DOS Games Discussion

May I suggest a few games for your consideration to be hosted at dosgamesarchive.com?

Chasm: The Rift
A noteworthy 3D FPS similar to Quake in some aspects (albeit with a less powerful engine), made by an Ukrainian development team. The three-level demo shows a somewhat earlier build of the game, with some level and enemy differences.
Chasm: The Rift Three-Level Playable Demo
Chasm: The Rift One-Level Playable Demo

Eradicator
A very nice, although seemingly not widely known sci-fi/futuristic 2.5D shooter with a graphics engine comparable to Duke Nukem 3D or Shadow Warrior (sloped floors, mouselook, security cameras etc.). The demo contains three levels and two out of three playable characters.
Eradicator Playable Demo Version 1.1

F-19 Stealth Fighter
Here's a very spectacular, albeit non-playable, demo of the classic flight simulator from MicroProse.
F-19 Stealth Fighter Non-Playable Demo

Horde: The Northern Wind
Having nothing to do with this game, Horde: The Northern Wind is an RTS heavily influenced by Blizzards Warcraft series and set in a medieval fantasy world reminiscent of Slavic folk tales. The game offers very nice, well done graphics, and quite a few original features like free movement between maps, diplomacy options, environment effects (wind, fire, wild animals in the woods), and a hot seat multiplayer option. Read more about Horde: The Northern Wind here.
Horde: The Northern Wind Playable Demo

In Pursuit of Greed
Yet another not well-known futuristic FPS that looks like something in between Rise of the Triad and Doom and has five weird characters, each with unique weapons and abilities, and a ton of powerups among other things.
In Pursuit of Greed Playable Demo

Master of Magic
This is one of the influential precursors to the Heroes of Might and Magic series, and it seems to have inspired many other medieval/fantasy TBS games as well.
Master of Magic Playable Demo

NightHawk: F-117A Stealth Fighter 2.0
A 256-colour remake of F-19 Stealth Fighter. The demo allows to fly two training missions.
NightHawk: F-117A Stealth Fighter Playable Demo

Powerslave (a.k.a. Exhumed)
An Egyptian-themed Doom lookalike that uses an earlier version of the renowned Build engine. The game was re-titled Exhumed for the European release. The demo of Powerslave contains a tutorial, the first four levels from the full game, and one multiplayer map; the demo of Exhumed has the tutorial and the first level. There's also a public beta, which has a different title screen, quite a few different sprites, background MIDI music, and a few bugs.
Powerslave Playable Demo
Powerslave Public Beta
Exhumed Playable Demo

The Settlers II: Veni, Vidi, Vici
The vastly improved sequel to The Settlers comes in two flavours: the regular game and the Gold edition. Both demos have the same tutorial level, and one playable scenario. The Gold edition scenario shows the new snow terrain.
Settlers II Playable Demo
Settlers II Gold Edition Playable Demo

War Diary
An interesting Warcraft: Orcs & Humans lookalike that uses a historical setting of the 16th-century Japanese invasion of Korea, rather than a medieval fantasy story. The graphics may look outdated for it's time (it was released in 1996), but the game has a few interesting features like the day/night cycle that affects how much of the battle field the player can see, weather effects (rain and lightning) and trade among other things. The demo has two first levels from the full game.
War Diary Playable Demo

Warlords
The classic turn-based medieval fantasy strategy. The demo allows to play as the Elvallie for 40 turns.
Warlords Playable Demo

Warlords II
The demo has one tutorial and one standard game map, which can be played for 40 turns as any side, with modifiable difficulty levels and other map settings.
Warlords II Deluxe Edition Playable Demo

Zorro
A platform game that resembles Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and The Flame[/url] in visual style and level design. Two levels are playable in the demo. Music by Bobby Prince.
Zorro Playable Demo

Thanks for this list ... I don't know if Jorrit (who maintains DGA) visits the forums much anymore, but you've suggested some good candidates for games to add to DOSGames.com

Glad to hear that Here are a few more:

Radix: Beyond the Void v2.0 REMIX
Both dosgames.com and dosgamesarchive.com offer Radix: beyond the Void v1.1, yet there exists an upgraded version 2.0, which was significantly improved over v1.1. Most importantly, forced forward movement was disabled in favour of Descent-style controls of the ship. Many graphics, animations and sound effects were replaced with higher-quality ones, some levels were fixed, and weapons were tweaked.
Radix: Beyond the Void Shareware Version 2.0 REMIX

Amulets and Armor
This is a first-person medieval fantasy RPG that uses the Doom engine.
Amulets and Armor Shareware Demo v1.0

Ultima Underworld
This is a first-person RPG that reportedly prompted John Carmack to write the Wolfenstein 3-D engine. In fact, the engine of Ultima Underworld appears superior even to Doom in that it has sloped floors, but the first-person perspective does not occupy the whole screen.
Ultima Underworld Playable Demo

I definitely approve of Radix 2.0, it's a huge improvement. (I happen to possess the full game v 2.0 and still play it often )

I've stumbled upon yet another beta demo of Powerslave, presumably released somewhere between the first public beta and the demo builds that are identical to the final release of the game. This demo (it's called "freeware" in the readme) still has the beta title screen, and a rolling introductory text not found in the other versions of the game. The two demo levels are practically identical to the first two levels of the full game, albeit there are minor differences. Some graphics and sounds are different as well.
Powerslave Freeware Part 1
Powerslave Freeware Part 2
Powerslave Freeware Part 3

Gunship 2000
A 1992 remake of the classic 1986 MicroProse game, Gunship, which is a combat helicopter simulator. The demo has four missions featuring three different helicopters. You can either watch the pre-recorded demos of each mission, or switch to interactive flight mode and control the chopper yourself.
Gunship 2000 Playable Demo

F-15 Strike Eagle III
Another simulator of the popular fighter by MicroProse, with updated graphics. The demo shows one mission that can either be watched or played in an interactive mode.
F-15 Strike Eagle III Playable Demo

MiG-29 Fulcrum
This simulator was created by former British Aerospace simulation designers.
MiG-29 Fulcrum Playable Demo

Thunderhawk AH-73M
Yet another helicopter simulator.
Thunderhawk AH-73M Playable Demo

There's also a pretty nice selection of oldschool flight simulators at >snipped<

MrFlibble wrote: There's also a pretty nice selection of oldschool flight simulators at >snipped<

Snipped= link not allowed.

Read the rules please, THX.

Hey, the site I linked to is NOT an abandonware site - it hosts demos and shareware versions that are absolutely legal to distibute in just the same way dosgames.com or dosgamesarchive.com do. Please be so kind and point me to the exact entry in the rules that I violated, as I can't figure out what I did wrong!

MrFlibble wrote:Hey, the site I linked to is NOT an abandonware site - it hosts demos and shareware versions that are absolutely legal to distibute in just the same way dosgames.com or dosgamesarchive.com do. Please be so kind and point me to the exact entry in the rules that I violated, as I can't figure out what I did wrong!

Dogbreath wrote:DGF Rules and Regulations (Revision 8)

These are the rules for Dosgames Forum.
... blahblahblah.....
Rules and Regulations
2. General Posting

Blahblahblah.......Likewise, do not post any links to any website hosting Abandonware or Warez downloads.
There are two exceptions to this rule, Home of the Underdogs and Abandonia. These websites have taken pains to remain ESA compliant, do not offer any downloads to material that is still being sold, and are well trusted and highly respected by the staff of this forum.
....blahblahblah.....

Those are our rules, not open for debate.
Personally, I also accept links to CDTextfiles and some other 100% archive sites.

As for the site you linked to:
Not interested in excuses, I don't intend to investigate every site that is linked to.
Have better things to do with my precious time.
So it's pretty simple, any link to a site I don't trust for 100% will be deleted on first sight.

That said, it's not that I don't appreciate your posts, don't misunderstand me.

Okay, as you wish. But since I know for sure the site I linked to is not a "website hosting Abandonware or Warez downloads", I don't consider myself having violated any of the forum rules - unless, that is, the paragraph you quoted above (and, mind you, I never post links to abandonware stuff) essentially boils down to

dosraider wrote:So it's pretty simple, any link to a site I don't trust for 100% will be deleted on first sight.

In which case you should motivate your edits not with "you violated the rules", but with "I didn't like the site you linked to". Because, if you are

dosraider wrote:Not interested in excuses, I don't intend to investigate every site that is linked to.
Have better things to do with my precious time.

then how can you know for sure it's a "website hosting Abandonware or Warez downloads" that I linked to (and thus violated the rules)?

Anyhow, I've learned the lesson and won't post any more links to the sites that you, or anyone else of the moderators, might find unacceptable to the forum policy. As stated above, I never post links to abandonware intentionally, and at least try to make sure no such content is mentioned in my posts.

MrFlibble wrote:then how can you know for sure it's a "website hosting Abandonware or Warez downloads" that I linked to (and thus violated the rules)?

Let me state it a bit more elaborate:
I'm even NOT interested in knowing if said site host or not warez/abandonware.
I do NOT intend to spend time investigating a whole site.
This is NOT my job.
That is why in the early days only HotU was accepted, and recently Abandonia was added to the acceptable sites. We trust those sites.
The others? NOT interested.

Also:

dosraider wrote:Those are our rules, not open for debate.

You mister are not a newbie on Fora, you know that posting links to sites can get you in trubbles.
You also know that mods/admins will enforce said rules.

One advise (still friendly, yes) : let it go and don't link.
This debate is closed, if you want to discuss this further or want a change of rules start a topic in 'general' or something.

>Case closed<

Somebody is in a good mood today...

>snipped< ~dosraider

BTW, I noticed that for the MiG-29 Fulcrum demo I linked to above to work, all the data files must be manually placed into a sub-directory called "D", or the demo will not work at all.

>snipped< a whole paragraph because:

dosraider wrote: This debate is closed, if you want to discuss this further or want a change of rules start a topic in 'general' or something.

>Case closed<

Don't do it again, my patience is on a short fuse lately.

MrFlibble, thank you very much for your game suggestions! Amazing. It's a great list of suitable games. I have downloaded all games and added them to my 'add games list'.

Thanks again for your help, it's greatly appreciated.

As always, glad to help

Recently I found out that GameFront hosts an archive of original MicroProse file database, including official demo versions, patches and other stuff. Here are a few original demos of the games I mentioned in one of the above posts:

F-15 Strike Eagle II Desert Storm Scenario Disk Preview
F-15 Strike Eagle III Playable Demo
F-15 Strike Eagle III Preview
Gunship 2000 Playable Demo
Gunship 2000 Preview
Master of Magic Playable Demo
Nighthawk F-117A Stealth Fighter 2.0 Playable Demo

There are also combined non-playable previews:
MicroProse Preview 1 (Gunship, F-15 Strike Eagle, Sid Meier's Pirates!, Silent Service)
MicroProse Preview 2 (F-15 Strike Eagle II, F-19 Stealth Fighter, Red Storm Rising, M1 Tank Platoon)
MicroProse Preview 3 (Gunship 2000, Nighthawk F-177A Stealth Fighter 2.0)

Demos of other games are also available there in the "demos" folder, if anyone's interested

MrFlibble wrote:Amulets and Armor
This is a first-person medieval fantasy RPG that uses the Doom engine.
Amulets and Armor Shareware Demo v1.0

Turns out there's a newer version of the shareware demo, v1.2, that comes in two flavours: with MIDI music (8 Mb) and with streamed PCM music (22 Mb). Both can be obtained at leileilol's Unofficial Amulets & Armor Shrine.

The demo features one quest (of a total of seven in the full game) that consists of four levels. All eleven character archetypes are available for selection.

More info about Amulets & Armor at Doom Wiki

A couple of strategy games:

First, the demo of Blood & Magic, with two single-player scenarios and a tutorial:
Download Blood & Magic Demo from FilePlanet

Secondly, the demo of the first instalment of the Lords of the Realm series. The demo seems pretty rare.
Download Lords of the Realm Demo from FilePlanet

Castles series games:

Castles playable demo:
http://library.thinkquest.org/12132/cas ... stdemo.zip

Castles II: Siege & Conquest playable demo:
http://cd.textfiles.com/gigagames3/DOS/ ... STLES2.ZIP