Hugo III, Jungle of Doom!, and a spin-off first-person shooter game, Nitemare 3D.
Jill of the Jungle is a trilogy of scrolling platform games released in 1992 by Epic MegaGames. It followed the method of distribution used by Apogee Software, where the first game is freely available and promotes the purchase of the additional episodes. The three episodes are Jill of the Jungle, Jill Goes Underground, and Jill Saves the Prince. They were combined into Jill of the Jungle: The Complete Trilogy a year later.
Jazz Jackrabbit 2 is a 1998 platform game produced by Epic MegaGames. It was released for Windows, and later for Macintosh. Like the first game, Jazz Jackrabbit, Jazz Jackrabbit 2 is a side-scrolling platform game but features additional multiplayer options, including the ability to play over a LAN or the Internet. The game was re-released on GOG.com along with the first game on November 30, 2017.
The Adventures of Captain Comic is a platform game written by Michael Denio for MS-DOS compatible operating systems and released as shareware in 1988. It was one of the first side-scrolling games for IBM PC compatibles reminiscent of games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and it presaged a trend of shareware platform games in the early 1990s. A version for the NES was later published by Color Dreams as an unlicensed title.
Kroz is a series of Roguelike video games created by Scott Miller for IBM PC compatibles. The first episode in the series, Kingdom of Kroz, was released in 1987 as Apogee Software's first game. It was also published on Big Blue Disk #20. Kroz introduced the scheme of the first episode being free and charging money for additional episodes, a technique which defined the business model for Apogee and was adopted by other MS-DOS shareware publishers.
Xargon: The Mystery of the Blue Builders is a video game trilogy produced by Epic MegaGames for DOS. The game is a side-scrolling platform game. The main character, Malvineous Havershim, must journey through strange landscapes as he seeks to destroy the evil Xargon.
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.
Duke Nukem II is a 1993 platform game developed and published by Apogee Software. The game consists of four episodes, the first available as shareware. It is the follow-up to 1991's Duke Nukem, and followed by Duke Nukem 3D in 1996. Todd Replogle was the primary designer of all three games.
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.
Realms of Chaos is a platform game written for DOS, published by Apogee Software as shareware in November 1995, with the full version released later that month. The game was authored by Keith Schuler, who had previously designed Paganitzu, and was originally to be a sequel entitled Alabama Smith and the Bloodfire Pendant. It is still sold by Apogee. Like previous platform Apogee games, this one utilized the FAST engine. The game was re-released in 2013 on GOG.com with support for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Heartlight is a puzzle video game originally developed by Janusz Pelc for the Atari 8-bit family in 1990. In 1994, an MS-DOS port was published by Epic MegaGames along with two other games by Janusz Pelc in the Epic Puzzle Pack. The shareware version has 20 levels and the full version has 70 levels. In 2006, Maciej Miąsik, co-author of the MS-DOS version, released it under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.5 license as freeware. The source code became available too. In 2020, a web browser remake was released with updated graphics.
Ancients 1: Death Watch is a first-person medieval fantasy turn-based RPG for the PC. Version 1.2 was released as shareware in 1991, developed and self-published by Farr-Ware. Version 2.0 was later published by Epic MegaGames on August 12, 1993. The game was programmed by Mark Lewis, and its graphic art was created by Jason Struck and Matthew McEwan.
Clint Basinger, better known as LGR, is an American YouTuber who focuses on video game reviews, retrocomputing, and unboxing videos. His YouTube channel of the same name has been compared to Techmoan and The 8-Bit Guy. Basinger is known for building, restoring and reviewing many vintage computers and reviewing mainly PC games. The channel is funded through YouTube advertising, and through Patreon.
References
- ↑ "Vinyl Goddess from Mars at welovedosgames.net". Archived from the original on 2018-03-07.
- ↑ Monitor Volume 2 issue 11 interview, mentions Jill of the Jungle II being released as Vinyl Goddess From Mars Archived November 3, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Basinger, Clint. "LGR - Vinyl Goddess From Mars - DOS PC Game Review". Youtube. Archived from the original on 2021-12-14. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
