Submitted 1 year ago by Zombiepirate@lemmy.world to retrogaming@lemmy.world
I’m pretty sure Doom will be the most popular (and my pick too), but I’ll throw a shout-out to Epic Pinball; that Android table was the best one in the game anyway.
ZZT, the game that launched Epic. Say, there’s gotta be a ZZT community somewhere on lemmy, right?
I was so addicted to ZZT back then! The player-made worlds were such a delight, and my slow-ass computer which choked on so many then-current games ran them without trouble.
Now I want to try it out again.
People are still making games using it! When I get a bit more free time I want to polish up and republish the ones I made.
I didn’t realize anybody else had ever played that game. I downloaded that from AOL back when I was signing up for a free month trial every month from those CDs in the mail.
There’s a whole community around self-made games using the editor that came with it, including a website full of games and a forum. A few years back one of us published a book about the community (and how we all turned out trans).
Doom, Wolf3d, and Castle of the Winds
Want a fun piece of trivia? Epic Pinball launched Digital Extremes, the developer behind Warframe.
And is named Epic because of Epic (Mega)Games
I spent a lot of time playing Raptor: Call of the Shadows, a vertically-scrolling shooter with an upgrade system.
There was also Rise of the Triad, a pretty decent Doom-clone
I actually bought the boxed version of the game on 4 separate 3.5" floppies :o
Was in a clearance bin at Toys R Us for like 5 bucks. I remember being so stoked to be able to buy all the different weapons they teased at the end of the shareware episode!
Raptor: Call of the Shadows
Quake
Sky Roads, Test Drive 2, Jill of the Jungle, Halloween Harry, Jetpack, so many great games that I played through hell out of their shareware versions.
Oh boy I loved Jetpack and Skyroads!
I spent so many hours as a kid on my dad’s Thinkpad playing Gravity Well. It came on one of those “50 Great Games” CDs or something like that. The goal is to claim all the planets in the system, which you do by simply landing on them, then building defenses against your opponents. It’s so much fun because your ship has pretty realistic inertia and the planets have actual gravity wells. The AI opponents can be quite difficult and aggressive. Challenging and fun, with great sound effects for the time!
This screenshot is from an Internet Archive page for the game, but I’m pretty sure it’s only the shareware version. I gotta check again when I get off work!
I forgot all about this game! My go-to strategy was to attack freighters from the other factions while they were in flight and force them to change sides. My space pirate empire was unstoppable!
Yes!! And you could kind of cheese the game by pressing both fire buttons in rapid succession (down arrow and ‘d’ I think). I loved making passes around an enemy’s planet and staying just ahead of their defenses, and becoming basically an A-10 Warthog in space. It was kind of difficult since your bullets inherited your velocity so you had to shoot at weird angles 😁
That sounds fantastic, I might have to give it a shot.
Oh my god… epic pinball! I had completely forgotten about this!! Thanks for that hit of nostalgia =)
The music is just as great as you remember.
Wolfenstein 3d, and commander Keen
Mordor 1 The Depths of Dejenol
Image
still available from Decklins Demise
Its the game that got me into dungeon crawlers particularly Demise: Rise of the Ku’Tan, and the epxansions Ascension and Revenge of the Tavern Keeper
Commander Keen is probably the one that I liked the most that is also well known.
My personal favorite was Bass Class, which is weird because I’ve zero interest in real-life fishing, then or now.
I played a lot of TetriNET and Subspace Continuum with my old online community. Great times.
I could not for the life of me get my head into the classic version of subspace. Buuuut Trench Wars was sick AF especially when the server admins set up Zombies! Events on the weekends.
Oh I’d forgotten about Subspace; what a classic!
Might be pushing the limits of shareware, but the demo of Quake 1 on cd for a buck. A simple console command unlocked the full version.
I was always struck by the similarity to the blue robot on that table to Cyborg from Rise of the Robots and I wonder if there was some cross-pollination there.
He’s actually based on the genie from Aladdin
came here to post this. my buddy had it and i still play it every couple of years.
Castle of the Winds 1 and 2 were incredible!
Wow what a throwback. I feel like i was always getting cursed and poisoned. Now i feel the need to find this game and finish it.
Native Windows UI controls for a game. Classic.
it’s like that Indiana Jones Adventure game.
I got my ass handed to me by Castle of the Winds when I was a kid. And that doofy-ass default barbarian sprite…
We always called that one Castle Of The Windows, since the entire game engine is constructed of 32x32 pixel Windows icons.
Tyrian
I’m getting flashbacks
zod000@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
Pinball Fantasies, Raptor, Heretic