Abandonware DOS retro gaming spotlight

Collector's info: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Infocom interactive fiction games are fondly remembered for their quality, but also for the sheer number of items contained in each original big box. They also got a name for them: "feelies".The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a text adventure based on the Douglas Adams novel by the same ...

Italian videogames in the 90s

Italy wasn't a prolific nation if you think about video games in the golden age of personal computers. There were a few valid software houses (Simulmondo, Milestone, Trecision, etc.) but they all disappeared leaving behind lots of mediocre games. Only a few of them are worth playing, but that doesn't ...

The first of the King's Quests

King's Quest: Quest for the Crown is the first game in the popular series of King's Quest. Developed by Sierra On-line, King's Quest is an early adventure game (one of the first animated adventures), a step up from the classic graphical interactive fiction of the time. The player can use ...

Graphic adventures with a text parser

There's a fine line between a "text adventure" (also called interactive fiction) and a modern graphic adventure. Before the advent of point & click adventure games such as Monkey Island, Gabriel Knight or Day of the Tentacle, designers first attempted to create graphical adventure games with a text-based interface. You ...

Dreamweb: a top-down cyberpunk adventure

Cyberpunk video games are receiving a lot of attention lately. The upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 and the tactical RPG series Shadowrun Returns are just some of the most popular recent cyberpunk games.Some of you, dear retro DOS games lovers, may remember a cyberpunk game from more than 20 years ago: Dreamweb....

Abandoned games set in the 19th century

The 19th century was the age of steam, railroads and remarkable discoveries. It was the age of literary masterpieces like the Sherlock Holmes novels, Dracula and Jules Verne's sci-fi stories.Some of the most popular games set in the 19th centurey are:The Oregon TrailThe Lost Files of Sherlock HolmesMartian ...

Al Lowe: the father of Larry Laffer

Al Lowe is an American video game designer, programmer, and musician who developed several adventure games, mostly for Sierra On-Line. He is best known for creating the Leisure Suit Larry series.Name: Al Lowe Born on: 24/07/1946Occupation: video game designer, game programmer, musicianKnown for: Leisure Suit LarryWiki page: http://en....

A niche genre: Metroidvania

Metroidvania is a made up word born from the merge of two game series titles: Metroid and Castlevania. Both games share gameplay and design elements that defines the genre. Metroidvania games are platform games featuring a game world that is freely explorable. Certain areas can be accessed only with player ...

Canceled game: Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans

There was one time, in the mid nineties, when Blizzard was developing a point & click adventure game set in the Warcraft universe. Unfortunately the game was canceled after a few years of troubled development. The few players that were able to grab an almost working copy weren't impressed: it ...

Video games can educate people

Educational games are a peculiar kind of video games of various genres. Gameplay, graphics and sound are still important aspects of educationals, but the mail goal of the developer is to teach the player something: math, history, ecology, anything! Some educationals are created with a young audience in mind, other ...

More adventures: point and click, interactive fiction, etc.

Another week, another update. This time I added a bunch of adventure games still missing from Abandonware DOS, pretty different one from the other.Hook and Ween: The Prophecy are two fairly well know point and click adventure games; I'm sure you heard about both of them. Arthur, Legend of ...

Horror-themed games from the past

Sometimes I like to spend quite some time looking at Google Analytics statistics of Abandonware DOS. I'm amused that "horror" (and variants) is a much searched keyword.What is that you like in horror games of the past? Did they scare you? I remember that the game that scared me ...

Legend Entertainment Interactive Fiction

Legend was a developer who created quite a few adventure games. The first ones were interactive fiction adventures with a unique interface (Spellcasting 101, Gateway, etc.). You could type commands and read room descriptions, but you could also click on a list of verbs, a compass to move from room to ...

Police Quest: 1, 2, 3 and "4"

Sierra On-Line published lots of games back in the 80s and the 90s and was famous for the various "Quest" series. Think about King's Quest, Quest for Glory, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry ("Love Quest"?). I'm sure you remember a few.Police Quest wasn't perhaps one of the most popular ...

Dizzy, by the Oliver Twins

Every gaming platform has its video game mascotte: Mario, Sonic, etc. Codemasters came up with their own character: an egg shaped... thing... called Dizzy. This strange fellow was the protagonist of a series of action adventure games on Spectrum, C64 and many other systems, PC included. Here are some Dizzy ...

Text only gaming: it's not always about interactive fiction

Text only games are a curious phenomenon. Unlike other kind of old games, they survived to this day in one form or the other. Maybe that's because it doesn't take a huge team to develop a game completely (or partially) devoid of graphics. When I say text-only games, some of ...

Comics and superheroes in videogames

When I think about superheroes and supervillains what comes to my mind are comics, big budget movies, cosplayers. And then, and only then, videogames. If you think about it, the superhero theme wasn't that popular in old videogames. Nonetheless, there are a few DOS games about super-men in tights.With ...

More adventure games: ecology, horror, comedy...

I added every possible Sierra Online adventure to the Abandonware DOS database... and then I found out that I missed something: EcoQuest. I never liked the EcoQuest series, I never even really played them much, but they deserve a place on Abandonware DOS.  I also missed Last Half of ...

Nice movies and shitty games

In the 80s and the 90s we all saw a lot of good blockbuster movies come out. Some of them were good, some of them were bad. Unfortunately, most of video games based on movies (called 'tie-in') were really bad. Developers tried to put everything they could in those games ...

A pint of point and click and a barrel of interactive fiction

After RPGs, a genre that is really loved among nostalgic DOS and Windows PC gamers is adventure. And by adventure I mean interactive fiction, point & click, etc. Unfortunately, the best ones are far from being abandoned: I'm talking about LucasArts and Sierra adventures aren't abandonware. From time to time ...