DOS Game Club

We like to pick spooky games for October, as we feel it fits with the Halloween season and everything. We wouldn't say Halloween Harry (1993, developed by Interactive Binary Illusions and SubZero Software, published by Apogee) is a particularly scary game. It does feature a lot of zombies. But more than anything it has "halloween" in the name, and that's all we need to be convinced to put this on the roster!

Hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") are joined by three veteran DGC members: Bjorn ("TigerQuoll"), Shawn ("DJ Hip") and DRS ("dr_st"). The first two guests are both from Australia, which is apt, because that's where Halloween Harry was developed, by John Passfield and his team. More on that in the next episode, in which we get to talk to John Passfield and his business partner Pete Mullins.

Enjoy!

[ download mp3 ] (96 mins, 111 MB)

Thanks to our producer Pix for helping to make the podcast happen, and thanks to DGC member Console for editing the audio.

Thanks to all who make this show possible, we couldn't do this without you!

* Archived copy of the Halloween Harry Webshrine, an old fan site

* John Passfield's personal homepage and his game studio Red Sprite Studios together with Pete Mullins

* LGR reviewed Halloween Harry on YouTube 12 years ago, and also covered its sequel Zombie Wars no less than 15 years ago

* Archived copy of Apogee/3DRealms' legacy site which hosts the freeware release of Halloween Harry and Alien Carnage, the original page has sadly gone offline recently

* Blog post about why Elvis Presley randomly showing up was considered absolutely hilarious in the 90s

* More Apogee in DGC episodes: 9 (Commander Keen), 16 (Duke Nukem 3D), 18 (Death Rally), 55 (Rise of the Triad), 65 (Raptor), 93 (Wolfenstein 3D) and 95 (Wacky Wheels)

As noted earlier, we seem to be having a bit of a space-themed streak at DOS Game Club this year. And it continues with September's game: Ascendancy, a 4X turn-based strategy game from 1995, developed by The Logic Factory. Pick one of the wild and very imaginative alien species featured in this game and get ready to dominate the universe!

Hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") are joined by no fewer than three guests for this episode. First of all Lucas ("Cas") is back, who is also the one who suggested we play this game. He is joined by Hannes ("Mr. Creosote"), who has written a review of Ascendancy for his website GoodOldDays.net (see link below). And last but not least we are joined by Juan ("Reidrac"), who not only plays retro games, but also makes brand new ones for various old platforms, including MS-DOS! See the links below for his website where you can find his games.

We also received a voice message from Peter ("pointer"), who has put together a possibly helpful script to combat the micromanagement that plagues this game, by automating a lot of the clicking around you have to do otherwise. Again, see the links below for the forum thread, we love seeing stuff like this!

[ download mp3 ] (139 mins, 159 MB)

Thanks to our producer Pix for helping to make the podcast happen, and thanks to DGC member Console for editing the audio.

Thanks to all who make this show possible, we couldn't do this without you!

* Ascendancy review on GoodOldDays.net by Mr. Creosote

* Juan's retro games

* Pointer's AutoHotKey script

* List of alien species, the website has other cool Ascendancy info as well!

* Ascendancy official strategy guide, with a foreword by Logic Factory co-founder Jason Templeman about the history of their game development studio

* We mention Master of Orion 2, another space-themed 4X game, which we discussed on episode 024, back in November 2018

We've done some multi-game episodes, where we take a look at a whole genre of (typically) sports-type games. We've looked at skiing games, we've looked at pinball, we've looked at cricket. But this month is our most ambitious one yet, in which we venture into the world of PC golf. No fewer than 50 games have been discussed on our forums, ranging from humble text-only beginnings in the 1980s to fully featured multimedia presentations that really show what your late 90s machine is capable of. There's a golf game for everyone!

Alongside hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") we are joined by two excellent guests. First of all long-time DGC member Richard ("Pix"), who took the deepest dive of all this month and documented his findings on the forums, where he reviewed all 50 golf games for MS-DOS we came across. We are also joined by Corwin ("Wildweasel"), who is the maintainer of the "golfshrine online", a webpage dedicated to a physical cabinet which he uses to showcase his vast collection of golf videogames for various platforms.

Both Richard's forum thread and Corwin's golfshrine are well worth a visit, see the links below!

[ download mp3 ] (114 mins, 131 MB)

Thanks to our producer Pix for helping to make the podcast happen, and thanks to DGC member Console for editing the audio.

Thanks to all who make this show possible, we couldn't do this without you!

* Pix's golfing grand tour forum thread

* Golfshrine Online by Wildweasel

* Lot's of Jack Nicklaus custom courses can be found online through discmaster.textfiles.com, such as: this one or this one

* We mention the Sierra Imagination Network at some point, which can still be accessed today through INN Barn

What happens when a lowly Stellar Patrol ensign, stuck with endless busywork aboard the S.P.S. Feinstein, suddenly finds himself the lone survivor on a mysterious, crumbling outpost? Intercom's 1983 Planetfall isn't just another text adventure. It's a mix of sci-fi exploration, survival, and an emotional punch to the gut. Will we uncover the secrets of the abandoned alien world? Can we repair the failing base before it's too late? And what about that quirky little robot who insists on following you everywhere? Friend, nuisance, or something more?

Joining hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") on this episode we have three guests to discuss the game. First of all returning DGC member Hannes ("Mr Creosote"), who wrote a review of Planetfall for his website GoodOldDays.net. Also joining is Tony Longworth, a music composer who contributed music for Jason Scott's "Get Lamp" interactive fiction documentary and also made an album inspired by Infocom games called "Memories of Infocom volume 1". Last but not least we are joined by Jimmy Maher ("The Digital Antiquarian") who has written about the history of videogames in general and Infocom in particular for many years for his website Filfre.net.

We received a voice message by Jon ("BogusMeatFactory"), for which we are very thankful! If you, too, want to be part of a future episode you can send one to [email protected]

[ download mp3 ] (230 mins, 263 MB)

Thanks to our producer Pix for making us all stick to actual schedules (did you notice we're not really lagging behind anymore?). And thanks to DGC member Console for editing the episode, you're a lifesaver!

Thanks to all who make this show possible, we couldn't do this without you.

* Mr. Creosote's review of Planetfall on GoodOldDays.net

* Memories of Infocom - Volume 1 by Tony Longworth (also available as physical release from polyplay)

* The Mind Electric - a selection of music from Get Lamp by Tony Longworth & Flesh-Resonance

* The Digital Antiquarian offers many relevant articles, for example this one about Planetfall and this one about the roots of Infocom

* The Literate Pixel podcast hosted by Jon ("BogusMeatFactory") and Nick

* Get Lamp documentary about interactive fiction by Jason Scott

* Steve Meretzky's personal homepage

* In 2008 Steve Meretzky wrote about how he created Floyd the robot in Planetfall

* Steve Meretzky kept meticulous notes, the ones on Planetfall are available on archive.org: part 1 and part 2

With Earthworm Jim previously and Planetfall up next, you could say we're on a bit of a space-themed streak here. But while those games have lots of other things going on, the Elite series puts the vastness of outer space absolutely front and centre.

When the original Elite came out in 1984 the sheer scale of the game blew everyone away. A whole universe on a floppy disk, who would have thought it possible! It was going to take a lot to amaze the audience again when the sequel was released, a whopping 9 years later. But Frontier: Elite II had kept up with current events. Gone were the wireframe graphics, a new colourful galaxy was there for you to explore. Just request take off permission and fly off, commander!

Joining hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") on this episode we have two guests to discuss the game. First of all returning DGC member Brian ("SpaceGameJunkie") who as you can tell by the username is all about space games. See the links below to find his YouTube and Twitch channels as well as the two (!) retro gaming podcasts he hosts. Also joining for the very first time is Tane, for who Frontier is one his favourite games. He also made a cool space visualiser inspired by Frontier that's linked below.

We received no voice messages this time (boo!), but if you want to be part of a future episode you can send one to [email protected]

[ download mp3 ] (144 mins, 164 MB)

Thanks to our producer Pix, who also recorded the audio clips from his retro hardware which you hear in the episode's intro. And thanks to DGC member Console for editing the episode, you're a lifesaver!

Thanks to all who make this show possible, we couldn't do this without you.

* Check out Brian's stuff at spacegamejunkie.com and retrodogfight.com

* teskooano.space is Tane's procedural space viewer

* Ian Bell's website

* Frontier Fundamentals is a fantastic beginner-friendly tutorial series on YouTube by JimPlaysGames

* Great Frontier fan sites: Frontierverse and FrontierAstro

* Some games mentioned on the podcast are: Frontier First Encounters D3D, Oolite and Pioneer

* We mention Starflight, which was discussed on DGC episode 17 and Nomad, which was discussed on DGC episode 40

"It's a day like any other. A crow is chasing a worm, a worm named Jim. Today the worm escapes to safety and the crow eats dirt. Jim looks left, then right. It seems he has given the crow the slip. Jim returns to his normal daily life, cruising about avoiding crows and doing other general worm-like things. Jim is suddenly struck by a very large ultra high tech indestructible super space cyber suit." This is all the backstory we get from the manual to explain why a worm is walking around in a space suit. And to be fair, it's all we need!

Earthworm Jim (1994, Shiny Entertainment) is the kind of 2D platformer, with its cartoony graphics and smooth animations, that was becoming quite commonplace on the consoles of the time, but was still pretty rare to see on the PC. As a product of the 90s it's full of bizarre humour, only elevated by its eclectic soundtrack. There's no doubt this game has a great production quality. But is it fun to play? Let's find out!

Joining hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") we are joined by two guests. First of all DGC member Wouter ("Jefklek") is back, who previously was on the Heretic episode. Newly joining the show is Lukasz ("Red Hexapus") who turns out to be a big fan of the game, so that's always good.

Once again DGC members Watchful was so kind to send in a voice message, for which we are very thankful. If you also want to send in a voice message, you can email them to us at [email protected]

[ download mp3 ] (117mins, 134 MB)

Thanks to our producer Pix, who also recorded the audio clips from his retro hardware which you hear in the episode's intro. And thanks to DGC member Console for editing the episode, you're a lifesaver!

Thanks to all who make this show possible, we can't do this without you.

* Earthworm Jim DOS and Windows comparison by DGC member dr_st, who also suggested we play the game!

* Very colourful Earthworm Jim fan site full of drawings and other cool things

* All of Jim's idle animations by Master0fHyrule on YouTube

* Shiny Entertainment was previously discussed in DGC episode 96, on MDK

"Rise, son of Cygna. It is the dawn of your seventeenth year. The Elders await you in the sanctuary." If you didn't listen to the 30 minute audio drama first, you'd have no idea what's going on when you first play Loom (1990, Lucasfilm Games). And if you did listen to it, you probably weren't any less confused. And on top of its unique magical fantasy setting, there's an unfamiliar music-based user interface to grapple with! Loom is probably one of the stranger Lucas point & click games, but its definitely not without its charm and therefore well worth checking out.

Joining hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") for this podcast we have three guests. First of all returning veteran DGC member Esko ("Firefyte"), who has been speedrunning Loom for many years. Joining the podcast for the first time is DGC member Eino ("Evil Taco"), we love it when we get new people on! And last but not least we are joined by Mads from the Retro Asylum Podcast, who did a podcast on Loom themselves a few years ago.

On top of all this, DGC members Watchful, Juan ("Reidrac") and Christian ("stdevel") sent in a voice message. Thank you so much, we love hearing from our listeners! If you want to send in a voice message too, you can e-mail them to us at [email protected]

[ download mp3 ] (161 mins, 185 MB)

Thanks to our producer Pix, who also recorded the audio clips from his retro hardware which you hear in the episode's intro. And thanks to DGC member Console for editing the episode, you're a lifesaver!

Thanks to all who make this show possible, we can't do this without you.

* Retro Asylum Podcast episode 220 about Loom

* Loom on Speedrun.com

* Space Quest IV on Speedrun.com

* Loom EGA vs VGA video by DOS Nostalgia on YouTube

* A webpage dedicated to the EGA vs VGA graphics of Loom on superrune.com

* Interview with Loom designer Brian Moriarty

* Forge is an unfinished fan-made sequel that's worth checking out

* Mark Ferrari's website has some other gorgeous pixel art he made over the years

* Interview with George "The Fat Man" Sanger on the Retro Hour Podcast

* Loom review by the International House of Mojo

* Florian was a guest on the Focus On Linux podcast in an episode about retro gaming on Linux

* We mention some previous DGC podcasts during this episode, including #45 Gateway, #22 Monkey Island, #54 Day of the Tentacle and #53 Interview with David Fox

Florian has been counting all of our regular "one game a month" episodes, and it turns out we've hit 100 of them! We started this club back in March of 2017 with the first DOS game that came to mind, which happened to be DOOM (id Software, 1993). In hindsight this was a bit of a big game to kick things off, so even though we did have a great time with our very first guest Mike ("toasty", who was on the Cricket episode not that long ago), much of the Doom rabbit hole was left untouched. We've long felt it would be good to correct this by diving into Doom again, and a 100th episode anniversary seems as good an occasion as any, so here go!

This month also saw the creation of the biggest DGC community project yet: a full episode of custom Doom levels!

Joining hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") on this episode of the podcast we have three fantastic guests, who are all not only keen long-time Doom players, but also Doom content creators. The custom content and community aspect of Doom is especially an area we felt was left unexplored in our first episode, so we tried to focus on that specifically.

First of all joining this episode is long-time DGC veteran David X Newton, who has a fantastic YouTube channel that's for a large part filled with videos related to Doom. We are also joined by Scwiba, a prolific and award-winning Doom level designer who focuses mainly on levels that are compatible with the original vanilla Doom. Last but not least we have Jazz Mickle, a wide-ranging artist who does everything from graphics to music to games, including a ton of different Doom things such as maps, songs and tools.

And on top of all this we received two voice messages, both from long time friends of the show. The first is from Watchful and the second from Spoonboy. Thank you very much for sending these in, it's always great to hear from club members!

[ download mp3 ] (132 mins, 151 MB)

Thanks to our producer Pix, who also recorded the audio clips from his retro hardware which you hear in the episode's intro. And thanks to DGC member Console for editing the episode, you're a lifesaver!

And finally thank you, the listener, for sticking with us for so many years. Here's to the next 100 episodes!

* David X Newton has a YouTube channel and runs the yearly RAMP Doom map project

* Scwiba organises NaNoWadMo and many of his levels can be found on DoomWiki.org

* jmickle.com holds all of the many things Jazz Mickle has made, most of the Doom things were posted between 2014 and 2018

* Doom Is An Art Scene, YouTube video by Jazz Mickle

* Our very own DGC map pack created by the community!

* Doom Connector multiplayer tool for Doom

* Doom World one of the oldest and biggest surviving Doom community websites

* Zdoom offers different source port variations for playing Doom on modern hardware

* Retro Ahoy on Doom video on YouTube

* Action Button reviews Doom video on YouTube

We're back with a big one, in more ways than one! Normally we do a different game every month, but between December and February we've focused on Ultima Underworld for three months in a row. This was mainly done to give ourselves a chance to catch up, as we've been lagging behind with the podcast a fair bit. But also it's not easy to beat an open world RPG like Ultima Underworld in a single month, so this way everyone had a chance to check it out and see what's what with this groundbreaking title.

Enjoy!

Sadly our trusty co-host Florian ("rnlf") again couldn't make the episode. We promise it's just a hiccup, there's no drama and he'll be back for future episodes! Joining host Martijn ("Tijn") we have no fewer than four great guests. First of all there is DGC veteran Richard ("Pix") who is not only very keen on talking about Ultima Underworld, but he also been helping us as a producer the past months to make sure we get back on schedule. Next up we have two returning DGC members on the show: Patrick ("patrick_wd"), who was on the Jazz Jackrabbit episode, and Lars ("fastwinstdoom"), who joined us for Dungeon Keeper and Wacky Wheels. Last but not least we are joined by Chester from the excellent CRPG Addict Blog, where he has covered many RPG games over the years, so he can tell us a thing or two!

[ download mp3 ] (191 mins, 218 MB)

Thanks to all who help us make this show possible, we can't do it without you!

* The CRPG Addict blog by Chester

* Ultima Underworld 3 design document from Pix's website

* Reddit thread about the item limit as brought up by patrick_wd

* Monomyth is a spiritual successor to UUW that was mentioned by Lars

* Excellent deep dive in the making of Ultima Underworld by The Digital Antiquarian

* Some 10 years ago PC Gamer posted an hour-long playthrough of UUW with creator Paul Neurath on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=6sh_DY28wl4

We've featured a lot of different kinds of sim games over the years. We've piloted fighter jets, space ships, a ww2-era bomber and even giant mechs. But never before have we gone under water! In a lot of ways, 1993's Subwar 2050 by Particle Systems and MicroProse could be described as "aquatic Wing Commander". But even though it might be a little light on its story, there's a surprising depth to this game (pun unintended!). Being submerged under the oceans brings its own unique atmosphere, and it turns out Subwar 2050 manages to capture it well and turn the experience of playing it into something that's quite unlike anything else.

Enjoy!

Sadly our trusty co-host Florian ("rnlf") couldn't make the episode, but joining host Martijn ("Tijn") we have three excellent guests to more than make up for it. First of all there is DGC veteran Bjorn ("TigerQuoll") who is always keen on any combat sim. Joining for the first time we have Dario ("Psy"), who we welcome to the family. Always exciting to have new club members on! And last but not least we have Alex, who runs the "Tales from the darkened room" blog and YouTube channel, which has several articles and videos on Subwar 2050, as well as many other sim games.

[ download mp3 ] (96 mins, 110 MB)

Many thanks to DGC member Richard ("Pix") who helped produce the show, to DGC member Bernd ("console") who edited this episode, and to Bjorn ("TigerQuoll") for providing the game audio & music. Thanks to all who help us make this show possible, we can't do it without you!

* Subwar content on Tales of the Darkened Room the sim gaming blog maintained by Alex

* Alex also posts to YouTube, such as this video of Subwar running in Dosbox Staging

* Subwar 2050 on Mobygames

* Subwar 2050 is available on both Steam and GOG

* Microprose was previously discussed on DGC in episodes: 024 (Master of Orion 2), 032 (Knights of the Sky), 034 (X-Com / UFO Enemy Unknown), 035 (Sid Meier's Pirates!), 052 (Master of Magic) and 078 (B17 Flying Fortress)