I made the mistake of letting it briefly link my YouTube account with a Google+ account. Totally broke YouTube on my XBMC-based HTPC until I reverted the setting.

Good job reviewing AW/OotW. The Adlib does work on a real PC, but the audio output is quiet and very noisy since the Adlib was not designed to output digitized sound. The game actually does not support the MT-32, it supports the LAPC-I, CM-32L and any other MIDI device supporting the extra 33 sound effects found in those devices for sound effects only.

Great Hierophant wrote:

The game actually does not support the MT-32, it supports the LAPC-I, CM-32L and any other MIDI device supporting the extra 33 sound effects found in those devices for sound effects only.

...err... yeah... I had a feeling that was a mistake. *goes to make a correction*

That review did a really good job of not spoiling any of the flavor stuff in the game, while still giving a good overview of what the game is about.

DOSBox doesn't seem to support games that abuse OPL chips by trying to use them as DACs. Other examples of this include Wizardry 7 and possibly some Silmarils games like Metal Mutant. Fortunately, most of these games at least support producing the same quality of sound via the PC speaker, which does generally work in DOSBox.

Oh wow...

My latest episode of ADG just registered over twice as many hits in the past couple days than my ENTIRE SHOW gets in a month! :O

...all from Blip's Apple iOS app. XD

So I'm guessing, if that's not a glitch, the episode must've shown up on the front page of their iOS app for a time. I don't have a cell phone so I have no idea if that's the case or not, plus I'm still waiting for the details of the hits to come through as there's a three-day delay on all stats to ensure that data is being tracked properly, so there's still a chance that's just a glitch.

If not a glitch though, then that would be awesome. :)

Speaking of glitches though, I had quite the epic glitch happen while recording gameplay for the next episode. Expect to see that in the pre-title sequence. ;)

Well, you did mention that AW/OoTW has an iOS release. Perhaps a bunch of people who are familiar with it from playing it on iOS decided to watch your review for that reason.

Actually, the data's pushed through now and it looks like the massive view spike from iOS devices may've just been a glitch, since none of those views were monetized. :(

Ah well. Maybe some other day. :)

So much for Blip's reliability :p

Well, I constantly have to remind myself that there's no such thing as a perfect solution. Blip has its pros and cons, YouTube has its pros and cons, and Human nature dictates that certain people can deal with certain problems better than other people. For me, I can deal with the cons Blip throws at me better than the ones YouTube's been throwing at me. :P

Also, some of you may have heard that Blip's shutting down some of their older shows that never really qualified as "shows" or had extremely poor performance. ADG is not one of the shows being affected, as the over 400,000 total views since it began would attest to. ;)

...I really hate the acoustics in Dad's house... there isn't a single room that doesn't echo like mad and my attempts to counteract the echo haven't really worked out all too well so far. They've been passable, but not ideal.

This week I THOUGHT I came up with the perfect solution by being able to have my mouth much closer to the mic on my camera, but apparently it didn't quite like that because my camera automatically applies compression to the waveform, the result was that the volume level was all over the place and it also sounded like it was coming out of a telephone. I've tried my best to fix up the audio but after an hour of tinkering with numerous filters and equalization and sliders and such I think it's time to bite the bullet and redo the entire voiceover with yet another different mic setup. x_x;

Since I've been up all night and will be sleeping throughout the day, this means the episode will probably go up later than usual, likely late Saturday morning or early in the afternoon.

Unlike with the game I'm reviewing, I'm not going to let arbitrary deadlines ruin the quality of my review. :B

Grab a wool blanket and hide underneath it (you/your mic/your monitor). That'll cut back on echo. 😉

Gemini000 wrote:

Also, some of you may have heard that Blip's shutting down some of their older shows that never really qualified as "shows" or had extremely poor performance. ADG is not one of the shows being affected, as the over 400,000 total views since it began would attest to. 😉

The only Blip shows I ever watch are ADG, LGR and Pat the NES Punk - all of whom post-publish to YouTube anyway.

I actually had to manually write XML to add the last of those three as a favorite show on my HTPC, because Blip partially broke compatibility with XBMC's Blip plugin. YouTube has only fared slightly better, with its XBMC plugin temporarily breaking when I briefly agreed to letting YouTube connect my account to a Google+ account. The joys of using FOSS HTPC software instead of DRM-laden proprietary stuff!

Stull wrote:

Grab a wool blanket and hide underneath it (you/your mic/your monitor). That'll cut back on echo. 😉

You're never too old for a blanket fort.

Never.

SquallStrife wrote:

Stull wrote:

Grab a wool blanket and hide underneath it (you/your mic/your monitor). That'll cut back on echo. 😉

You're never too old for a blanket fort.

Never.

Man, I remember my brother turning our entire room into a blanket fort around 20 years ago by stringing them between pieces of furniture. The fort had several "rooms" and everything. It was pretty epic; I'll have to try to create something similar with my daughters when they're old enough.

I did create a makeshift blanket tent with my 2-year old daughter over the summer by tying two corners of a bed sheet to the bedposts and pointing a large metal air circulator fan at the side of the bed to inflate the sheet. She thought that was pretty neat!

(taking a break right now, new episode is almost done, about an hour and a half of work left)

Imagination + Blankets = Win :D

Actually, I picked up a somewhat expensive USB microphone not too many weeks ago that sounds much better and doesn't pick up the echo all that much, but I still need to pick up some more accessories to make using it practical, such as a stand since it needs to plug directly into my computer and the base it comes with is too small to get the mic close enough to my mouth to sound its best. Though I find it funny that the least-expensive mic stands tend to be more expensive than the least-expensive camera stands. :P

Anyways, the second attempt at the voice over sounds way better than the first, though still not as good as I had it back in my old place... I miss carpeting... a LOT... :(

Ancient DOS Games Episode 125 - Magic Carpet 2: The Netherworlds is finally online! ^_^

Also, by sheer coincidence AGAIN, the game's on sale on GOG this weekend along with other Bullfrog titles like Dungeon Keeper. I swear I don't plan these things! :O

But yeah, since I already covered the original Magic Carpet in quite a bit of detail I decided to be more generalized with my coverage of Magic Carpet 2. I still find it weird how neither game ever really caught on. As before, I think Doom is mostly to blame. Doom's popularity pretty much broke everything trying to even remotely compete with it, similar to the effect Power Rangers had on the Sonic The Hedgehog SatAM series... >_>;

Actually, funny thing about that is that when both of those series were going, I was living in Texas which is split between Central and Eastern time zones, so I was able to watch both shows every Saturday morning without having to choose between them! :D

...I think I'll stop now before I get wayyyyyyyyyyyyy too far off-topic. XB

I don't understand your hint. The future of ADG involves you getting a haircut, or trying new hair styles?

The Magic Carpet games never interested me (even now) because I've always been more of a sci-fi guy than a fantasy guy, and there were tons of great PC sci-fi shooters around in the early-to-mid 1990s (Doom, Descent, Quake, etc.). I guess I did play Heretic and Hexen a bit, but mostly because they used the Doom engine and thus felt very familiar.

I still enjoyed the episode though (although I did skip over most of the spells section). Also, my wife was listening in and commented that you are very smart for taking a break once in a while.

Hey, I loved Magic Carpet 2 even though I'd never played the first one (I still haven't)... going to try and set it up in DOSBox now, actually. FYI, I'd be all over a modern clone/remake of it :-)

Those damned spiders... that hissing sound effect still has me instinctively dashing sideways with the mouse.

SKARDAVNELNATE wrote:

I don't understand your hint. The future of ADG involves you getting a haircut, or trying new hair styles?

Moreso, when I appear on camera next, it won't seem like I got the haircut I said I was going to the last time I appeared on camera. :P

HunterZ wrote:

The Magic Carpet games never interested me (even now) because I've always been more of a sci-fi guy than a fantasy guy

If I ever make my own clone of the game, it will be sci-fi themed instead of fantasy, just because I'm more comfortable designing for that type of game world... or a mix of sci-fi and fantasy. I never go straight fantasy.