A nice little feature I’ve discovered this year in ScummVM is the ability to replace the soundtracks of some games with other versions. The ScummVM website mentions it but I didn’t know of it until I saw that George Sanger, also known as The Fat Man, started selling soundtracks of his games on Bandcamp that also included files for ScummVM that allow you to listen to a higher quality version of the soundtrack of games like Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo while you play. It’s been really nice listening to these while revisiting the games with my kids. The soundtracks you can do this with are currently:
Cover of the Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon soundtrack
But I would also encourage you to check out the other albums on his Bandcamp page because there’s a lot of great stuff on there.
Tom McGurk has also rereleased his soundtrack for Spy Fox 2, which comes with files for ScummVM.
Another place where you can find mods for game soundtracks is through the ScummVM Music Enhancement Project by James Woodcock. The project is focused on recreating midi soundtracks of games at a higher audio quality level and isn’t trying to do an “improved” soundtrack or make any drastic changes, and the site is very open about how they are a big fan of the original soundtracks and are just doing it as a fun personal project. Also from reading this post about The Gene Machine, it sounds like he gets permission before releasing an enhanced soundtrack. I think they’re really neat and will have to use them when I replay some of these games. You can check out a video doing a comparison of the original and new Beneath a Steel Sky soundtracks here:
Currently the games supported by the ScummVM Music Enhancement Project are:
It sounds like there’s an enhanced soundtrack being made for Simon the Sorcerer 2 right now, so be sure to follow the project for future updates.
The ScummVM website also links to ways to replace the Loom soundtrack with your preferred version of Swan Lake and building a talkie version of the original Monkey Island 1 and 2 using the voice acting from the special editions. I just think it’s really nice that these things exist when we revisit some of our favorite games.
Update: A lot of people replied on social media of other sites they liked so I have added a list of them at the end.
This morning I went looking for a shareware game I remembered playing 20 years ago and discovered that not only was the game now free, the same website I downloaded the game from two decades ago was still up. This led to me thinking about other old shareware game developer sites I knew of, and discovering some others that were new to me as well.
Spheres of Chaos
This was the game that kicked off my whole dig into old shareware developer sites this morning. Spheres of Chaos is an arcade game like Asteroids, where you fly around shooting at various objects and they break into smaller bits, while dodging other space ships trying to shoot at you. The game was originally released in 1992 for the Acorn Archimedes and then re-released in 1998 for the PC, where it has received a few updates since then. The visuals remind me a lot of Llamasoft’s games, with a psychedelic aesthetic with bright colors coming from every movement and explosion. I originally discovered this game almost 20 years ago, on the Idle Thumbs website before it launched a podcast. The review does a much better job explaining why you should play it than I could. At the time, I did not have a credit card or the money to pay for the small amount the developer was charging. Fast forward to this morning when I suddenly remembered playing this game and dug around the site to find the name of the game. I was pleasantly surprised to see the website was still up, looking the exact same as it did when I first downloaded the demo, and the game was now available for free. Best of all, the game still holds up! It was a blast flying around, blowing everything up, and the screen filling up with various colors. Highly recommended if you’re a Llamasoft fan.
Redwood Games
This led me to discovering some shareware game developers that still have websites going, even if they aren’t actively developing new games. Redwood Games was created about 1990 by Karen Crowther and the studio is most famous for the games Math Rescue and Word Rescue, which were published by Apogee Software. Both games are still available on Steam today. The site also features downloads of other games they worked on like Talking ABC’s and the shareware version of Pickle Wars.
Gray Design Associates
Screenshot taken from the Gray Design Associates website
Gray Design Associates is the name of the developer owned by David Gray, most famously known for The Hugo Trilogy of adventure games, which started with the 1990 game Hugo’s House of Horrors. While GOG does sell the Windows version of the games running in ScummVM, David’s website sells both versions of the trilogy in the bundle if you want to own the DOS versions as well. It’s also the only place where you can legally buy Nitemare 3-D, the FPS spinoff of the Hugo games released in 1995. Since then, David has been focused on creating jigsaw puzzle games and still makes them to this day.
SophSoft
SophSoft is a developer that started in 1982 and is still going today! As someone that is interested in the history of Michigan game development, it’s cool seeing someone that has been making games for so long in Lansing, Michigan. Their portfolio also shows games they helped with, such as Legacy of the Ancients and The Legend of Blacksilver by another local game developer, Quest Software.
Adept Software
Adept Software is a software developer that is most famous for the shareware game Jetpack. The developer started in 1996 and is still working on things today. The Classic Games section of their site is a delight, resembling a 90’s website, and features their classic games for free.
Game Crafters
Game Crafters was a studio that developed one game, The Adventures of Maddog Williams in the Dungeons of Duridian in 1992. That hasn’t stopped the studio from having a website with updates as recently as 2012. The site has downloads of the game for various platforms and you can also read news posts about an attempt to make a sequel in the early 00’s.
MVP Software
MVP Software was a publisher in Grand Rapids, Michigan that started in 1985 and kept going all the way to 2014. While the site itself isn’t anything exciting to look at, I think it’s great that it’s still up and offering free downloads of all the games they’re legally allowed to offer such as Pickle Wars, the game I mentioned earlier by Redwood Games.
If you enjoyed reading about these studios and visiting their sites, I highly recommend the book Shareware Heroes. The book goes into detail about the shareware scene, including some of the developers mentioned here. If there’s an older site belonging to a game developer that you’re a fan of, or you’re a game developer with a site that’s been around for a long time, feel free to leave it in the comments!
Sites Recommended by Others!
I didn’t expect people on social media to have so many other shareware game dev sites that they like so I have made a list of them here!
3D Realms – The legacy version of their site. (Suggested by Richard Moss) Bluemoon Interactive – Developer of classic DOS games like Skyroads. The history section of the site has links to download full versions of their games. (Suggested by Pulsar) Cap’n Magneto – Shareware game for the Mac. (Richard Moss) Carr Software – Developer of shareware games, all available in a bundle. (Hard Drive Noises) Crazy Bytes – Recommended by LunarLoony Everett Kaser Software – Developer of Sherlock and other games. A great post by Ian Michael here about why he is a fan of the developer. Goodsol – Developer of a Solitaire application that is updated every year (Richard Moss) Hamumu Games – Developer of shareware games that has recently rereleased them on Steam. (Andy Hat) JunkGames – Recommended by LunarLoony KPixGames – Developer of PathPix and other shareware games (ROTOPE) Lena Games – Developer of Solitaire shareware and other games (LunarLoony) Louise Hope – A World Builder dev that includes games you can play in your browser. (Mike Piontek) Ray Dunakin – World Builder dev, including a modern Mac remake of one game (Mike Piontek) Sean O’Connor – Suggested by Greg. “Sean O’Connor made a rather addicting Empire clone called “Mother of All Battles” for Windows 3.0 that is still getting some updates and being sold today!” Semicolon – Modern ports of his old software, including Mac games (Richard Moss) Spiderweb Software – Actively making rpgs since the 90’s (Andy Hat) Stick Software – Developer of various applications and games for the Mac (Richard Moss) Storm Impact – Developer of MacSki and other Mac games. The downloads come in an emulator friendly format. (Mike Piontek) Wendell Hicken – Creator of Scorched Earth (kilowatt) Winograd – Developer of Mac and Windows games (Richard Moss) Zugg Software – Creator of MUD clients (Richard Moss)
When Myst came out, it was a gigantic hit that made its way into pop culture. There were books, a board game, and even some discussions with Disney to do something in one of their parks. So it’s not surprising that a game as popular and challenging as Myst also had a few parodies.
Pyst
Screenshot taken from MobyGames
The most well known of these Myst parodies is the game Pyst, released in 1996. The game was written by Peter Bergman, a member of the Firesign Theatre, and the first game developed by Parroty Interactive. The Firesign Theatre was a surreal comedy troupe that was around from 1966 to 2012. The concept for Pyst isn’t too bad. You explore Myst island after millions of others have already visited it and see how trashed it has become. The problem is that it’s just not a very good parody. The jokes all fall flat and even a short cameo by John Goodman, who was friends with the comedy troupe, couldn’t save it. It’s not very long either. You navigate the rooms in a slideshow-like format by clicking the left and right arrows to navigate to other cards, clicking on various elements in each card to find jokes, until you reach the end. That’s all there is to it. There’s no puzzles or any real sense of navigation, so the game takes about 30 minutes to play through. If you have an interest in the game, you can watch a playthrough on YouTube and probably get the same out of it as I did and with less work.
The game is not available for sale anywhere so I feel ok with linking to The Collection Chamber if you really want to download a version of it that’s already setup to work on modern PCs. Personally, I got more enjoyment from watching the bizarre Making of Pyst video and listening to the theme for the game featuring John Goodman on vocals.
Negative reviews of the game didn’t stop it from being a commercial hit. The game remained on the cd-rom best seller list for a long time due to its low cost and availability. I remember seeing the game at the checkout counter at CompUSA when it came out. The success allowed Parroty Interactive to develop a few more games: Star Warped (1997), a parody of Star Wars. The X-Fools (1997), a parody of The X-Files Microshaft Winblows 98 (1998), a parody of Microsoft Windows 98
There were also plans to develop Driven, a parody of Riven: The Sequel to Myst. This would have had more of a car theme but was never completed due to the studio closing after being acquired by The Learning Company. A demo of the game exists on later Parroty Interactive releases and you can watch a playthrough here. Despite my criticisms of the game, I do think the Firesign Theatre is worth listening to if they sound interesting to you.
Mylk
About screen for Mylk
Pyst wasn’t the first Myst parody. Mylk was a freeware game released in 1994 with a dairy theme. You find the trapped Farmer Ben and Frances the Chicken, who have little videos just like the two brothers in Myst, telling you to bring them bring pink and yellow pages that you find by exploring cheese-themed areas. It’s a fun little parody with some cute cartoon graphics and like the About screen states in the screenshot above, it was made as a tribute to the game instead of being angry at it like some of the other Myst parodies out there. If you want to check it out, it’s on the Internet Archive. The creator of the game would go on to write a lot of Shrek-related cartoons.
Missed
Missed is a browser game created by Jason Bloomberg and published in 1996. You navigate the island using buttons at the bottom of the screen with a text description telling you what each button will do, with jokes about how Myst is too hard and other frustrations people had with it at the time. Fortunately the game has been preserved in the Wayback Machine. The Wayback Machine has also preserved the page detailing the making of the game and a walkthrough that you can read here.
MYSTy
MYSTy is a parody released for the Macintosh in 1995 by Twin Software. You enter a Powerbook and explore an island similar to Myst. The game is playable on the Internet Archive.
Modern Parodies
Screenshot from Lyft
People are still making Myst parodies and tributes today. In 2016 there was a Myst jam on Itch.io where there were dozens of entries, most by fans of the game. There was also the attempt to make Myst more exciting by making it a FPS. It has been interesting seeing the things people take from Myst and having a more positive view of it, when it doesn’t feel like it’s everywhere and have had more time to understand the design of the game.
Mast
After publishing this post, I was made aware of Mast, a porn parody of Myst, thanks(?) to Phil Salvador and Frank Cifaldi from the Video Game History Foundation. As far as I know, this ad from an adult cd-rom magazine is all we know about it. Hopefully we’ll see it uploaded to the Internet Archive one day so we find out what this game is actually like.
Scan of a magazine ad by Frank Cifaldi
Nacah
Thanks to Lori on Mastodon, I am also now aware of Nacah. Nacah is a Bible-themed Myst clone by Virtue Games where you explore a group of islands that you are stranded on and solving puzzles based on the Bible. It’s not a parody of Myst but is strongly inspired by the game and is marketed as a “Biblical alternate to Myst” so it deserves a mention.
Ryven
I hesitate to put this one here because it’s more of a tribute or game inspired by Riven, but I think it’s still neat. The bad news is that it hasn’t been completely preserved, but you can check out part of it on the Internet Archive. According to a Reddit thread a few years ago, someone has been talking to the developer to get the rest of it preserved.
There are far more Myst parodies and tributes than I could have imagined and I suspect there’s plenty more out there. If there’s a Myst parody that you don’t see here, please let me know in the comments.
J.B. Harold is a series of Japanese adventure games that started in the mid 80’s with the game Murder Club. As you can guess, each game involves you playing as the detective J.B. Harold and you investigate murders. While some of the games have received official English translations, a lot have not. So I’m thrilled to see that the 1994 game Blue Chicago Blues has just received an English fan patch. This was one of the later entries in the series and most importantly, it’s a FMV game!
Screenshot taken from MobyGames
Most of the game is made up of interactive movies and making choices whenever the movie stops. Each choice advances the clock and it’s up to the player to solve the murder before time runs out. If you’d like to check the game out, the English fan patch is available here.
Even if the games industry has largely moved on to making games for other platforms, there’s still tons of games being made for DOS every year. I’ve previously made a post about the DOS Game Jam, which also includes some recommendations, but someone from the DOS Game Jam discord has put together this really good list of native DOS games that were submitted to the jams.
A screenshot from DZZEE
There’s also lots of DOS games outside of game jams on Itch such as The Aching, Hibernated 1, and many others with the DOS and msdos tags on their product pages. Some of the games with these tags are just (very good) games inspired by classic DOS games, but there’s plenty that run natively on DOS as well. If you’d like to find more DOS games, including ones outside of Itch, this site seems to have a good list of some of the games out there.
If you want to talk about DOS game development, find out about upcoming DOS game jams, just want to talk about DOS games in a welcoming and inclusive environment, consider joining the DOS Shareware Zone discord.
Here is a series of ads for a place called State Street Computer in Ann Arbor, Michigan showing the initial excitement for the Amiga, ads selling the computer, and then the final ad for the store showing their liquidation sale. I don’t have dates for all the ads because I saved these images a while ago and didn’t take notes then, but I can guess that it’s roughly from the mid 80’s to the very late 80’s or very early 90’s. These images came from looking through local newspapers and also from the Ann Arbor District Library website.
There’s a few other ads that I found as well. I’m guessing the freedom of the press one is aimed at college students looking to start their own zines or newspapers since this was right next to the University of Michigan.
Unfortunately I cannot find any images of the actual store. I looked up the location of the store on Google Maps and it would have been a high traffic spot near the University of Michigan.
If you have any photos of the store, I would love to see them posted somewhere.
Just finished watching Hyperland, a documentary about hypertext and other related computer technologies in 1990. It was created by Douglas Adams and stars Tom Baker (Doctor Who) as a software agent that shows Douglas the future of tv, Interactive Multimedia. I thought it was a fascinating time capsule of what Douglas thought the internet was going to be like in the future, even before people were using web browsers. The documentary talks to a variety of people like Ted Nelson and Robert Winter, but the highlight for me was Amanda Goodenough presenting Inigo Gets Out, an application for kids made with Hypercard. There’s even a fun little reference to Douglas Adams writing interactive fiction in the 80’s.
Hyperland gets some stuff wrong as anything like this is always going to but he was right about a surprising amount. Even less desirable elements like your fridge being connected to the internet are predicted here. If you have an interest in Douglas Adams or computer history I think it’s worth checking out. There’s a lot of interesting interviews about hypertext history, Tom Baker is a lot of fun to watch, and it’s only 50 minutes. You can watch it for free on the Internet Archive.
A weird but fun thing I like to do is post photos of old computer stores on Cohost and Mastodon, which means that I have found a ton of random things over the last couple of years. I’m going to start posting more organized collections here in case something happens to either place, since that account is now the only source of some photos after the sources have gone down (see my CompUSA post here).
One I’ve always loved finding more photos and documents of has been Egghead Software. If you’re feeling nostalgic for computers in the early 90’s, or specifically the Egghead Software store chain, check out their quarterly reports that have been archived here. For some reason it’s a chain that doesn’t have a ton of photos like other computer stores do, so it was fun finding these. I also thought it was interesting reading the reports in the later years and watching the slow decline they were going through.
I’ve also found a lot of random photos of now closed computer stores by checking out Facebook groups that former employees post in. I’ve only gone in public groups but there’s been a lot of interesting things that employees kept from the store like these items. Unfortunately the groups seem to randomly disappear, probably from Facebook constantly making changes, so there’s always a feeling I have to grab the photos before they’re gone forever.
Developer: Digital Eclipse Publisher: Digital Eclipse Year: 2023 Genre: Action
I was a massive fan of the Atari 50 collection by Digital Eclipse so I was thrilled when they announced The Making of Karateka. I think people have been asking for decades for a Criterion Collection style rerelease of old games, where interviews and documents are packaged with the game. It follows the same format of the Atari 50 collection, where you are presented with multiple timelines, each documenting a different era, and scroll through the timelines to see various documents, interviews with people involved, and games to play. I wasn’t sure how much you could do for just one game but it’s the perfect rerelease to me, no complaints. It’s stunning how much was preserved by Jordan. I knew he had journals during the making of his games because I had read the one he released for Prince of Persia, but the collection also features playable prototypes for games that were never released and letters sent back and forth between him and Broderbund. The remakes created by Digital Eclipse for the games in the collection are a lot of fun too.
I’m hoping the collection is a big hit and we’ll see more of these. I don’t know how many are possible because it’s hard to imagine anyone preserving everything as well as Jordan Mechner has, but I’m sure Digital Eclipse has a few in the works if they announced this is the beginning of a Gold Master Series that “presents iconic games in an innovative “interactive documentary” format, putting the shared history of games and their creators into one comprehensive package.” I think my dream version of one of these that I think would actually be possible, meaning a game not owned by a giant company like Lucasarts or Sierra, would be something like Llamasoft. Seeing prototypes and interviews for anything they put out would be fantastic.
The Making of Karateka is available on PS4, PS5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, Steam, GOG, and the Epic Store. The links to all of these are available here.
