I did actually get a response from Blip.tv when I mentioned that some Android users couldn't watch my show anymore, some suddenly could, and some didn't see any changes.

Blip.tv's stance is that they're working to make their player work across all Android products, but that because of how much variation there is between them all it's difficult to come up with a single solution that works on all of them.

So at the moment, the fact that Blip.tv works on any Android phones at all is not really intentional, but a side effect of getting other mobile products working. When updates are made to support more phones, it potentially breaks support for phones they don't officially support, which includes most Android phones.

I guess that doesn't really help much... This has apparently been an issue for over a year now as original reports about broken Android functionality surfaced in early 2010.

Though, it may also be related to the uploaded file formats. I used to create the FLV files myself and upload them straight to Blip.tv, except that FLV files can become corrupted at random on Blip.tv, so in order to take advantage of better compression and avoid corruption, I started uploading my videos as MP4s, though the conversion to Blip SD and Blip LD formats is super-quick, which are M4Vs and MP4s respectively.

With a little luck, this will all be resolved in the future, 'cause I don't think there's anything I can do on my end to fix things. :/

Ancient DOS Games Filler #9 - Cubes5 is online!

Here's an obscure little thing that few people are going to know about, unless you happen to be a fan of Ken Silverman's work outside of the Build Engine. Cubes5 was an engine prototype developed alongside Build for the sake of figuring out how to do various rendering optimizations among other things, but it's essentially an engine that lets you build maps out of cubes using almost the exact same methodology as modern games such as Minecraft... a decade and a half earlier! (3D accelerator cards hadn't even come into the picture yet!)

Not quite sure why it's called "Cubes5" though. I mean, I get the "Cubes" part, just not the "5". My best guess is that it has something to do with the number of engines Ken Silverman had made up to that point, but I'm probably wrong... I should ask him; I am capable of doing so. :D

it's probably revision 5. I always incremented numbers for major revisions too, my avatar is Lei648.blend

I got a response back from Ken Silverman and you're right, it was the fifth revision of the engine. There were also Cubes1 through Cubes4, none of which were worth mentioning beyond their existence. ;D

Ancient DOS Games Episode 61 - Scorched Earth is online!

...and I'm going to bed momentarily, which is why it's up early. Enjoy!

Gemini000: I should seriously smack you around with a wet cold codfish. Cause you forgot to mention two things (one of them is an important thing) the important thing you fucking forgot(in your hate) without even mentioning it. Is the thing about remarks you can send every time you attack, and when you die. And you could even make your own comment files, the non important thing is this. You forgot to mention that I guessed correct too. But as I said, that was unimportant. Gemini000 you are a great reviewer. But please do not omit important parts of the game, cause to me I can see parallels to Worms in Scorched Earth, thanks to the remarks part of the game. The remarks stuff, was what made the game fun. So yeah, that is why I am a tiny bit disappointed in your review today.

Technically, every feature in the game is important in some way. I didn't talk about interest earning, teamplay modes, synchronous firing, arms levels, useless items, scanned mountains, wind levels, boundary types, air viscosity, BIOS keyboard handling, flight sounds, Auto-Defence, weapon scales, retreating, NO KIBITZING, joystick support, gravity, lasers, plasma blasts, and as you pointed out, talking tanks.

...and that's just off the top of my head...

Seriously, I could devote another two episodes JUST to talk about Scorched Earth's features if I really wanted to. Part of the reason I missed Talking Tanks specifically is because to me, it was a completely unimportant part of the game and I found it made what was already a slow game even slower, so I always turned them off.

That's just my feeling though and it is true that was one of the things people really liked about the game so I guess when I update my website next I should at least mention it in the additional information section. ;)

You should play the mac version. Its a DIRECT ripoff of scorched earth. I mean they would win a copy-rite suit its so close. Either way the graphics are about 10x better. and the AI is slightly tweaked so that it doesnt bug out, but still has the other flaws you mentioned.

Having an issue watching the Scorched Earth video on pixelships.com and blip.tv on my desktop (Firefox 7.0.1), in which I can only jump to a different time in the video once and then it ignores any further clicks on the progress bar (well, the slider jumps momentarily to where I click, but then jumps right back to the current video position).

I remember playing both Scorched Earth and Tank Wars, and I remember forgetting at one point that they were two different games because they had so many features in common. I also remember liking Scorched Earth a bit better due to its ability to run in hi-res modes. What I don't remember is Scorched Earth being able to generate the realistic-looking terrains shown in the ADG episode - I guess that was added in a later version than the one I played?

the game is pure AWESOME.

I consider my self a lucky SOTB to actually have it original from mr Wendell 😁

@HunterZ:

yeah, the last version has the ability to create mountains from "textures" , on the full version you get more textures and the tools to make your own!

HunterZ wrote:

Having an issue watching the Scorched Earth video on pixelships.com and blip.tv on my desktop (Firefox 7.0.1), in which I can only jump to a different time in the video once and then it ignores any further clicks on the progress bar (well, the slider jumps momentarily to where I click, but then jumps right back to the current video position).

This happens sometimes on Blip.tv. There's very little I can do about it. x_x;

keropi wrote:

I consider my self a lucky SOTB to actually have it original from mr Wendell

The thing on his website for obtaining the Totally Scorched package isn't working at the moment. With any luck, that will change in the future and once again people will be able to get the registered version. :P

Though despite the fact his eMail address is broken, he still keeps an active blog. Apparently, he loves chocolate. :D

the website has been "working" on the ordering issue for some years now... if anyone wants the game don't bother waiting for it, email the author directly from his blog, that's your best bet IMHO

PLease review `elevator`

I'll add Elevator to the requests list. ;)

Ancient DOS Games Episode 62 - OverKill is online!

I was surprised when I found out about this game awhile back because I had never heard of it, and I thought I had heard of everything Epic MegaGames had made! :O

It does stand out though since it has an incredibly different style to virtually everything else released by Epic, so it definitely deserved a look even if it wasn't that long a game and there wasn't much to really go into. ^_^;

Curious question too for anyone who's been keeping tabs on ADG through the RSS Feed: There's 30 entries in the feed now; how many entries do you feel the feed should have before I start deleting old ones?

And yes, seriously, out of the roughly 100 different games that have been requested now, no one has requested next week's game, or if anyone did, I must've missed it somehow. You'll be just as surprised when you hear the hint at the end of this week's episode. :P

Finally! Overkill is great.

nice one!

Gemini000: the next episode you will review will probably be banned in Germany, that is the only thing I can say. Cause I know what the next game is, but this one I will not guess. But thank goodness, that I live in Denmark, and have had not (yet) no games banned in Denmark.

it wasnt banned, just few symbols were changed 😜

nerka99 wrote:

it wasnt banned, just few symbols were changed 😜

I like Germany a lot,
but still quite a lot of things are fucked up in my neighbouring country, when it comes to game censoring, but it looks like Australia is getting even more crazy in that department. It is like UK version 2.0