vga256

to demonstrate the difference between painted and scanned (and auto-dithered) art, versus digitally painted art using dpaint, here are two screenshots from Gateway

left: painted with traditional media, scanned in and retouched at 256 colours. note the completely uniform dithering

right: painted in deluxepaint in 256 colours. note the careful manual dithers around the edges of the lilypads

#retroGaming #dosgaming

another example of the achingly beautiful art of frederik pohl's Gateway

several different artists worked on the backgrounds for the game. some backgrounds, like this one, were painted directly in deluxe paint. others were painted using traditional media, and then scanned in and auto-dithered to 256 colours.

#retroGaming #dosGaming

sometimes you have no choice but to drive 300km to a boondocks antique store to rescue a bunch of abandoned dos games 😍

#dosgaming #bigboxgames #RetroGaming

i’ve finally found the real life root experience that undergirds unskippable cutscenes in games: your inlaws bring a laptop to the kitchen table and insist on showing you a slideshow of their trip overseas consisting of birds and people standing in front of landmarks.

i had to excuse myself to the bathroom for the past 10 minutes. i visited to interact, not to be their audience

what you believe you’ve designed as an impactful emotional narrative is, in fact, a hostage scenario.

#gamedev

20 years ago i stumbled upon a "top dog" entry on Home of the Underdogs in the adventure section

part point and click adventure, part american gothic themed thriller, and part horror story; i've never found a comfortable label for it.

all these years have passed, and i'm still mesmerized by how unique the game is. some of david dew's bespoke animations still reign among the best i've ever seen in a 2d game.

it's still hard to imagine this entire experience was crafted by only three people.

here are a couple of minutes of the intro and gameplay from creative reality's DreamWeb (1994)

#dosgaming #retroGaming

i can't believe this is a real thing, and this is the first time i've ever heard about it

Seal: Magic Eye is an adventure-RPG for MS-DOS

Soft-World, a korean RPG and adventure game publisher/developer, did an amazing job of cloning Ultima VII's style, interface, sprites and tiles

it's cloned down to the smallest detail: the "journer onward" on the title screen, the pixel palette rotation effect during the load screen, and even the wonky isometric-ish projection.

it plays more like the SNES/SFC port of Ultima VII: The Black Gate - interactivity is stripped away, and it's mostly point and click dialogue.

the fact that this exists at all is incredible. now, whenever someone asks, "is there a game like Ultima VII?" i finally can say, yes!

sadly, it has no mobygames entry. work for a fellow software archivist who can translate, some day.

credit to /u/petrifiedpigs for pointing this game out
source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ultima/comments/1gdufp3/games_similar_to_to_the_black_gate/

#ultima #dosgaming #msdos #retroGaming

great interview with Ultima manual and cover artist Denis Loubet that i somehow missed years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttcuJXBh754

#ultima #retroGaming

doing some inspiration/research for a new computer role-playing game a couple of friends and i just started sketching out together

Tony DiTerlizzi’s art never fails to stimulate the imagination

#rpg #planescape

doing some visual design research on isometric tile-based games and came across this incredible screenshot from Celtic Tales: Balor of the Evil Eye

that entire screenshot was drawn with just sixteen colours

#gameArt #retroGaming

in celebration of ward christensen's life and contributions to the BBS, i've uploaded the raw, uncut, extended three-hour interview @textfiles conducted with him in 2002 for the BBS Documentary

warning: the files are 15gb each just as they came off of the camera tapes without further recompression.

https://pixeldrain.com/l/cFtC5YE4

these are the same interviews included in the BBS Documentary archive.org collection - unfortunately IA is still down at the moment.

#bbs #history #retroComputing

introduction to Ultima VIII: Pagan on a Compaq Presario 425 with Roland Sound Canvas SC-55

the colour palette is incredibly high contrast - shockingly so on a real CRT. it is impossible to replicate that vibrancy on modern LED monitors.

#ultima #dosgaming #retroGaming

after lusting for a copy of andré lamothe's Black Art of 3d Game Programming for years, i finally found an affordable copy

it does not disappoint. one of the fatal flaws of 95% of 3d game programming books is that they jump straight into mathematical proofs, instead of explaining in human terms how concepts are relevant to making a game. lamothe's programming concepts are clear, easy to understand, and provide real-world examples before diving into code

to my delight, the book doesn't limit itself to just 3d. it covers every conceivable topic for building a game engine from scratch in MS-DOS - and includes some great chapters on FM and wavetable synthesis!

#programming #c #retroGaming