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First post, by MrFlibble

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Ove the years of my interest in DOS games I've come across scattered examples of games that have a DOS demo available, but a full DOS release apparently does not exist. From what I can tell, this happens primarily for two reasons: a) a game started its development as a DOS title, then switched to Windows and b) a game was developed concurrently for PC (DOS) and some other (non-PC) platform or was being ported to PC (DOS) from a different platform, then the PC version was cancelled.

Please note that this does not cover cases where the game does not have any full release at all and just a DOS demo (like Valhalla).

Here's the relatively few examples that I know of (in no particular order):

  • Blast Chamber - the PC version was cancelled (I remember reading about it somewhere like PC Gamer, but cannot find the source right now; although MobyGames seems to not recognize this and lists a DOS release); demo available here
  • Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall - I found a DOS demo on a magazine coverdisk; the full version is apparently Windows only
  • Rob Blanc 3: The Temporal Terrorists - there's a DOS demo but the full version is seemingly for Windows only, as Yahtzee moved to the Windows version of Adventure Game Studio
  • Putty Squad - according to MobyGames, this one only saw a SNES release in 1994, while a DOS demo could be found on magazine coverdisks, and the Amiga version was somehow shelved, only to be released in 2013
  • Hardwar - I found a DOS demo (which seems broken) on a magazine coverdisk (I suppose it's the same as this one), but I'm not sure if the full DOS version exists

Do you know any other games like this?

DOS Games Archive | Free open source games | RGB Classic Games

Reply 2 of 2, by leileilol

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MrFlibble wrote on 2023-10-10, 11:44:

but I'm not sure if the full DOS version exists[/list]

Hardwar only finished as a released Windows 95 game in 1998. The DOS demo is a very rough engine test pretty much with barely any interface or gameplay implemented.

I do know there's an early DOS E3 97 demo of Jazz Jackrabbit 2 that's super unstable but that's likely not redistributed.

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