VOGONS


Ancient DOS Games Webshow

Topic actions

Reply 2800 of 3343, by luckybob

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

cooking your own meals might not make you a chef, but doing so will give you a massive amount of insight into the process that someone who does NO cooking won't know.

Same with changing your own oil.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 2801 of 3343, by mr_bigmouth_502

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I'm just going to put this out there; I love FM synthesis, and I think it's a more accurate representation of the DOS gaming experience than General MIDI. By the time computers started to have decent support for General MIDI, most people had moved on from DOS gaming. Yes, there are plenty of DOS games that support the SC55 or MT32, but to use these in emulation, you have to set up external software. You can get an approximation of the SC55 sound by using Windows' built-in GM synth, but it's not 100% accurate. Besides, I'm generally not a fan of this sample set anyway, mostly since for me it's mentally associated with cheesy Game Maker games and such rather than DOS games.

Reply 2802 of 3343, by MobyGamer

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
Gemini000 wrote:

particularly when nitpicking the various design aspects of games.

This is my least favorite part of your webshow. I actively skip past sections where you do this and I would suggest you stop doing it entirely. There is a difference between game criticism and nitpicking, and I think you need to work on recognizing that. You frustratingly make mistakes in this area because you are running in DOSBox, you are not familiar with other games in the same time period with similar mechanics, or a combination of the two.

If you insist on nitpicking, then you should be sure to state these are your opinions. "The graphics were not as good as others for the time" sounds like you are trying to present a historical fact, vs. "I think the graphics were not as good as others for the time" sounds much better, clearly states that this is your opinion, and doesn't try to misrepresent anything. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but not everyone is entitled to rewrite history.

Also, if you don't want to use the MT-32 or gmidi sound choices, that's fine, but then you lose the right to comment on whether or not the soundtrack/audio is any good.

To leave you with some positive comments: I think your overview of the technical specs, background of the game's story, illustrative gameplay footage, 60p (finally) video format, and hints on how to play the game better are all done well and are the reasons I've watched every show.

Reply 2803 of 3343, by MobyGamer

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
luckybob wrote:

cooking your own meals might not make you a chef, but doing so will give you a massive amount of insight into the process that someone who does NO cooking won't know.

Yes, but that insight can only go so far. If I make a single meal 100 times, I am only an expert on that single meal, not cooking in general.

Reply 2804 of 3343, by luckybob

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

yes, but it is a start. For example. I can change my own oil. By doing so, I learn many other ancillary facts about car maintenance. So when something else simple breaks, I can at least give it an attempt with a moderate chance of success. This compared to someone who knows NOTHING about cars. Yes, changing my own oil can only get me so far, but it is far and away better than knowing nothing.

So when someone says, X is better than Y, because of Z. My first instinct is to find out just what do they know about said subject. If they are John Snow, or if they are Petyr Baelish factors greatly in how much stock I put in the person's knowledgeable opinion. Kris is obviously much better than some random nobody, but is probably not as experienced as John Carmack.

Now, when I see someone criticize Kris (in this case), I do the same thing. Just what does this new swinging dick know about the subject. Turns out, it's most likely to be John Snow. So I then treat their criticism with the same disdain as I would the two old guys in the balcony in Muppets shows. He can still be wrong. He can still have his opinion, but I've never really felt a huge bias in his videos. It is fucking stupid to expect someone to love every aspect of a game that you do.

What people are glossing over, most of these games suffer greatly when viewed in hindsight. Game decisions made in 1993 are MASSIVELY different than today. Hardware is more uniform, people EXPECT certain keyboard layouts and controls. Case in point. Mass Effect. Do you know how many fucking grenades I waste because they are bound to R, which is usually reload? Or how I expect interactive objects to be bound to E? Not to even mention small studios that did not have the programming talent that is available today. They probably wanted perfect platforming, but couldn't figure out how. So they kludged it together and shipped it once the deadline hit.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 2805 of 3343, by Great Hierophant

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Regarding Jill, I like the game better than many of its contemporaries, but its hard to put my finger on why. The enemies' designs come off as amateurish, the artwork is very blocky, the knife weapon is intentionally difficult to control, and the scrolling is nowhere near as impressive as in Commander Keen. Maybe it is a combination of the goofy bravado (the in-game announcements that Mario has retired because Jill is so great), the awesome FM soundtrack, the varied sound effects, the competent jumping mechanics and the fact that the game does not overstay its welcome keeps me coming back. But I will say that playing this game or any DOS sidescroller without a Gravis Gamepad is an exercise in torture and a waste of time. I am not sure whether you mentioned that in your video.

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/ - Nerdly Pleasures - My Retro Gaming, Computing & Tech Blog

Reply 2806 of 3343, by Gemini000

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

OK! I'm back! Now time to read... uh... Spiderman? Really? That's the kind of behaviour I expect on the Allegro forums. XD

...ANYWAYS... So, I read the recent responses in this thread and I've done some thinking about how to proceed forwards with future ADG stuff.

Firstly... I'm still really confused on one particular thing: I VERY rarely touch on graphics or audio in my reviews, yet so far a lot of criticisms I've read suggest I don't know what I'm talking about when I bring them up (despite rarely bringing them up) or that I'm not bringing them up when I should (because someone's recognized I rarely bring them up but wants me to more often), so... I'm kinda at a loss as to what to make of that. Graphics and audio are extremely opinionated on any front, to the point where quality is only necessary when a lack or surplus of it actually affects how the game plays or is perceived, or if there's interesting technical aspects I want to comment on which are not related to how good or bad these things are, thus why I almost never touch upon them.

With Mega Man X in particular, I did indeed check to see if the music was any better in the more advanced modes and when I noticed it really wasn't, (yeah, had more fidelity but it still sounded like a mess), I decided to just stick with the FM synth. In retrospect, I probably should've clarified that I tested a whole bunch of audio modes. In fact, I actually DID clarify that in my first draft of the script, but then I moved a bunch of it to the stinger, and then made it just the Tandy music, so I definitely could've done better on that front. :P

In terms of nitpicking issues in relation to DOSBox, it's no secret that I exclusively use DOSBox for playing these games, and I know from past experience, in terms of playing DOS games on real hardware compared to DOSBox, that most of the time the technical issues I run into which I like to nitpick are indeed present on the real games. Now, in the case of games I've never played on DOS, I don't ALWAYS know this, but it almost feels like having a disclaimer before every video is a bit much and will just give everyone more things to complain about before the video starts. However, there are ways to recognize when problems may indeed be DOSBox screwing up and that's when the result of such a bug doesn't make sense from a RELEASE standpoint, IE: There's no way the game would've been released with that bug present. This is how I recognized the DOSBox-specific AI issues specifically found in Episode 3 of Traffic Department 2192 or the saving issues in Pinball Construction Set, and when I find bugs that give me this impression I start whipping out multiple versions of DOSBox to see if the bugs go away with different versions. It's entirely possible that despite this effort I may still mistake the rare bug as an actual game bug instead of a DOSBox bug, but that's why I have additional info and corrections below my videos because I know I'm going to make mistakes no matter how hard I try.

BTW: I should also point out, the nitpicking thing is a result of the countless hours of time I've spent both coding and testing, not just for my own sake but for the sake of other companies as well, so noticing minor issues is something that kind of just happens for me. I can't ignore minor issues, they stick out at me too strongly and bother me whenever they get in the way of my enjoyment. If an issue DOESN'T prevent me from enjoying a game then I'm usually not as hard on it, but when it does, I feel explaining why it does is a good way to reveal more of the "under the hood" type stuff. I don't want to remove the nitpicking because I feel that would be ignoring who I am and thus would negatively impact the identity of the show, but at the same time, I get why it can be bothersome.

I suppose what I can do is try to leave nitpicking for when I have actual technical information to relay and to just keep it to myself if it's more design-related and not really a technical issue. I also do try to mention whenever I wasn't able to determine if an issue was related to DOSBox or not, such as with some of the issues I was running into with Bubble Bobble... which actually turned out to be related to additional layers of copy protection I didn't know were there. :o

In terms of the analogies with chefs and game dev and such, I'd just like to remind everyone that between 2005 and 2008, a period of time when selling indie games was REALLY FREAKING HARD, I still managed to make a total of about $3,000 off of the sales of Super Minesweeper and PixelShips Retro... Yeah, that's really small potatoes, but it shows that there were people out there willing to put their money down for that stuff despite the extremely limited exposure. I've never tried to advertise them more recently due to them not really working 100% on modern Windows systems. (They were both originally developed in Windows 98 and use 256 colour graphics.) I'd rather just move on with new projects. I should also point out that I started learning to make computer games back in 1993 when I was 10 years old and that some of the freeware games on my website are literally over a decade and a half old! Plus, I have professional programming experience working for an educational software developer, Neufeld Learning Systems, for two years. These are all details which aren't really out there that well because of how limited my exposure has actually been, but it's also why I'm willing to call myself a game developer, designer, and coder. I would NEVER call myself a commercial dev or a AAA dev, because I'm not, but an indie dev is still a dev, regardless of how good or terrible their skills are.

...and also, you can have bad chefs too. You can have bad anything. You can have a profession attached to your name and still be terrible at it. I've made money on selling TWO of the games I've made and PixelShips, a freeware title, remains top-rated on the Allegro website to this day in the Space Shooter category ( https://www.allegro.cc/depot/action,space-shooter/ ) so to me, I feel that qualifies me to call myself an indie game dev. Whether that makes me a good or bad dev is up to everyone else to decide but it doesn't negate that I can do it. :B

Also, MobyGamer, I get frustrated with you a lot but it's only because of our very different attitudes. I know it doesn't show but I do appreciate the hard-line stance you have with me because you often know what's going on better than I do and sometimes I need that in order to see if I'm making a mistake or if perhaps I'm simply not expressing myself properly. You recently linked me to that speed testing program for use with DOS emulators and that's going to be an invaluable tool going forward... though using it still confirmed I wasn't bonkers about the spawn rates in Lands of Lore. It might still be a DOSBox bug, or perhaps related to the difficulty selection, but the episode's been up for over a week now and the views are tapering off so if there is indeed a flaw with my logic or more info comes to light later on when someone watches the episode and knows I'm wrong, I can address it then with a fresh mind and fresh ideas of how to test it out. :B

The last thing I want to say is I have ZERO tolerance for flat-out lies. I feel intentionally lying is one of the most heinous offenses anyone can commit because it can change so many perspectives so fast and very often not in a good way. Most of my friends and family would call me "honest to a fault" and it actually really bugs me when someone tells me that they're extremely honest, because often times I witness them casually lying, usually to strangers, and I just shake my head and realize, "yeah, no one says that honestly, so no wonder no one believes me when I try to tell people that of myself". If I see someone spreading lies which directly affect me, I absolutely will not stand for that... BUT, I also recognize the need to have facts ready before countering lies otherwise such a contest of words degrades into a shouting match which goes nowhere; You cannot win an honest debate with ignorance. :P

That said, if someone calls me a liar about something and they happen to be RIGHT, 100% of the time (yes, every time this has ever happened), it's not because I intentionally wanted to lie, but because I was somehow misinformed. I always check my facts whenever this happens and every once in a blue moon... yeah, my facts are wrong. In which case, I admit my mistake and report what I discovered. Curiously, the person who initially called me a liar often doesn't care and just wants to keep calling me a liar anyways, but I've already vindicated myself by owning up to my mistake so them continuing to spout nonsense is their problem. Or sometimes they rub it in my face that they were right and I was wrong, but that's fine too. I voiced a fact which was incorrect so I have to make amends for that; some people are just more vindictive about it than others. :B

So yeah, going forwards, I'm going to put more effort into only having technical nitpicks, not nitpicks which could be taken as a matter of opinion, and I'll try to make more of an effort to check if bugs and glitches are DOSBox related or not. I'll still primarily be using FM synth for music, but I'll make more of an effort to comment on if MIDI devices, when available, sound significantly better/different, and will make more of an effort to confirm the poor quality of those devices if the music as a whole is poor to the point where I need to comment on it. Graphics I'll almost never comment on, except for brief statements on how technically advanced they are compared to other games of the time, not whether they're good or bad, and as always, my focus will be primarily gameplay, because really, it's what I know best! :)

--- Kris Asick (Gemini)
--- Pixelmusement Website: www.pixelships.com
--- Ancient DOS Games Webshow: www.pixelships.com/adg

Reply 2807 of 3343, by luckybob

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Honestly, YOUtube is for YOU. Do the show the way YOU want to, and what makes YOU happy. If you want to pick nits, then pick nits.

This might sound kinda creepy, but reading your post, a lot of it I heard in my head in your voice. Read into that what you will.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 2808 of 3343, by Gemini000

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
luckybob wrote:

This might sound kinda creepy, but reading your post, a lot of it I heard in my head in your voice. Read into that what you will.

Not really. Now, if you were hearing me tell you romantic, depraved, or insane things, THEN I'd get that checked out by your local neurosurgeon or lobotomist. :P

--- Kris Asick (Gemini)
--- Pixelmusement Website: www.pixelships.com
--- Ancient DOS Games Webshow: www.pixelships.com/adg

Reply 2809 of 3343, by Calvero

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I'm just going to put this out there; I love FM synthesis, and I think it's a more accurate representation of the DOS gaming experience than General MIDI. By the time computers started to have decent support for General MIDI, most people had moved on from DOS gaming. Yes, there are plenty of DOS games that support the SC55 or MT32, but to use these in emulation, you have to set up external software. You can get an approximation of the SC55 sound by using Windows' built-in GM synth, but it's not 100% accurate. Besides, I'm generally not a fan of this sample set anyway, mostly since for me it's mentally associated with cheesy Game Maker games and such rather than DOS games.

Thanks, now I finally know why I like FM synthesis much more than Windows' built-in GM synth: Every time I hear one of its samples I unknowingly think of Commander Keen 2000 and its music.

Reply 2810 of 3343, by clueless1

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
Gemini000 wrote:

You recently linked me to that speed testing program for use with DOS emulators and that's going to be an invaluable tool going forward... though using it still confirmed I wasn't bonkers about the spawn rates in Lands of Lore.

There's also this:
http://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_C … sensitive_games
and this:
Digital DOS games (GOG, Steam...) Retro PC Compatibility Sheet: We need your input!
(focus on 'Recommended PC' column)
Regarding Lands of Lore, I have not found it to be speed sensitive up to K6-2 550 speeds. Plays decently down to 486/66 on real hardware, and fast 386 speeds with cache disabled.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 2811 of 3343, by Gemini000

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Ancient DOS Games Episode 209 - Thinkin' Things Collection 1 is online!

No, the amount of positivity in this episode has nothing to do with recent happenings here on the forum, I genuinely feel this particular program is rock-solid! I give a couple very minor nitpicks but do my best to either explain my logic or make a joke out of one particular nitpick as opposed to being too serious about it. :B

I've also begun the process of trying to be more upfront about opinions which may be misconstrued as facts, not opinions. For instance, with the DOSBox config this time around, I make sure to mention that the cycles count I selected was a matter of preference and what happens in the software should you choose different cycles counts.

I also decided to post additional details about my professional programming background in the video description, as I don't think a lot of people are aware that I have indeed held such a position in the past when I was much younger and in order to do my job I pretty much had to learn every single nuance there was in regards to doing educational software. So... you probably don't wanna fight me on how to make such software unless you've done it yourself. ;)

The last thing I wanna do is apologise for things getting out of hand in this thread here. Expressing myself properly has always been difficult for me; even a one-paragraph reply to something can take me 15 minutes sometimes, because I need to make absolutely sure the words I'm using accurately convey what I'm trying to say, because if I try to explain my thoughts on the fly I tend to screw up really hardcore, to the point where the stuff I'm saying doesn't reflect what I'm trying to say at all and so it just becomes a mess. :/

In any case, overcoming this conversational shortcoming of mine has been a lifelong struggle, so for those of you willing to keep up with me as I continue to learn to do better, you're awesome for doing so! :)

--- Kris Asick (Gemini)
--- Pixelmusement Website: www.pixelships.com
--- Ancient DOS Games Webshow: www.pixelships.com/adg

Reply 2812 of 3343, by MobyGamer

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
Gemini000 wrote:

In any case, overcoming this conversational shortcoming of mine has been a lifelong struggle, so for those of you willing to keep up with me as I continue to learn to do better, you're awesome for doing so! 😀

Self-improvement is a difficult, life-long battle(*), but you only lose if you give up. Keep up the good work.

(*)I was a pretentious asshole a few decades ago.

Reply 2814 of 3343, by mr_bigmouth_502

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
luckybob wrote:

I'm still an asshole. But now, I get to blame aspergers.

Looks like there's a few of us here. 🤣 Technically I'm diagnosed with autism, but Aspergers Syndrome is basically just an outdated label for people at the higher functioning end of the spectrum.

I often feel like I'm an asshole too, but I think the same can be said for everyone, autistic or not. It's probably a more common feeling for us though because, well, we just tend to have a harder time understanding other people. Doesn't make us any less human, however.

Reply 2815 of 3343, by Gemini000

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Ancient DOS Games Episode 210 - Number Munchers is online!

So... this episode ends up getting a little "weird" in the middle. Be prepared for something highly atypical to your everyday ADG romp! ;)

Otherwise, there wasn't much to say about this one. Just an all around fun yet simple game. :B

--- Kris Asick (Gemini)
--- Pixelmusement Website: www.pixelships.com
--- Ancient DOS Games Webshow: www.pixelships.com/adg

Reply 2816 of 3343, by WolverineDK

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
luckybob wrote:

I'm still an asshole. But now, I get to blame aspergers.

Blame people with aspergers for being arseholes, is a load of rubbish. People whom are arseholes, are arseholes. No matter or not they are aspies, there were some time ago an almost trend giving brats who behaved like un-intelligent, imbecilic and outright blatant misbehaving human beings; diagnoses , such as ADD/ADHD, Tourettes and Aspergers. And it annoyed a lot of my acquaintances, mates and friends. To no end, cause they were like "we do not want to be compared to those". Since they have "true" Tourettes, ADD/ADHD and Aspergers, and they are extremely sensitive,intelligent, polite and friendly and they know how to behave.

If I choose to be an arse towards Gemini000, then it is not because I have a diagnose or not. It is because I am arse in the moment towards him. But I digress, the sad thing is. Back before the diagnoses I have mentioned became "popular" labels to brats. People were thrown through the psychiatric system, and left there to rot. Unless they took it in their hands, and dug their way out. And I could go on.

Gemini000: lovely episode , sorry that I went off topic, in my post.

Reply 2817 of 3343, by Gemini000

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Ancient DOS Games Filler #62 - Imagitec Multimedia's Shareware Ploys is online!

This one's probably a lot more specific to us Canadians than most of my videos, but given Imagitec's dubious attempts at raking in the cash I think pretty much everyone will appreciate the humour here. ;)

But yeah, I've had this CD since late 94 or early 95, as I got it way back when I was a kid. At the time, even back then, something seemed off with how this CD worked, but hey, lots of shareware games I didn't have to download myself off the internet at 14,400 baud, what more could I ask for? :B

It was around 2006 when I finally took some time to crack this thing, but I only did it casually and just for fun since there wasn't much on here I couldn't get off the internet save for maybe some of the language-related software. This time around, I went all out and even figured out the parsing so I could extract every single password this thing had! >:D

--- Kris Asick (Gemini)
--- Pixelmusement Website: www.pixelships.com
--- Ancient DOS Games Webshow: www.pixelships.com/adg

Reply 2818 of 3343, by Gemini000

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

I've made the decision to pull ADG Episode 211 offline. :(

The amount of negative backlash it got was fierce, and amazingly to myself, was entirely centred around one little opinion. :/

So, my plan is to revise the episode, because most of it still went over fine from the looks of things. I'm also going to add a forward to the video to explain what happened, why I decided to revise the episode, and what I learned from the backlash it got, since I really couldn't believe what was going on and upon someone explaining it to me, I STILL couldn't believe it! D:

Thus, if I want to do this episode right, I need time to understand the mistakes I made which I didn't even remotely feel were mistakes when I made the video.

Apparently, there's more to having an opinion online than I realized... :o

--- Kris Asick (Gemini)
--- Pixelmusement Website: www.pixelships.com
--- Ancient DOS Games Webshow: www.pixelships.com/adg

Reply 2819 of 3343, by James-F

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Gemini000 wrote:

Apparently, there's more to having an opinion online than I realized... 😮

Unless it's your primary way of income, you shouldn't be bothered by opinions, not one bit.
Keep'em coming Gemini000!


my important / useful posts are here