Ancient DOS Games Episode 199 - Monster Bash is online!

So... I literally had never played this game up to now. I had no reason to given that I could never get it working as a kid, I wasn't really inclined to get it working since I wasn't a fan of horror-themed things back then, (I'm still not for the most part although I find the history of certain classics interesting), and I also wondered just how good a game it could be when every bit of gameplay I ever saw of it looked the same.

Turns out, the reason it was all the same is because actually trying to make it through this game isn't about being really freaking difficult, it's about trying to get past the game completely screwing you out of your progress for dumb reasons. :P

I agree with most of your points about the level design, but I think if you had played through and finished the first episode, you would understand a lot of the mechanics better.

eg. the 4th level of episode 1 - you actually get the bottle/flask AFTER the checkpoint you showed in the video. You also use the magic boots the first time here as well, and they reappear a few times into the episode. This is what you needed to do in the Hell level you showed - use the boots to get up to the chain. Again on episode 3 level 1, if you backtrack, there's a pumpkin at the room on top of the shaft you can shoot and push into the shaft, which you can use to cross the worms. Again this sort of puzzle is fairly common throughout the game, and I believe one of the hint boxes on level 4/5 tells you about pushing things around.

I will say that I didn't enjoy the last 2 episodes as much as the first as the maze like levels and backtracking got a bit boring, and I also found the level graphics and their backgrounds to be much more bland compared to the first episode.

DonutKing wrote:

eg. the 4th level of episode 1 - you actually get the bottle/flask AFTER the checkpoint you showed in the video.

?

*goes and checks footage*

...uh...

*scrutinizes the Hell out of it*

...OK... I think I see what happened here... the game decided to introduce BOTH the breakable and pushable blocks in the same level, but worse, they mixed the two up near the waterfall in such a way where you have to stun one of the stone giants and reflect rocks off of them to push the pushable rocks out of the way since they're locked against each other from the side Johnny's on, AND the pushable rocks look almost identical to the breakable ones.

...can you SERIOUSLY blame me for missing that? That's not only introducing two mechanics at the same time, one which is obvious, the other not, but you also have to perform an advanced tactic to make it work, and since you aren't forced to push any blocks up to this point I wasn't even aware those blocks which I couldn't break were pushable to begin with! D:

Still, I'll add some more corrections to the video description about this one. :P

DonutKing wrote:

You also use the magic boots the first time here as well, and they reappear a few times into the episode. This is what you needed to do in the Hell level you showed - use the boots to get up to the chain.

...unless you're talking about some kind of powerup I missed, I have no idea how I'm supposed to use those blue boots. Touching them sends me flying but doesn't give me enough height to get up, shooting them just changes their direction, and even if I do get the speed and angle necessary to reach the chains it never let me grab onto them. :(

DonutKing wrote:

Again on episode 3 level 1, if you backtrack, there's a pumpkin at the room on top of the shaft you can shoot and push into the shaft, which you can use to cross the worms. Again this sort of puzzle is fairly common throughout the game, and I believe one of the hint boxes on level 4/5 tells you about pushing things around.

The game, nor the manuals or hint sheet, ever tell you to SHOOT things to push them. The game refers to pushing and sliding blocks, but I just assumed you had to walk into them, not shoot them. At no point in all of my gameplay did any of my shots ever push a pushable block. So even though the mechanic is definitely present and I missed using it, leading to many of my issues, the level design is still terrible for not introducing these mechanics in each episode in a way which makes it obvious how the mechanics work.

...can you SERIOUSLY blame me for missing that? That's not only introducing two mechanics at the same time, one which is obvious, the other not, but you also have to perform an advanced tactic to make it work, and since you aren't forced to push any blocks up to this point I wasn't even aware those blocks which I couldn't break were pushable to begin with! D:

I feel like this is just a puzzle that needs figuring out. A tricky one, sure, but I figured it out myself, as a 10 year old, without anybody showing me, and without Internet access, and this was from an era where games didn't hand you everything on a platter...

It reminds me a bit of the up/down barrel in Carnival Night Zone in Sonic 3 😀

You also didn't make it to the best level with the ridiculously long couch that basically lets you bounce all the way through the level 😀

The way I figure, they give you unlimited pellets, they probably expected you to try shooting everything.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I suppose. 😀

The hints for E1L4 do say "shoot to push" and "bounce rocks off rock monsters".

Gemini000 wrote:

Ancient DOS Games Episode 199 - Monster Bash is online!

So... I literally had never played this game up to now. I had no reason to given that I could never get it working as a kid, I wasn't really inclined to get it working since I wasn't a fan of horror-themed things back then, (I'm still not for the most part although I find the history of certain classics interesting), and I also wondered just how good a game it could be when every bit of gameplay I ever saw of it looked the same.

Turns out, the reason it was all the same is because actually trying to make it through this game isn't about being really freaking difficult, it's about trying to get past the game completely screwing you out of your progress for dumb reasons. 😜

FYI, google/youtube is blocking casual viewers(no youtube account) from viewing it, "inappropriate"
Same with strife and redneck rampage reviews.

awgamer wrote:

FYI, google/youtube is blocking casual viewers(no youtube account) from viewing it, "inappropriate"
Same with strife and redneck rampage reviews.

This is standard for any mature-rated videos on Youtube, has been forever! 😀

Only ADG videos on those games are blocked.

Yeah, I'm not sure that old of a game I'd consider "mature" - surely you're safe to remove the tag for that game. I've seen *FAAAAR* worse "real life" videos not marked mature. I'd say if the game didn't originally carry an "M" rating, you shouldn't bother declaring it "mature" on YouTube. I sincerely doubt you have a huge contingent of unaccompanied 7 year old viewers. (And if so, they're not going to care about the 'mature' rating...)

awgamer wrote:

Only ADG videos on those games are blocked.

Because he has voluntarily marked them as mature.

Anonymous Freak wrote:

Yeah, I'm not sure that old of a game I'd consider "mature" - surely you're safe to remove the tag for that game. I've seen *FAAAAR* worse "real life" videos not marked mature.

The thing is, if a mature video is not marked mature, it's up to other people to report it... so if no one is reporting a video for having mature content when it clearly does, it will never run into any issues, and for gaming that tends to make up over 99% of the gaming videos which really SHOULD be marked mature but aren't.

For every few people who tell me to get rid of the mature filtering and warning, I get one person telling me they're glad it's there, so no, I'm not going to stop marking mature content appropriately. (Granted, since YouTube DOES have age gating, I'm going to make the warning in the video itself less intrusive and faster from Season 5 onward.)

Usually i've only seen Youtube's age-restricted viewing enabled on videos of a far more sexual nature (i.e. jimsterling's bad ***CENSORED!!!!*** babes/Haydee/etc plays ). EGA toon violence's perfectly far away and safe from this. There's nothing more than a PG-V Itchy and Scratchy bit on network television

Not to be an ass but children have seen on the internet ISIS cutting off heads, endless pornography, not to mention far more violent modern video games which are insignificant to the prior.

IMO a computer game from the 90s with a few red pixels as "blood" should not be censored, this is ridiculous.
It is simply inconvenient to logon to google to see a computer game youtube video.
;Rant over;

BTW I love ADG videos!

I don't see it as a big deal. Kris feels it's the right thing to do for his videos, I respect that.

Yeah I'd argue that people who work their buns off to create content and then offer it up to the world for free should be allowed to offer it however they bloody well choose. And going on to compare Kris' stuff to terrorist vids and porno in an attempt to suggest otherwise is just offensive.

No no no, please don't twist the words of my post as being offensive or as a direct comparison to other content, it is not my intention.
I merely suggest that the seriousness of the censorship is greatly unjustified in comparison to other more severe and traumatizing content, in no way I compare the lovely ADG content itself to other content.
Even today's phone/tablet flash games that children play from age 0 are FAR more violent than anything we had in the 90s.

I am not imploring or demand anyone to do anything, Kris puts his soul into these excellent videos and he may censor them if he finds it necessary, it is only my personal opinion to think otherwise.
IMO, there is not point of censoring a video if the same game can be watched on other videos without censorship, this will just harm the view-count and people from returning to ADG channel.
Once again, I love ADG videos but it is simple inconvenient to watch them in a playlist only to be "stuck" on a certain videos, I find this unnecessary interruption of flow a put-off.

James-F wrote:

Once again, I love ADG videos but it is simple inconvenient to watch them in a playlist only to be "stuck" on a certain videos, I find this unnecessary interruption of flow a put-off.

I've run into the same thing. If you're not logged in, the playlist halts with a message that you have to log in to "prove" your age. Not only is it a nuisance, but if you log in, YouTube has one more way of tracking what you've watched. And maybe you're watching on a friend's computer and this friend is sloppy about avoiding spyware, so you don't want to enter your password in that particular computer and risk giving it to some keylogger.

Kris, would you mind if someone made a playlist of your videos without the "mature" episodes?

skitters wrote:

James-F wrote:

Once again, I love ADG videos but it is simple inconvenient to watch them in a playlist only to be "stuck" on a certain videos, I find this unnecessary interruption of flow a put-off.

I've run into the same thing. If you're not logged in, the playlist halts with a message that you have to log in to "prove" your age. Not only is it a nuisance, but if you log in, YouTube has one more way of tracking what you've watched. And maybe you're watching on a friend's computer and this friend is sloppy about avoiding spyware, so you don't want to enter your password in that particular computer and risk giving it to some keylogger.

Kris, would you mind if someone made a playlist of your videos without the "mature" episodes?

^^^
This is a good point. James-F, your point is well taken too.

BTW: For anyone of the opinion that I should leave the mature warnings out or not flag them as such on YouTube because the internet is full of far more violent/explicit material that's not age gated... that's a fairly dumb argument analogous to jumping off of a bridge because everyone else is doing it. :P

The severity or level of explicitness of some of these old DOS games is definitely tame by comparison with contemporary stuff... but that doesn't negate that it's there in the first place. Also, what qualifies as "explicit" on services like YouTube tends to be EXTREMELY vague, so rather than risk having account features broken because I wasn't paranoid enough about one particular video, I'd rather be proactive about it.

That's actually something I missed from Blip... they didn't have age gating, but you were allowed to apply ratings based on standard television ratings, which would in turn determine what kinds of ads would be shown, as only ads which have been elected to show with specifically rated material would do so. YouTube should ultimately adopt a policy like this, though I can't see it happening anytime soon. :/

All that said...

skitters wrote:

Kris, would you mind if someone made a playlist of your videos without the "mature" episodes?

I can add one myself. I've put a sticky note on my desktop and I'll get it done either today or tomorrow! :B