Ancient DOS Games Episode 284 - Transport Tycoon Deluxe is online!

This week was kinda bad for me in real life so it's kinda crazy that I managed to push this video out, but it also meant I didn't have time to go back and address something which popped up while writing the script... After re-reading the manual I found a curious bit of info right at the end, just casually mentioned, which is actually an extremely pertinent and important fact about how this game is working under-the-hood which would've COMPLETELY changed my strategies had I known it was happening! D:

But, it just further reinforces how this game is ultimately presented: It's much more advanced than its predecessor, Railroad Tycoon, while being simpler in a number of ways, but with a much more relentless AI which demands you to play this game near flawlessly, even on lower difficulty settings, to succeed. However, given the extreme customization allowed with the difficulty you can just elect to turn the AI players off and treat this more as a software toy, so that's not really a hindrance to playing this thing if you enjoy the concept and aesthetics. :B

With how ubiquitous OpenTTD is these days, I think a post in your YouTube channel's Community tab clarifying why you find it to be legally-dubious is in order. I mean, I understand why you feel that way - unlike with, say, Daggerfall Unity, even without the original files (or the open-source replacements now available), the core gameplay is there in what may be a direct copy of the original game's - but most won't without a more lengthy explanation than can be afforded in a YouTube video description or pinned comment.

Expack3 wrote on 2021-05-09, 14:31:

With how ubiquitous OpenTTD is these days, I think a post in your YouTube channel's Community tab clarifying why you find it to be legally-dubious is in order. I mean, I understand why you feel that way - unlike with, say, Daggerfall Unity, even without the original files (or the open-source replacements now available), the core gameplay is there in what may be a direct copy of the original game's - but most won't without a more lengthy explanation than can be afforded in a YouTube video description or pinned comment.

I already have an explanation in the video description; though it may not have been there when you first watched the video as I added it later. But here's some copypasta:

"There technically IS a way to play this game nowadays digitally for free, as there's a game out there called "OpenTTD" which is apparently an open-source remake of this game with various tweaks and updates to the original gameplay... but the legality of it has me somewhat worried. Admittedly, from the looks of it, it doesn't look to be a 1-to-1 copy of the original game's assets, but that doesn't matter if a copyright holder argues that your product has created market confusion because it's TOO similar. It even goes so far as to say "OpenTTD is not an abbreviation of anything" even though it blatantly is. :P"

I imagine OpenXCom or OpenApoc would present the same problem ?

(they are for UFO : Enemy Unknown (X-Com : UFO Defense) / X-Com : Terror from the Deep, and X-Com : Apocalypse, respectively).

Quick heads up for anyone who hasn't heard the news yet, but I've been having recurring intense stomach pain the past couple months and it's very likely going to affect my production schedule going forward, so expect the occasional missed Shovelware Diggers or delayed ADG for the next while. :(

Today's ADG is one such victim, delayed from its intended release last weekend, but finally, Ancient DOS Games Filler #87 - You Wanna Make Games in 2021? is online!

This is a video I've actually been meaning to make for quite awhile now, as my original "So You Wanna Make Games?" filler way back in 2013 had some good insights but is severely outdated and fails to address many of the things which have occurred to help spur on indie development over the past few years, including crowdfunding, social media, greater access to gaming storefronts not to mention greater access to game engines and dev tools in general, so it was high time to give some more useful tips and advice for anyone with gamedev ambitions, as well as a few more cautions for anyone with those ambitions but no experience, since gamedev is not always the right path for someone who has an idea as it's one of the hardest avenues of creative output to pursue and can leave nothing but a sour taste and worn emotions if you force yourself down that route without actually enjoying the journey. :|

Sorry to hear you haven't been feeling well, hope that you feel better soon enough, best of luck!

And very interesting video, i recently decided to check out Godot engine and it's been pretty fun experimentation.

Oh joy... a week ago I tripped, DID NOT fall, and yet the motion of my arms maintaining my balance yanked my shoulder out of its socket for a full minute, leaving me in even MORE pain for several days... life has been really freaking dumb on my side of things, but I at least FINALLY managed to get the next Ancient DOS Games video out... two weeks LATE, but out all the same...

Thus, Ancient DOS Games Episode 285 - Magus is finally online!

This is a game I was definitely curious about, given its creator and it being a dungeon crawl and all, but even after you get past the unusual controls the game has this unfinished feel to it, even though it's technically all there and you can technically "beat" it, as in, you can defeat the most powerful enemy in the game in a citadel at the bottom of the map. Probably set my expectations a little too high, but at the same time, what's here is still interesting and even more interesting is that the source code is readily available! :O

Ancient DOS Games Episode 286 - Desert Strike & Jungle Strike is online!

Very tired so just gonna let the video speak for itself, but I do want to quickly mention that because of my ongoing medical issues, and to facilitate my gamedev efforts in the future once my abdominal pain attacks are a thing of the past, ADG is moving to a bi-weekly schedule effective immediately, with new ADG videos debuting every other Saturday. I'm also adding November back to the mix so the only month I will be taking off from ADG entirely will be December. This is mostly so that I can keep a buffer for ADG videos so that when I do end up in pain there will be enough time between episodes that the pain can run its course (about 5 days) and then I can continue my work from wherever I was interrupted. :B

Sounds very bad. Get better soon !

Gemini000 wrote on 2021-05-08, 06:54:

Ancient DOS Games Episode 284 - Transport Tycoon Deluxe is online!

This week was kinda bad for me in real life so it's kinda crazy that I managed to push this video out, but it also meant I didn't have time to go back and address something which popped up while writing the script... After re-reading the manual I found a curious bit of info right at the end, just casually mentioned, which is actually an extremely pertinent and important fact about how this game is working under-the-hood which would've COMPLETELY changed my strategies had I known it was happening! D:

But, it just further reinforces how this game is ultimately presented: It's much more advanced than its predecessor, Railroad Tycoon, while being simpler in a number of ways, but with a much more relentless AI which demands you to play this game near flawlessly, even on lower difficulty settings, to succeed. However, given the extreme customization allowed with the difficulty you can just elect to turn the AI players off and treat this more as a software toy, so that's not really a hindrance to playing this thing if you enjoy the concept and aesthetics. :B

Good video as always, I know i'm a bit late here but I just had a couple of comments.

The major difference between the original game and the Deluxe editions, apart from the additional climates, is the one-way rail signals. This is pretty significant as trains are the major mode of transport in this game, you can make far more interesting transport networks, and make far more money, out of rail than anything else. The lack of one-way signals in the original severely limits your options for building a rail network. To the extent that I find the original unplayable now, even though I played more of that than Deluxe.

There was also a 'mars' climate released in an expansion for the original which included the scenario editor, but it was just a reskin - all the industries, vehicles etc were the same, just the graphics changed.

I'm surprised at your comments about the AI.... it's notoriously bad, often building winding routes that double back on themselves, and wasting heaps of money terraforming. There is definitely a learning curve to the game so I can understand being daunted by it initially, but once you understand the mechanics and everything 'clicks' you'll be able to dominate the AI with ease. Once you've got a few profitable routes and the money is coming in, you can just set up a competing route to the AI's route, and make sure there is always a vehicle loading at your station - your ratings will go up so the cargo/passengers will go to your station, the AI's route will lose money and they will close it after a couple of years.
In fact I'd say that once you're rolling, the game becomes pretty much a sandbox even despite the presence of AI players.
There's also quite a few bugs/exploits you can use to block the AI's trains and road vehicles, if you're so inclined.

Ancient DOS Games Episode 287 - Star Goose / Stargoose Warrior is online!

I wasn't really sure what to expect with this one and ultimately didn't end up with much to say, thus I don't have much to elaborate on here in this post, but it was still a neat one to try out! :)

...and yes, I read your entire reply DonutKing. Don't have anything to say in response really; pretty much sums up my afterthoughts after having the video go up and seeing the things other people brought up in the comments. :B

So long as you accept Transport Tycoon into your life and allow it to become your Lord and Saviour, that's all that matters, Kris.

Hey there, I'm posting to follow up on a conversation in this thread from last year regarding the 1998 game Gunmetal. I've spent the past several months messing with this game myself and had actually talked with DracoNihil about a VM being the best method to get the game working. After finding most VM software to be inappropriate for this goal, I turned to QEMU hoping it'd be good. QEMU turned out to be a poor option as it has PS/2 input bugs in the current stable release as of me writing this (6.0.0) that made the game impossible to play, which sucked as it seemed everything else about the game worked fine. I eventually stumbled upon an option that has worked perfectly for me (with the caveat that it's Linux only): DOSEMU2.

I had to compile from the github repo for it since I had stumbled upon a couple bugs and worked those out with the developers, but DOSEMU2 has been the best option for me to get Gunmetal to run (almost) perfectly. DOSEMU2 features KVM support which is what is necessary to get the timing bugs of the game to not occur. I haven't been able to compile QEMU nightly yet (I've had trouble with doing that) but if it can be compiled with proper KVM/Hyper-V support depending on the OS, it could presumably also get Gunmetal running properly as they reportedly had fixed the PS/2 bugs.

Oh right, and for Gunmetal I've also been running it within a MS-DOS 6.22 VM session (DOSEMU2 can act like a proper VM on top of having the option to use a native DOSBox type thing), and while it's probably not fixing anything, I've had success in using the DOS/32 extender in place of DOS/4G 1.97. Anyways, for now DOSEMU2 seems to be the best way for anyone seriously wanting to play Gunmetal, to actually play it without performance issues (looking at you, DOSBox). You just have to compile it then enable the KVM support for everything (I can share my config if one is confused on that).

It is really annoying how there's no utilities out there to fake proper old CPU timing or RDTSC whatever like how some games may have expected it. Gunmetal is the worst offender of this sort've issue. It's driven me up the wall as I've been hoping to share this game with more people. But it's like, super impossible to do, even if you solve the installation part. I'm just hoping Gunmetal can get more exposure through something like ADG, so that people who know a thing or two about reverse engineering games will learn about it and can think of a solution to getting the Windows version to run properly, without having to shove that stuff into an emulator/VM.

Ancient DOS Games Episode 288 - Blockout is online!

I've been wanting to cover this one for awhile but I had no idea the game had gone freeware until I saw it show up in the listings on the DOS Games website! As a result, my gameplay was a little rusty to say the least, as most of my experience playing this game was on the Sega Genesis, not DOS.

Still, this episode ended up quite a bit longer than I expected as I was able to go into a bunch of tips and tricks, something I'm not often able to do anymore now that most of the games being covered on the show are games I've never played up to now. :P

Also...

alberthamik wrote on 2021-07-24, 13:31:

I'm just hoping Gunmetal can get more exposure through something like ADG, so that people who know a thing or two about reverse engineering games will learn about it and can think of a solution to getting the Windows version to run properly, without having to shove that stuff into an emulator/VM.

It's pretty rare to run into games which don't function well in DOSBox, but then to be fair, the later the release, the more likely it will run into issues. I've been trying to think of ways to bring more exposure to titles like these too but so far I haven't been able to come up with anything which would be entertaining or last more than a couple minutes. :|

Ancient DOS Games Episode 289 - Eye of the Beholder is online!

This one caught me be surprise in a good way; I'd never actually played any of the D&D-based realtime 3D dungeon crawls before, yet I knew this was the game which made popular the mechanics used in many other games following, including some old and modern dungeon crawls I had already played which were EXTREMELY HARD, so I was kinda dreading playing this one. As it turns out though, this is actually one of the easier dungeon crawls I've ever played; not that the game is "easy" by any stretch, it's more apt to say the game doesn't punish you unjustly and that so long as you're playing well you're going to survive. :B

Granted, a lot of that difficulty does come down to how you build your party; I took a paladin, fighter, mage and cleric on my journey but if you decide to do something insane like take a band of four thieves into the Waterdeep sewers then chances are good none of them are making it out alive! :P

Ancient DOS Games Episode 290 - Inner Worlds is online!
(Please Note: This episode contains mature content.)

This was definitely an interesting game to check out, given that it's often compared to Jill of the Jungle, and with good reason as it clearly takes a LOT of inspiration from it, but also stands on its own having some advanced programming techniques in play to allow for some interesting parallaxing and runs a solid 70 FPS the whole time. It's also VERY twitchy and things often move exceedingly fast, and no, it's not because of the emulation; it all goes just as fast at a low framerate as it does at maximum. Definitely appeals more on its aesthetics than its gameplay given its fluid animation and music reminiscent of what you would find in titles made by Epic Megagames at the time. :B

Oh, Inner Worlds, that's one of my favorite DOS games from my childhood.

It's rather obscure, this is a nice surprise ! 😀

The graphics and music are still excellent, even to this day.

I have both the French release from back in the day. Shareware and full version. Both fully translated.
Virtually impossible to find.

This translation isn't on the freeware nor steam releases.

I have the game on Steam, and by default the music isn't activated on this release. 😒
What a shame.

The jitter is the same on real hardware.

Ancient DOS Games Filler #88 - Dragon View is online!

So... this game is TECHNICALLY a sequel to Drakkhen... :o

Drakkhen is a weird sort of action/RPG with 3D first-person overworld exploration and an automated combat system released in the late 80s on numerous platforms, including the SNES which was kind of a weird port with a completely rewritten story. Dragon View is an SNES-only sequel to that SNES story, released five years later, with hack-and-slash brawler-type combat and adventure mechanics while still retaining the first person exploration and RPG stat systems.

The funny thing is, I learned about, purchased, and played through Dragon View before I ever knew that it had any relation to Drakkhen and from what I've seen, I consider Dragon View to be the better game, but Drakkhen is definitely way better known, so I figured it'd be neat to go over this one and talk about it for a bit, plus it gave me a chance to play it a bunch again! :)

...also, don't go looking up the prices for carts of this game right now... the whole video game speculator nonsense has made this one appallingly expensive despite being nowhere close to rare; I only paid $20 CAD for a BOXED COPY just a little over a decade ago...

Just found out about your Youtube channel because of this thread. Thanks alot 😀

PS: Choosing Stunts 4D for the first episode is perfect! 😀

DJMadMax wrote on 2021-09-17, 14:13:

Just found out about your Youtube channel because of this thread. Thanks alot :)

PS: Choosing Stunts 4D for the first episode is perfect! :)

Back in the late 2000s it was one of the few DOS games I was still actively playing on a regular basis so it made sense to start with it. Other DOS games I was routinely playing at the time were One Must Fall 2097, Tyrian 2000, System Shock, MegaRace, Dangerous Dave, and TECHNICALLY Doom but with source ports. This is why videos about those games came up so early in the show's life! ;)