breadbin wrote on 2024-07-01, 15:56:

...I got it free with a magazine in the early 90's. It was an Amiga game first but was converted for the PC.

Which country was the magazine? Never heard of it. I do see there was an Atari ST version as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXIpqejoNwo
some gameplay there

you probably saw these, was also on Atari ST
https://www.uvlist.net/game-208830-The+Final+Day
https://www.atariuptodate.de/en/14266/the-final-day

in search there is mention of a magazine "ST Fun" and "Amiga Fun"

but couldn't find dos version details at all 🙁

This game looks absolutely fantastic. Are you sure there was a DOS conversion? I've looked high and low and can find no reference to this game and DOS *anywhere*. Even on the deepest darkest Russian pirate sites, and even in the TDC 21. In that ~770 GB collection, they have a "missed" section for each year, and there's no indication of "The Final Day" either in the "have" section or the "missed" section for either 1991 or 1992. If it isn't even on *their* radar, then this is a tough, tough find indeed and probably vaporware.

If you have more information and / or proof that there was indeed a DOS version, I'm all ears, as I'd also very much like to see and play it.

zyzzle wrote on 2024-07-03, 08:12:

This game looks absolutely fantastic. Are you sure there was a DOS conversion? I've looked high and low and can find no reference to this game and DOS *anywhere*. Even on the deepest darkest Russian pirate sites, and even in the TDC 21. In that ~770 GB collection, they have a "missed" section for each year, and there's no indication of "The Final Day" either in the "have" section or the "missed" section for either 1991 or 1992. If it isn't even on *their* radar, then this is a tough, tough find indeed and probably vaporware.

If you have more information and / or proof that there was indeed a DOS version, I'm all ears, as I'd also very much like to see and play it.

I came across this post in reddit from a while back. There definitely was a DOS version because I never had an Amiga growing up, only PC and I definitely got it from the cover of a magazine. I think the magazine was called PC Action from October 1991.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DOS/comments/1cto7i2 … _day_from_1991/

liqmat wrote on 2024-07-01, 16:29:

breadbin wrote on 2024-07-01, 15:56:

...I got it free with a magazine in the early 90's. It was an Amiga game first but was converted for the PC.

Which country was the magazine? Never heard of it. I do see there was an Atari ST version as well.

It is Ireland so probably the UK too. The magazine was called PC Action I think, going from a post I saw in Reddit. I should maybe PM the guy who posted that and ask them did they have any luck finding it.

Apparently it was done by the same German programmers that converted Crazy Sue from Amiga to DOS.

https://dosgames.com/game/crazy-sue/

Are you sure it was PC Action and not PC Joker magazine? Not that it really matters all that much since, like others, I can only find mentions of the game for Amiga and Atari ST, nothing for DOS.

However, everything I find on PC Action says it started in 1996, but PC Joker started in 1991, and they both had cover disks. PC Joker seems to have been a sister publication to Amiga Joker, both published by the same individual. So it would make sense if they had an Amiga / DOS conversion of a game, they might have it.

Also, I came across one of your posts from 2012, you been looking for this game for a very long time. 😀

https://dosgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18604

Sorry I can't be of more help. At least you're getting more response here than you did on that post. I wish you the best in your search! I would have given up already and just grabbed whatever version I could find and played that. So kudos to you for still trying.

On a side note, this is one of the very frustrating things about "retro" tech. So much of it, a lot of it software and/drivers, are simply lost to time. This is why I am such a huge advocate of archiving software and saving as much hardware as I can from landfills. So it can be preserved for future generations.

StriderTR wrote on 2024-07-04, 21:23:

However, everything I find on PC Action says it started in 1996, but PC Joker started in 1991, and they both had cover disks.

From a few searches I've done, there was a magazine-on-diskette version from the same company Computec Media.

Translated wiki: https://de-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wik … en&_x_tr_pto=sc

I love a good treasure hunt myself, but this might be a hard nut to crack. Hopefully someone collected those disk editions. It seems a few games managed to get archived from that diskmag. I believe Tromania was one of them.

It's also possibly on a CD respository site such as http://www.retroarchive.org/cdrom/ hidden in a cryptic 8+3 DOS filename. However, that's a real needle in a haystack hunt. "PC Joker" magazine seems like that was the mag. Can't find archives of it anywhere online, either.

Also, it could be archived / cached on an old Wayback machine URL somewhere, but "the final day" are such a common words, good luck.

This is the type of game that can't be gone, as someone must have an old floppy somewhere with the game. It looks too good to have simply "vanished." I am surprised the Germans or Russians haven't "saved" it by now. They're great archivists of old software.

I assume the OP has tried all of these avenues already without success.

zyzzle wrote on 2024-07-04, 22:44:

It's also possibly on a CD respository site such as http://www.retroarchive.org/cdrom/ hidden in a cryptic 8+3 DOS filename. How […]
Show full quote

It's also possibly on a CD respository site such as http://www.retroarchive.org/cdrom/ hidden in a cryptic 8+3 DOS filename. However, that's a real needle in a haystack hunt. "PC Joker" magazine seems like that was the mag. Can't find archives of it anywhere online, either.

Also, it could be archived / cached on an old Wayback machine URL somewhere, but "the final day" are such a common words, good luck.

This is the type of game that can't be gone, as someone must have an old floppy somewhere with the game. It looks too good to have simply "vanished." I am surprised the Germans or Russians haven't "saved" it by now. They're great archivists of old software.

I assume the OP has tried all of these avenues already without success.

Treasure hunt is right!

I've just trawled through that site with no luck, possibly because it wasn't exactly shareware. As far as i know it was the entire game. It was a german company but definitely not a german magazine. Whether they translated it to english, I don't know but I know exactly where I got the disk, it was a local newsagents in a village in Dublin in the 90's, definitely in english:) It could be a sister magazine of some sort.

The PC Action magazine had a floppy version before 1994 but again I don't know for sure if it was PC Action. I'm just going by the other post that I found.

I have found a little more information about it. It was published by a company called MC Publications, they did at least 3 games, all ports of Amiga games. Crazy Sue, Mysterious Worlds and The Final Day. They also had a magazine released in Britain called Amiga Fun which had 12 issues and the issue from January 1991 had a release of the Final Day.

In another thing I read, somebody wrote that they got the DOS port of Mysterious Worlds game from the cover of an Amiga magazine?

https://dosgames.com/game/mysterious-worlds/

So maybe the DOS port of Final Day was also given away on the Amiga Fun magazine? Would it have been possible to have a dual floppy that both machines could read?

StriderTR wrote on 2024-07-04, 21:23:

Are you sure it was PC Action and not PC Joker magazine? Not that it really matters all that much since, like others, I can only […]
Show full quote

Are you sure it was PC Action and not PC Joker magazine? Not that it really matters all that much since, like others, I can only find mentions of the game for Amiga and Atari ST, nothing for DOS.

However, everything I find on PC Action says it started in 1996, but PC Joker started in 1991, and they both had cover disks. PC Joker seems to have been a sister publication to Amiga Joker, both published by the same individual. So it would make sense if they had an Amiga / DOS conversion of a game, they might have it.

Also, I came across one of your posts from 2012, you been looking for this game for a very long time. 😀

https://dosgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18604

Sorry I can't be of more help. At least you're getting more response here than you did on that post. I wish you the best in your search! I would have given up already and just grabbed whatever version I could find and played that. So kudos to you for still trying.

On a side note, this is one of the very frustrating things about "retro" tech. So much of it, a lot of it software and/drivers, are simply lost to time. This is why I am such a huge advocate of archiving software and saving as much hardware as I can from landfills. So it can be preserved for future generations.

Lol, I had forgotten I asked about it before! I seem to think of it every couple of years, get nowhere and give up. Then try again in another few years. It was possibly the first real game I played on the computer. I remember I did get Ports of Call with it but after that:)

liqmat wrote on 2024-07-04, 22:00:

From a few searches I've done, there was a magazine-on-diskette version from the same company Computec Media. […]
Show full quote

StriderTR wrote on 2024-07-04, 21:23:

However, everything I find on PC Action says it started in 1996, but PC Joker started in 1991, and they both had cover disks.

From a few searches I've done, there was a magazine-on-diskette version from the same company Computec Media.

Translated wiki: https://de-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wik … en&_x_tr_pto=sc

I love a good treasure hunt myself, but this might be a hard nut to crack. Hopefully someone collected those disk editions. It seems a few games managed to get archived from that diskmag. I believe Tromania was one of them.

Thanks for the link to that german page. The company Computec Media it seems actually bought over MC publications. The programmers who did the conversions were Dencker & Barile and maybe someone called G. Droschl. I'll have to do a bit more searching:) Who knows they might still be active somewhere online!

breadbin wrote on 2024-07-06, 12:53:

Thanks for the link to that german page. The company Computec Media it seems actually bought over MC publications. The programmers who did the conversions were Dencker & Barile and maybe someone called G. Droschl. I'll have to do a bit more searching:) Who knows they might still be active somewhere online!

if you ever find it let us know! 😀

I'm not sure if this is helpful, but I found this on the Internet Archive.

https://archive.org/details/TheFinalDay_Compu … Germany_AtariST