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RealMagic

~ mpklamerus ~ 2 Comments

When it became clear that full motion video on cd-rom was a selling feature for games in the early 90’s, hardware manufacturers wanted to be a part of it as well. Sigma Designs’ RealMagic card, also sometimes known as ReelMagic, was a MPEG accelerator card that allowed users to play video up to 30 frames per second by plugging into a video card’s feature connector. While developers were initially excited to support it in 1993 and companies like Access Software, Interplay, Psygnosis, Readysoft, and Sierra On-Line announced they would create games for it, but the card only got a handful of games that support it. The card only being for a very specific niche and price tag of $450 meant the card had a short lifespan. Some of the known games that had special editions released for it include:

  • Dragon’s Lair
  • Space Ace
  • Return to Zork
  • The Horde
  • Entity
  • Flash Traffic
  • Crime Patrol
  • Crime Patrol 2: Drug Wars
  • Lord of the Rings
  • Man Enough
  • Conspiracy
  • Space Pirates
  • Return to Cyber City
  • Prince Interactive
  • The Psychotron
  • Silent Steel

There’s other games that reportedly exist for it as well that have never been confirmed, such as Gabriel Knight 1 and King’s Quest 6, although these might have just been mentioned on the demo disc. The demo disc that shipped with the card has videos on it for games that never shipped for it, such as The 11th Hour, which was an early video of the game that uses an old version of the game’s logo. If you’re interested in checking out some of these games, there is a fork of DosBox that has ReelMagic support. I wouldn’t say the changes it makes to the games will make you re-evaluate them, they are noticeable. Return to Zork features FMV of people talking instead of digitized sprites, Crime Patrol features better quality video, and Lord of the Rings uses footage from Ralph Bashki’s animated film. The Return to Zork one is fascinating because while it adds more FMV, it uses the floppy disk version’s soundtrack, which is less impressive. It also leaves in takes where actors flub their lines and ruin some of the game’s jokes, where the more mainstream release of the game would edit around those. The strangest part is that it has video of dialogue not in the other release that gives more context to some puzzles, which are one of the more frustrating parts of the game. While I can’t say I’m surprised it never took off, it’s kinda fun checking out games from childhood that are actually slightly better than how I remember them.

Retro Gaming Roundup (Nov. 27, 2023)

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A screenshot from The Realm, showing various cartoon fantasy folks standing in a room

Here’s a quick collection of retro gaming things that I found interesting this last week.

The 1997 MMO The Realm is back. It was originally published and run by Sierra and the rights have been sold to various companies since then. A new publisher has gained the rights and has launched the game again. The article goes into more detail about how the previous owner mismanaged the license and what the relaunch means for the game. I’ve never played it before but it makes me happy whenever I see a MMO that has kept going even after decades.

DOSember starts next month! DOScember is an event where streamers play tons of DOS games. It’s a fun way to watch people play classic games and the people involved are very lovely.

And to end with some self promotion, the next DOS Games Jam starts next month. Come join if you want to try making a game in a casual, unranked jam. Even if you have no interest in making a game, the page for the jam links to entries from previous jams if you want to discover some new DOS games.

Hand Eye Society Super FESTival

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The Hand Eye Society Super FESTival, a free virtual festival celebrating the indie games community, is happening this week! There’s a lot of cool talks and games being highlighted along with a neat little virtual world to explore. Today I am on a panel at 6:30 PM ET about small press and anthology games but there’s a ton of other cool talks later this week like Julia Minamata doing an intro to Adventure Game Studio and Taylor McCue talking about creating bundles. Lots of great stuff so go check it out!

Retro Gaming Roundup

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Every week I’m going to start doing a dump of links and other retro gaming related things that I thought were interesting this last week.

screenshot from Heroes of Might and Magic 2, showing a boat traveling across water.
Screenshot from the fheroes2 project

The folks at Time Extension did an interview with the people behind the fheroes2 project. Fheroes2 is an open source multiplatform project that reproduces the original game but makes improvements like support for high-resolutions, improved AI, numerous fixes and UI improvements. It just got a big update two days ago too. Fgeroes2 requires the original files, which are available on GOG.

Half-Life received a massive update for its 25th anniversary.

Mattias Gustavsson made a massive post on their Itch.io blog about Drakborgen, a board game from 1985. The post is filled with lots of pictures of the game and now I really want to try it.

The DOS game Father World now has an English translation.

I posted about it earlier but Myst Online got big update for its 20th anniversary and it seems like the biggest part, an addition to the main area, was added this last Saturday and the game had an in-game celebration for it. I’m happy the game is still around and think it’s worth checking out. If you’d like to try it out, it’s available for free.

Finally, this update is more for people that live in the state of Michigan but it looks like Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum got a little bit of an extension before it may possibly get knocked down. I’m hoping that the amount of pressure that everyone is putting on the city will result in some sort of protection for the arcade or at least buy them enough time to move somewhere else, since the planned demolition would be to just make additional parking lot space for a grocery store. Unfortunately it looks like Pinball Pete’s in Ann Arbor is facing demolition and people are trying to figure out ways to keep that place alive too. It’s a rough time for arcades in my area.

Father World Receives English Translation

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screenshot from father world showing a man in some kind of computer room with a large screen

The DOS game Father World has received an English patch on Itch.io. The game was originally released in South Korea in 1994 but doesn’t seem to have been officially released anywhere outside of the country since then. It is an action adventure platformer game similar to games like Another World, and is more focused on telling a story and exploration than action setpieces. If you want to see what the game is like, pixel_turkey streamed the game on her Twitch channel.

Half-Life Receives 25th Anniversary Update

~ mpklamerus ~ 1 Comment

To celebrate Half-Life’s 25th anniversary, it is free to keep on Steam if you claim it for the next few days, has received a large update, and a documentary about the game has been released as well.

half-life screenshot showing HL's original models for Gordon and Barney, a man with a big beard and a security person who looks very scared.

The update is exciting to me because it contains so much stuff that hasn’t been available for the long time. In addition to nice fixes like real widescreen support, looking better at higher resolutions, and a variety of bug fixes, Half-Life now contains content from the Half-Life: Further Data and Half-Life Uplink CDs that came out at the game’s launch to promote it through video cards, magazines, and retail stores.

Half-Life Uplink was a CD released through magazines and hardware manufacturers that contains a demo for the game with all new levels. Half-Life: Further Data was released through retail stores and contains new multiplayer maps and skins, including a fan favorite skin I used to play as, Too Much Coffee Man.

screenshot showing a skeleton and a man with really huge eyes.

There’s so other nice updates too. The game now includes the original models for Gordon and Barney from the Half-Life alpha as multiplayer skins, 4 new multiplayer maps by Valve developers, Steam Deck and controller support, and the original Valve logo video and menu from the 1998 release. Just a very nice update for a classic game that I’ve put so many hours into.

My Favorite Adventure Game Streamers

~ mpklamerus ~ 3 Comments

I don’t watch streamers too often but when I do, it’s usually of adventure games. It’s my favorite genre of game and I like watching people figure out puzzles or talk about why one doesn’t work when they come across a bad one. Luckily there’s a ton of great folks streaming adventure games and this list only covers a very small amount of them. Generally I find all these streamers to be relaxing and I’m not into streams where people are yelling a lot.

Emmxyzzy – Streamer from Australia that plays MS-DOS games, which includes a lot of adventure games. They translated the first commercial Czech MS-DOS game to English, The Secret of Donkey Island.

sonneveld – Another streamer from Australia that plays a variety of adventure games, with a focus on older games. They also helped translate The Secret of Donkey Island into English.

Secret of Donkey Island screenshot showing someone looking like Guybrush Threepwood standing on some rocks

SummerB76 – Very chill streamer with a focus on adventure games but there’s also plenty of other fun streams like the ones for wine making simulator Hundred Days with her brother who makes wine in real life. Also a speedrunner of the new Colossal Cave remake by Ken and Roberta Williams.

pixel_turkey – Streamer focused on retro games, which includes a lot of adventure games. Also a great pixel artist

The Genesis Temple – Games historian that streams a ton of obscure games as well as games in other languages and live translating them as they are played.

robotspacer – Streams a variety of adventure games and has also been building an adventure game for the Macintosh using World Builder

Julia Minamata – Developer of The Crimson Diamond that streams development of the game every Tuesday night along with playing some retro games.

LotusLovesLotus – Indie game streamer that includes a lot of new adventure games and single player story-driven games.

PS_Garak – Every Tuesday night Ben, Sarah, and Grayson do a comedy stream where they play adventure games (both new and old) and go on fun tangents.

BogusMeatFactory – Variety streamer that includes playing a lot of adventure games and text adventures.

decafjedi – Streams a variety of games but plays retro adventure games every Wednesday night. Also created Stair Quest and the first Space Quest fan site.

The Obscuritory – Video Game History Foundation member and owner of The Obscuritory website Phil Salvador streams incredibly obscure games on Wednesday nights.

Grundislav – Francisco González, the developer of the Ben Jordan series, A Golden Wake, Shardlight, and Lamplight City has been streaming development of his newest game Rosewater!

ivydupler – Video game voice actress for games like Whispers of a Machine and Unavowed streams a variety of games, with a focus on adventure games and the Nancy Drew series.

Conversations with Curtis – The lead actor of the FMV game Phantasmagoria 2 started doing interviews with the cast of the game at the beginning of the pandemic, which has evolved into doing streams of the game he was in as well as other adventure games, both old and new. Highlights include his streams with the lead actress of Phantasmagoria 1 and co-host Daniel doing a ton of interviews with classic adventure game developers. It’s also just been fun watching someone who is new to games developing opinions on the genre and correct takes like new adventure games being just as good, if not better, than classic adventure games.

KeeperFX 1.0 Released

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After a long time in development, version 1.0 of the Dungeon Keeper open source remake KeeperFX has been released!

KeeperFX screenshot showing the multiplayer selection screen

KeeperFX offers various improvements such as:

  • Windows 7/10/11 support
  • Higher screen resolutions
  • Modernized controls
  • Many bugfixes
  • Additional campaigns and maps
  • New level script commands
  • New creatures, textures and sprites
  • Multiplayer

KeeperFX requires files from the original games, which you can still buy on GOG.

Source Port for SiN Released

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screenshot of the port showing that a radial menu can be used to select weapons now

A source port has been released for the 1998 FPS SiN by Ritual Entertainment. I tried it out last night and it seems to work pretty well. Features include:

  1. A new Linux port
  2. Better resolution support
  3. Controller Support
  4. Weapon radial menu
  5. Gamepad-friendly virtual keyboard
  6. Better menu/interface scaling

You can read more about the port here. The port requires the original files to so you’ll have to pick it up on Steam or GOG if you don’t own the game.

Big Myst Online Update Available Now

~ mpklamerus ~ 2 Comments

EDIT: Turns out the update is actually live now

It looks like a massive update is coming to Myst Online tomorrow.

screenshot from Cyan's facebook saying Tomorrow is URU's 20th anniversary! Can you believe it?! Neither can we. Just in time for the celebration is the latest fan update to MOULa (Myst Online re-imagined as an MMO set in the vast, explorable universe of Myst)! It includes a new D'ni area, new audio for the intro with a new voice-over by Rand Miller, updates to six fan ages, and more surprises! Visit https://mystonline.com/ to learn more.

If you thought this MMO was dead, or never even knew about it, I don’t blame you. Uru came out in 2003 and while it did alright critically, it was a big commercial flop and nearly killed Cyan. The online portion of the game was quickly shut down and was unplayable until Gametap paid to revive the game and have Cyan create new content for it. Eventually this ended too and Myst Online was shutdown again until Cyan brought it back again for free on their own servers, which are kept up by donations. It was essentially the same game as the one at the end of Gametap’s run, static and no new content, until a few years ago when Cyan started adding fan content. While it will never be a massively popular game, it does receive regular updates now and seems to be getting a big one tomorrow. I’m not sure if this will include the Descent Expansion update that has been in development for a long time, which uses content from Myst 5.

If you’re a Myst fan but have never played Myst Online, give it a shot! It’s a bit clunky and dated, but I think it still looks nice for a game from 2003 and there hasn’t really been anything like it since then. Plus you can play it entirely for free here.