So let's take a look at Robix! First, you get the always-classy logo:

And then it dumps you straight into the game's attract mode. Note in the upper right where it says "retail version."

It's a fairly simple strategy game, the idea is you push rows of blocks left or right in order to drop more of your color onto the bottom than the computer's colour. The green blocks don't fall. The player is always red, the computer is blue (or you can go up against another human in hot-seat mode.)

Annoyingly, I'm red-green colorblind and have a HELL of a time telling my red blocks from the neutral green ones. Some monitors make this worse than others.

Here are the in-game instructions if you're curious:

And when you quit, you get another info screen with another confirmation that this is indeed the registered version:

Here's B&N's splash screen for this game, found in the directory as a separate executable. Interestingly, you get a serial number. I doubt this particular disk has been dumped so for the time being, I am possibly the only person on earth with this number. 😜

...or it's entirely possible they just made up a random one and duplicated every disk with it.

Anyway, without seeing any evidence to the contrary, I have to believe this really is a legit big-box Soleau game. Just goes to show there are still games out there the internet doesn't know about.

If you want to play this game yourself, surprisingly it's not abandonware - Soleau Software still exists and you can still buy their old DOS games on their website. Alternately, there's a sealed copy of this same boxed version on the big auction site with a "make an offer" option - if you grab it, see if you can beat my serial number. 😜 Maybe it'd be worth it.

But wait, there's more! Let's take a look at Dotso:

^^ in this one, the Soleau splash is followed by this "Presents:" screen, which also reminds you you bought the retail version.

Once in the game, you press a key to begin & get to pick the starting player by hammering the space bar at this screen, which flashes between "yellow goes first" and "red goes first." Not a particularly elegant way to do this, but I suppose it does the job.

In the game. It starts you with a semi-completed maze, and you have to fill in the grid by placing one line segment at a time. You can see my cursor in the upper left. If you enclose a square on all four sides, one of your blocks gets placed there & you get another turn. Whoever has the most filled blocks when the board is filled in, wins. Mercifully the colours are yellow & red this time instead of green & red.

I've obnoxiously combined all the instructions into an animated gif. I'll let that speak for itself. (Click to enlarge, as the forum software does strange things to gifs when it resizes them.)

I actually like Dotso better than Robix. It has an interesting gameplay gimmick that I could see working as a physical board game, and occupies the same niche for me as KNetWalk, which I've sunk no shortage of hours into. Not bad!

Here's the B&N splash screen for Dotso. I just noticed it has the same "serial" number as Robix, leading me to believe they all do. Maybe this is some company registration number they felt they needed to include, instead of an actual product serial.

...or maybe these were shipped together in the same box. Someone should buy that sealed one and find out. 😜

great find kudos!
what's the deal with the PSP disk? is it a demo?

OK, that makes a little more sense if it's coming from B&N! ;)

B&N was the company responsible for the "Monkey Business" label, used for many boxed releases of individual pieces of games from Epic MegaGames, like selling the individual pinball tables for Epic Pinball.

Looking at that product catalogue it seems that prior to their dealings with Epic, they were specifically in the business of contacting indies and having their software published in box. There's a few indie games in there of... interesting quality... like F-18 No Fly Zone and Billy the Kid.

Had no idea they dealt with Soleau at any point, but I'm not too surprised now. And I wouldn't call me anything close to the "leading expert" on Soleau software; I've only played maybe half the catalogue! ^_^;

Iirc he had a couple games that were similar to Risk. I remember I could change something in the files, ownership of the countries. Even to, say, neutral ones? These wouldn't attack though.

It was not really continents, but more smaller islands with each 2 to 4 areas that could be conquered, with lines where one could jump from one island to another.

I did play a couple other games but the one I just mentioned is the one that sticks in my head the most 😁

Tetrium wrote:

Iirc he had a couple games that were similar to Risk. I remember I could change something in the files, ownership of the countries. Even to, say, neutral ones? These wouldn't attack though.

It was not really continents, but more smaller islands with each 2 to 4 areas that could be conquered, with lines where one could jump from one island to another.

I did play a couple other games but the one I just mentioned is the one that sticks in my head the most 😁

Islewar. The shareware version only has a few nag screens, and it still runs fine on my P2 game machine. The harder difficulty levels are almost unwinnable, mostly due to the not-quite-random card drawing and attack mechanisms.

yawetaG wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

Iirc he had a couple games that were similar to Risk. I remember I could change something in the files, ownership of the countries. Even to, say, neutral ones? These wouldn't attack though.

It was not really continents, but more smaller islands with each 2 to 4 areas that could be conquered, with lines where one could jump from one island to another.

I did play a couple other games but the one I just mentioned is the one that sticks in my head the most 😁

Islewar. The shareware version only has a few nag screens, and it still runs fine on my P2 game machine. The harder difficulty levels are almost unwinnable, mostly due to the not-quite-random card drawing and attack mechanisms.

Yeeeees! That's the one! 😁

I had completely forgotten about that game! I've played it for several years regularly, no idea why I even stopped. Probably I skipped actually installing it when I moved to a new main rig, and promptly forgot its total existence 🤣

keropi wrote:

great find kudos!
what's the deal with the PSP disk? is it a demo?

Pretty sure it's the shareware version of PSP 2.00 for Windows 3.1. Way back in the day PSP was distributed as a time-limited shareware/demo version. Haven't tried to install it yet.

Gemini000 wrote:

Looking at that product catalogue it seems that prior to their dealings with Epic, they were specifically in the business of contacting indies and having their software published in box. There's a few indie games in there of... interesting quality... like F-18 No Fly Zone and Billy the Kid.

There look to be some absolute gems in that catalog. "Muscle Pete's Spell-Off" stands out, as I can't imagine it being anything other than magnificent with a title like that. In addition to the games there are also some incredibly handy sounding utilities such as "Emily's Kitchen Keeper", "EZ Auto Troubleshooter", "Diet Disk for Windows", and a Bible Quiz because of course there is one. And these were just the ones they were offering for free!

I'm honestly thinking of doing a Let's Play series of these. Because they'd absolutely be worth using my limited gaming time on.

Had no idea they dealt with Soleau at any point, but I'm not too surprised now. And I wouldn't call me anything close to the "leading expert" on Soleau software; I've only played maybe half the catalogue! 😅

To be fair, it's a pretty big catalog.

I found another big box Soleau title on Ebay while doing some research. It is the same B&N release and box art design is very similar.
Ant Run: https://www.ebay.com/itm/254175189711

Edit: And seems like there was a Mice Men release as well, but this listing was ended by the seller: https://www.ebay.com/itm/304846712481?nma=tru … =p2047675.l2557
Edit 2: Raku Master, this one is cheap: https://www.ebay.com/itm/125610299291
Edit 3: Loader Larry: https://www.ebay.com/itm/364093340964

xjas wrote on 2018-08-16, 17:50:

I actually like Dotso better than Robix. It has an interesting gameplay gimmick that I could see working as a physical board game, and occupies the same niche for me as KNetWalk, which I've sunk no shortage of hours into. Not bad!

We were always looking for squared paper at school to play the pen and paper version that I am sure existed for decades before Dotso did. You could just laboriously make a grid of dots instead but squared paper was easier.