Abandonware DOS retro gaming spotlight

Transport Tycoon: planes, trains, trucks

Transport Tycoon is a business simulation game that puts the player at the head of a transport company to compete against rival companies. The player can build stations, airports, railroads to transport passengers, mail and various goods using trucks, trains and planes. The game became a cult and a few ...

SimTower: build your own skyscraper

SimTower is an old Windows 3.x (1994) building and business simulation game where the player is tasked with the management of a skyscraper nonetheless. Raise floors, build apartments, shops, offices and try to avoid bankruptcy if you can.SimTower spawned some similar games for mobile devices, most notably the wonderful Tiny ...

Abandonware classic: Captain Blood

Exxos released Captain Blood for PC, Amiga and Atari ST in 1988. Captain Blood is a peculiar science fiction game developed by french ERE Informatique which defies genres: it's part adventure, part space exploration, part simulation."It's very slickly presented, with excellent sound and graphics but it's a bit... ...

Balance of the Planet: environmental simulation

Balance of the Planet is an environmental simulation game designed by Chris Crawford and self published under the Incredible technologies label in 1990. Its almost unique (for the time) and serious theme contributed to the game to stand out. Balance of the Planet is part of the Balance of Power series.

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 ...

Games set during the cold war period

There was a time when the two major political superpowers were at war, but nobody knew. U.S.A. and the former U.S.S.R. used spies, subterfuge, blockades, political and military influence all over the world. The so called "Cold War" era lasted decades and ended in 1989 with ...

Business simulations: merchants, managers, CEOs

Business simulations (also called tycoon simulations) are video games that focus on the economic and the management side of running a business. In tycoon games the player can be in charge of any kind of business: a company, a sports team, an hospital, an amusement park, even a drug ...

David Braben: an Elite game designer

David Braben is a British game developer and designer, also founder and CEO of Frontier Developments plc. He's best known for co-creating Elite in 1984 (with Ian Bell), the space trading and exploration game that started a whole genre. Name: David Braben Born on: 02/01/1964Occupation: game designer, programmer and entrepreneurKnown for: ...

Simulation games: Team Yankee, Hill Street Blues, Epic and more

Simulation and vehicle simulation games are often the least remembered video game genres by retro gamers. While many simulations did achieve a certain degree of success back in the day, quite a few fell in the dark pit of forgotten retro games. Let's see how many of these you can ...

Chris Crawford: game designer

Chris Crawford is a computer game designer known for simulations and strategy games, including the popular Balance of Power. Among developers he became known for his passionate advocacy of game design as an art form, founding both The Journal of Computer Game Design and the Computer Game Developers Conference (now ...

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 ...

Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries

"The graphics are enhanced, the gameplay is faster and more dynamic and the net play fully incorporated. MW2 fans will be very pleased with the upgrades and those new to the MW2 universe will enhoy a well paced game with superb graphics and cut-scenes. Just make sure you have ...

Space simulations: combat, trading and exploring space

Space simulation games are part of a niche genre that appeals to specific gamers, not everyone like it. I think we can categorize two main groups of space sims players: the ones who only want to fight in space (no trading, no mining, etc) and the ones who like full ...

Flight simulations at dawn

For a game collector like me, flight simulators are something to look for. The original big boxes of flight sims published a few decades ago included all sort of items: keyboard layouts, maps, huge manuals. I own a few and I plan to buy some more.Anyway... I have to ...

Solving murders and simulating detectives

Pure and simple detective stories are hard to find in video gaming today. Everyone goes for fantasy, sci-fi, horror, but the good old murder to solve is not so popular. Back in the 90s (or the 80s) you could play some adventure games based on a detective story. There was ...

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 ...

Flight simulators: not for everyone

Personally, I never got in flight simulators. I tried everything: combat oriented flight sims, copters, planes, everything, but it's simply not my genre. I knew people who spent a lot of money to buy special joysticks, three monitors and other peripherals just to enjoy piloting a Cessna from one airport ...

Be a (simulated) manager: trade, trade, trade

The simulations genre (I'm not talking about vehicle simulations) wasn't that popular until SimCity and Populous came along. Both games started two genres: city building and god games.With this update I'm adding a different type of simulation: trading sims. I'm not sure of the appeal of trading in a ...

Balance of Power: The 1990 Edition

The 1990 edition of Balance of Power is an updated version of the classic Chris Crawford political simulation game. Choose the United States or the Soviet Union and try to be the winning superpower at the end of the game without destroying the world.

They made worlds: Space Rogue, by Origin

Space Rogue is a science fiction RPG developed by Richard Garriott's Origin and desined by Paul Neurath (Ultima Underworld 1 and 2). Space Rogue combines a rough 3D space simulation experience with a top down view RPG gameplay when in stations or on planets. As a space pilot you can ...