DOS or Win 3.1 Swedish edutainment game [Vikingabyn]

Help locating old / Pre year 2000 games you used to play.
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Cire
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DOS or Win 3.1 Swedish edutainment game [Vikingabyn]

Post by Cire »

I first posted this post at RGB Classic Games, and was suggested to repost this here, so that's what I'll do :) :
I remember back when I had recently started school. We got 3 computers with Windows 3.1 and many games, some edutainment games in Swedish. I don't remember much about most of the games unfortunatly, but a friend recently reminded me about one he also remembered. It must be from around 1995 or perhaps a Little older. has to be DOS or Windows 3.1 based. It was Viking themed, I learned through it that a Century was 100 years. There was a lot of blue color in it. This is all we can remember unfortunatly. If any one knows what this game is called, and has info on other games in Swedish language, and know where they could be aquired through legal means, either demos or full versions, I would appreciate this greatly. :)
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Rwolf
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Post by Rwolf »

Hi, if you learned English words in the game, was that the educational element, or was it something else? For what age-group do you think it was aimed?
What playing style did it have?

There is this French game, maybe it was translated:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/le-roi-des-fjords

The lost vikings is another game for DOS, but often old Windows apps are just DOS based with launchers. Lots of blue anyway.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/lost-vikings

There is also this longer list of Viking-themed games (many platforms):
http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/myt ... e-germanic
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Post by Cire »

Hi Rwolf!

Yeah, sorry, I was a bit unclear. I wrote "Century" just so everyone would understand, though infact the Word I learnt was the Swedish "sekel". But I don't really remember what the educational element was. I'm unsure about the age-Group too, since the games we had were mixed age-Group wise.
I don't Think it's the France game, 1997 would be too late.
I'm unsure of The Lost Vikings, I remember it from back then, but I played it at a friends Place and I don't Think there was a Swedish version of it?
I remember there were quite a few educational Swedish games back then, but I find it really hard to find any substantial information about them today. I spoke with some friends, they only seem to remember "Chefrens Pyramid".
I notice that you're Swedish too, do you happen to know anything about games in Swedish language? I've only managed to track down some, but of what I can remember there where more available at the market.
Thanks for helping by the way :)
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Post by Rwolf »

Well, I guess some companies specialice in these games, so you could perhaps hunt for those kind of developers & publishers.

Pan Vision is one such company, who has aquired several older companies, perhaps it's possible to track down their product lists from period advertising.
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Vision

You mentioned 'Chefrens Pyramid', this is published by Alega Skolmaterial, and they also might have older lists archived.
http://www.alega.se/html/chefren.html
(That product seems to have been under development in the beginning of 1997 according to the archive.org scraped pages)

I have no personal experience with what educational games were available for Win3.x, as I was long out of school by then, but there may be others who know.

Possibly someone at Swedish PCGamer might know, but their forum has been rather quiet for some time. (And they are shutting down soon, what I read.)
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Post by Cire »

I'll just copy my post for RGB Classic Games: After looking over the whole Internet, I managed to find the game I was looking for by my own thanks to this YouTube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQXVvhGsn-Q
It was a Swedish strategy game called "Vikingabyn" (in English "The Viking Village")
So this can be moved to resolved now. :D
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Post by Rwolf »

I found an interview with a couple of the managers of the company producing this game and others; "Gävle Datapedagogiska Centrum".
This was a publicly funded enterprise, developing eductional software in the beginning of the PC era and before, using ABC 80/800 and Compis computers.

The game itself eludes me, apart from the youtube video; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQXVvhGsn-Q
The gameplay of the video is shown as much simpler version, but still in similar design to another strategy/management game : 'The King of Dragon Pass'.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/king-of-dragon-pass
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Post by Cire »

Interesting! Do you happen to have a link to that interview?
By the way, I sent you a couple of PM's over at Svenska PC Gamer forum, did you recieve them?
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Post by Rwolf »

The interview I read was with Örjan Broman, by the Tekniska Museet in 2008.

No details about the games, as he was a manager only, but he mentiones Vikingabyn as one of the products they made. The software made wasn't sold publicly, but distributed for free to the schools that wanted it, including other Nordic countries, the educational software developers seems to have traded pretty freely with each other back then.

http://www.tekniskamuseet.se/download/1 ... 3%A4ck.pdf


And no, I did not receive any PM, did you get mine?
It seems the PM functionality only includes sending, not reading PM:s on the site.
Well...PCG Sweden has been mostly mothballed by now anyway.
I tried asking them by mail about archiving their old stuff online, but got no reply so far.
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Post by Cire »

Ah, nice, I'll have to read that later. But yeah, by the time I found the PM functionality there, I could read your PM. Took me a good while Before I found that at all though, wasn't very obvious. Hope you'll get an answer, it would be very interesting for me too.
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