Bubble Bobble brings back some memories. It was my first Adlib game after suffering years of PC-Speaker sound.

Oooh! I figured out what was up with the ring and shoe powerups: They only work properly when Tandy graphics are engaged. XD

Seriously, over the past couple hours I tested a ton of DOSBox settings, cycles counts, core types, etc., and in the end, the only time the shoes were showing up at the normal rate and the rings were properly bestowing powers was when Tandy mode was engaged. So apparently, the CGA and EGA/VGA versions weren't tested properly or something. :P

I also noticed that timing was slightly different for certain things in the Tandy mode, and all the timings that were different were slightly slower.

Plus, I managed to hit the Level 30 secret room again for my second time ever in the DOS version... and remembered that unlike in the arcade version, the secret rooms are all identical in the DOS version. ^_^;

I'm gonna do some more testing of the Tandy mode tomorrow... see if there's a good ending hidden within this thing after all.

The only trouble with the Tandy mode though is that the graphics aren't as good as the VGA mode, but at least you can use it along with Adlib sound and music. :)

Oh yeah, and if cycles are set really low, the maximum enemy count does indeed drop down to 4. :O

Gemini000 wrote:

SKARDAVNELNATE wrote:

What was the thing on your arm that changed into stuff supposed to be?

A Guardian Key Tool.

...you haven't ever watched ReBoot, have you? That entire ending sequence was a parody of a scene from one of its early episodes. 😮

Actually I did. My memory of it just isn't good. Maybe if the joke was told in binary I would have gotten it.

Did that text in the secret room mean anything?

SKARDAVNELNATE wrote:

Gemini000 wrote:

SKARDAVNELNATE wrote:

What was the thing on your arm that changed into stuff supposed to be?

A Guardian Key Tool.

...you haven't ever watched ReBoot, have you? That entire ending sequence was a parody of a scene from one of its early episodes. :o

Actually I did. My memory of it just isn't good.

In that case, you haven't watched it enough. ;D

I have virtually every episode memorized as it was one of my favourite shows as a kid. :)

Gemini000 wrote:

In that case, you haven't watched it enough. ;D

I have virtually every episode memorized as it was one of my favourite shows as a kid. 😀

Hmm... It aired in 1994. So I haven't seen it since I was 12, and that was kind of a traumatic year.

Damn, I forgot to send in a guess. Your hint about there being 100 levels in the game led me to Bubble Bobble and Jetpack. I would have guessed Jetpack, because that game has a level editor in it and you are a game designer so I thought you would enjoy making your own levels.

I can confirm that in the DOS version of Bubble Bobble when you get to level 50 without dying once a door appears that warps you to level 70. I know this, because I cheated to get to level 50.

It's fun to play this game in two player mode even if you're alone. Just use the same keys for player 1 as for player 2 and you can control both players simultaneously. Or reverse the left and right keys for player 2.

Grats on episode 100. I got busy moving to a new house a couple months ago and didn't manage to catch up on ADG until just now, so here are a couple of comments on past episodes:

Populous: This is probably my favorite Molyneux game. I got a copy of it from somewhere in the early '90s that was missing the VGA files, so I had to play in EGA mode. I also never got more than a few worlds in, but it was always a fun waste of an afternoon here and there. After watching the ADG episode on it, I actually dug out a more recently-acquired copy (with VGA support) and fired it up just to see how the music sounded on my MT-32 (it was pretty good, although there is only one - long - song).

Commander Keen: So I started using dial-up BBSes in the Seattle area around 1990, when I was around 12 years old. This happened to be perfect timing to encounter a lot of the big Apogee/iD shareware releases, with Commander Keen being one of the first that I got my hands on. It really made me feel like my 8MHz 286 clone could do anything just as good as the other kids' NES consoles (yes, I was stuck with an Atari 2600 and resented my parents for not letting us upgrade) if the programmers were clever enough.

Amulets & Armor: That game doesn't look nearly as sophisticated as Daggerfall on any level, but that doesn't mean it's not a good game.

X-COM: I bought the whole X-COM series on a Steam sale quite a while back, and it took me over a year to work up the guts to play the first game. The manual is hundreds of pages long! After watching some Let's Play videos that didn't do much other than spoiling some of the game's surprises, I finally jumped in a few months back and got the hang of it pretty quickly. I have to agree that the "tooltip-free" icon-based battle mode interface is terribly unintuitive. I also haven't managed to beat the game yet, because it seems to be forcing me to capture high-ranking aliens for interrogation, and I'm terrible at capturing aliens alive without massive manpower sacrifices. I ended up putting the game down because playing mission after mission without getting anywhere got too tedious.

Bubble Bobble: I got my hands on a copy of DOS Bubble Bobble in the early '90s. It was great fun for a couple weeks, especially playing 2-player with my younger brother. The music is so catchy that it still sticks with me. I also cheated to reach the end at least once; I don't remember if it was via a cheat code or via Game Wizard, and I don't remember if it seemed bugged or not.

Calvero wrote:

I can confirm that in the DOS version of Bubble Bobble when you get to level 50 without dying once a door appears that warps you to level 70. I know this, because I cheated to get to level 50.

I wondered if there were any cheats for the DOS version. As stated in the review, info specifically on the DOS version is hard to come by. x_x;

HunterZ wrote:

Amulets & Armor: That game doesn't look nearly as sophisticated as Daggerfall on any level, but that doesn't mean it's not a good game.

It's kinda like a cross between Daggerfall and Doom. ;)

HunterZ wrote:

The music is so catchy that it still sticks with me.

The funny thing is, some people complain about the music since it's the same thing and loops constantly. ^_^;

Which is understandable. If the music wasn't catchy at all, it would get irritating being the only tune you really hear through most of the game. :P

Gemini000 wrote:

It's kinda like a cross between Daggerfall and Doom. 😉

Yeah, it looked like a Doom-style engine, as I didn't see any footage of rooms above other rooms in the video. Daggerfall actually used a Quake-style engine that allowed for true polygon graphics; they just decided to use sprites instead of polygons for the NPCs.

HunterZ wrote:

The music is so catchy that it still sticks with me.

The funny thing is, some people complain about the music since it's the same thing and loops constantly. 😅

Which is understandable. If the music wasn't catchy at all, it would get irritating being the only tune you really hear through most of the game. 😜

Which reminds me: http://www.remix64.com/track/hampshire_region … le_bobble_live/

I prefer A&A over Dagger because of the responsive controls alone, and they didn't synthesize the world. 😉

Gemini000 wrote:

HunterZ wrote:

The music is so catchy that it still sticks with me.

The funny thing is, some people complain about the music since it's the same thing and loops constantly. 😅

Played any of the Skunny platformers? You haven't heard irritating, repetitive AdLib music until you've played them...

SquallStrife wrote:

Played any of the Skunny platformers? You haven't heard irritating, repetitive AdLib music until you've played them...

I actually intend to review some Skunny games during Season 3... there will be pain. >_>;;;

Actually, Skunny Kart isn't so bad, though the way it ended up getting made in the first place was pretty sketchy. :P

Yeah, Skunny Kart is surprisingly tolerable. (TWO WHOLE SONGS!!! Woo!)

No surprise given the circumstances though, hahaha! 😀

leileilol wrote:

I prefer A&A over Dagger because of the responsive controls alone, and they didn't synthesize the world. 😉

How does A&A compare to Hexen? It almost seemed more reminiscent of that to me.

Bubble freakin' Bobble! 100 level game for episode 100, nice. And yeah, that was quite the ending 😁

Just checked my Bubble Bobble DOS disks, and they're dated 1990 as well. Strange.

I used to play the DOS port of Bubble Bobble all the time on this 486 box I had. Quite a fun game, though I did notice that it was a lot easier than the arcade version. 🤣 The fact that the graphics (and sound, to an extent) were so close to the arcade impressed me especially. 😁

Ancient DOS Games Filler #20 - The Future of ADG is online!

Basically, just taking some time to talk about what my plans are and to answer some questions. Simple stuff, so I'll let the video speak for itself. :)

Could do a PCem filler.

I am watching the filler currently and while I have not finished watching it, I have something to say regarding the future of Ancient DOS Games. You should try and maybe bring Ancient DOS Games to YouTube through some of your older episodes. Also upload trailers to new episodes with a link to your site similar to what the Angry Video Game Nerd did when he was always uploading his new content on Gametrailers. It may seem a bit weird or something that may not work, but it is a suggestion that could bring in more viewers possibly.

yeah, I was going to suggest that your viewership plateau might have something to do with your complete lack of presence on youtube (as opposed to LGR, for instance).