Older computer games

[JerryBoBerry]

If you like playing older games and are familiar with how to get around in DosBox, then you will probably like these links. Just ran across them and thought I'd share. Most of the games are streaming, so they work right off the webpage.

MS Dos Games
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games

And Shareware CD Roms.
https://archive.org/details/cdbbsarchive

 

[eyeteach]

"You have died of dysentery"

 

[Lintilla]

I somehow avoided The Oregon Trail my entire childhood, but I *have* played Crosscountry Canada. I think maybe our school computers came with that installed instead. Soooooo boooooring! lol that music brings back memories. I actually have a ton of these games saved in a folder somewhere from when I still used to play them, because I've basically never intentionally deleted a file in my life.

I've got DOSBox, but I need to look into a C64 emulator...

 

[JerryBoBerry]

I somehow avoided The Oregon Trail my entire childhood, but I *have* played Crosscountry Canada. I think maybe our school computers came with that installed instead. Soooooo boooooring! lol that music brings back memories. I actually have a ton of these games saved in a folder somewhere from when I still used to play them, because I've basically never intentionally deleted a file in my life.

I've got DOSBox, but I need to look into a C64 emulator...

I'd start with VICE. It's been pretty good for me. Free, runs on even Win 10, supports the most game image files, and it's pretty customizable for keyboard, mouse, joystick controls.
http://vice-emu.sourceforge.net/

And as a bonus, it not only emulates the C64, but also C128, PET, CBM II, VIC20, PLUS/4. So if you have any of those images you can play them all.

Also if you would like some more C64 games check out this site. It's a horribly designed webpage, but it has almost all the C64 games ever made for download.

Or for them all listed under an alphabetical FTP site (much easier to use) you can go here. But you're still downloading one at a time on that one.
EDIT the forums software for links keeps trying to put an "HTTP://" in front of that link. But it's an "FTP" link. So copy paste this into a browser to see this one.
ftp://arnold.c64.org/pub/games/

Of course if you'd like to just have a lot (around 10,000 titles) in one easy to grab file, then go to this one. It has a zip file you can download, but if you have torrent software installed the torrent is a bit faster to grab.

 

[Lintilla]

Horribly designed website with C64 games... Figured it'd be a text site with a cyan background that hasn't been updated since 1997. Went better than expected

 

[JerryBoBerry]

Horribly designed website with C64 games...

What's horrible about it for me is I have old eyes and a large resolution on my monitors. So normally I have my browsers set to zoom all pages to 150% level. That page doesn't handle that at all. It doesn't scale.

Normal and it's too small to read easily.


Zoomed in to read and half the page goes bye bye so you have to scroll side to side.

 

[StrayObject]

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

 

[AmberCutie]

If you like playing older games and are familiar with how to get around in DosBox, then you will probably like these links. Just ran across them and thought I'd share. Most of the games are streaming, so they work right off the webpage.

MS Dos Games
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games

And Shareware CD Roms.
https://archive.org/details/cdbbsarchive

omg




I wasted so much time on this one.

 

[Lintilla]

What's horrible about it for me is I have old eyes and a large resolution on my monitors. So normally I have my browsers set to zoom all pages to 150% level. That page doesn't handle that at all. It doesn't scale.

Normal and it's too small to read easily.
View attachment 61598

Zoomed in to read and half the page goes bye bye so you have to scroll side to side.
View attachment 61599

True... if I'd looked at it on my laptop I doubt I'd have been able to read it, either. It's a dated design style, for sure. I'm surprised they're not using Kottke's Silkscreen font anywhere. I certainly would have. Tiny pixel perfect designs worked much better at 1024x768.

Any case, I've got VICE installed now. This should allow me to procrastinate quite effectively...

 

[BettyDemure]

I'm sorry if I'm hijacking a thread here, but thought it might be the right place to ask. Has anyone found a nice nintendo simulator (for PC) that has the original tetris game on it? I loved that game, but the only versions I've found have sucked.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

I'm sorry if I'm hijacking a thread here, but thought it might be the right place to ask. Has anyone found a nice nintendo simulator (for PC) that has the original tetris game on it? I loved that game, but the only versions I've found have sucked.

Have you tried FCEUX emulator? And this rom of Tetris?

This is a screenshot I took playing it just a minute ago using those. One note, arrow keys for left, right, down. But the letter D for rotate. F is the other default action key in this emulator.





If you do want to remap the keys on the keyboard just go to config>>input. Click on the configure button in port 1 area. It looks like it's just for a gamepad, but if you click any of those buttons in there for a gamepad, it will show you which keyboard key it's mapped to and let you change it.

 

[BettyDemure]

Nice, thank you Jerry, I'll give it a peek

 

[justjoinedtopost]

Loved Defender of the Crown back when my C64 was new. Went back and played it a couple of years ago, and it just wasn't what I remembered. Guess things have come a long way.

OTOH, got MAME and a Galaga ROM. That game can still hold its own.

 

[LydiaFrost]

I love "maniac mansion", "zak mc kracken and the alien mindbenders" and "day of the tentacle". they should run with scummVM on new systems

i also remember that i loved "septerra core" which is a fantasy RPG from 1999, it was really good for the time.

okay i seriously love this theme

 

[JerryBoBerry]

Loved Defender of the Crown back when my C64 was new. Went back and played it a couple of years ago, and it just wasn't what I remembered. Guess things have come a long way.

Besides radar ratrace, another game I use to love was Avenger (space invader clone) on my Commodore Vic 20. There use to be a magazine in the 80's called Compute! which had games and programs printed in them. You could then type those out in your computer and run them. Avenger was one I spent the time to write out the game. Unfortunately at that time I didn't have the optional tape cassette or 5.25 disk drive backups for my Vic 20. So if you turned off the computer you lost everything.

I kept that thing powered on for weeks, only playing that game...until a thunderstorm caused the power to flicker and I lost it all.

It was right after that I got the tape cassette backup drive. And also built an FM transmitter so a friend of mine who also had the same computer and I could swap programs over our boomboxes hooked up to the radios. Turns out operating a radio station that can transmit 6 miles when you're 13 years old is still illegal. Luckily I was living far enough out in the woods there was only a couple actual radio stations, so one ever scanned the dial and complained.

 

[fandango]

Wow this thread is the best. I just rediscovered Jill of the Jungle, my favourite game from when I was about 5 years old.

 

[n_i_c_u]

OTOH, got MAME and a Galaga ROM. That game can still hold its own.

Ahhh, Galaga! Found memories of putting lots and lots of quarters in the big box game wherever I could find it. Something about the desperation of trying to master a game with a limited number of opportunities each time (no roll of quarters for this kid) put me in some kind of euphoric state that I have yet to experience again.

There use to be a magazine in the 80's called Compute! which had games and programs printed in them. You could then type those out in your computer and run them.

I did try this once (from the same magazine, I think). It was typing the same characters a lot on my Commodore 64 and took days. When I finally was done it didn't work. There was some sort of error I had no chance of finding (needle in a haystack). Never tried it again just because playing those dumb/cool games was more fun.

 

[swagger]

About every two years or so I have to break out the old C64 emulator to play the original Pirates!, Christ I still love that game

 

[swagger]

Also a plug for this site, http://www.virtualapple.org/

You can play almost any Apple 2e or 2c game on there.

I loved trying to play Shadow Keep again, and wish I could figure out the save functions for shit, as the game had incredible depth for it's time.

Finally found the 2nd game I ever bought, Empire, World Builders on there. It's still just as confusing 30 odd years later. You were a space traveler who could land on a planet and become a miner, farmer or priest, but the game still befuddles the shit out of me.

 

[ACFFAN69]

About every two years or so I have to break out the old C64 emulator to play the original Pirates!, Christ I still love that game

I used to love this game! Nothing more fun then becoming the richest man in the World on the back of a nice, swift Royal Sloop!

Edit: Did you ever play the sequel that came out in the early 2000's? It was almost as good but infinitely better graphics, and on the hardest difficulty made a really fun (almost too difficult to overcome) challenge.

Edit two: Well there you go, answered my question before I could even ask it!

 

[swagger]

I used to love this game! Nothing more fun then becoming the richest man in the World on the back of a nice, swift Royal Sloop!

Hell yeah, screw the split, kill most of 'em off and start up the recruitment again! I enjoy the more modern version but for some reason, always go back to the original.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

It was right after that I got the tape cassette backup drive. And also built an FM transmitter so a friend of mine who also had the same computer and I could swap programs over our boomboxes hooked up to the radios. Turns out operating a radio station that can transmit 6 miles when you're 13 years old is still illegal. Luckily I was living far enough out in the woods there was only a couple actual radio stations, so one ever scanned the dial and complained.

This video just got posted about the old cassette tape drive storage. Thought it would be perfect in this thread.

 

[seven_saxondale]

Oh god, we had a TRS80 with a cassette drive. My experiences programming BASIC with that thing made up my mind that I did NOT want to pursue a career in coding!

Still have a big love for older games. I've made a few old TV's into retro game stations using the Raspberry Pi.

Fun stuff

 

[Horntoad40]

I'd start with VICE. It's been pretty good for me. Free, runs on even Win 10, supports the most game image files, and it's pretty customizable for keyboard, mouse, joystick controls.
http://vice-emu.sourceforge.net/

And as a bonus, it not only emulates the C64, but also C128, PET, CBM II, VIC20, PLUS/4. So if you have any of those images you can play them all.

Also if you would like some more C64 games check out this site. It's a horribly designed webpage, but it has almost all the C64 games ever made for download.

Or for them all listed under an alphabetical FTP site (much easier to use) you can go here. But you're still downloading one at a time on that one.
EDIT the forums software for links keeps trying to put an "HTTP://" in front of that link. But it's an "FTP" link. So copy paste this into a browser to see this one.
ftp://arnold.c64.org/pub/games/

Of course if you'd like to just have a lot (around 10,000 titles) in one easy to grab file, then go to this one. It has a zip file you can download, but if you have torrent software installed the torrent is a bit faster to grab.

That c64 site looks similar in design to the LemonAmiga site. A site I used to frequent a lot for Amiga games.

 

[Horntoad40]

If you're looking for emulators for all the classic consoles and computers then you can't go past this site. http://www.theoldcomputer.com/roms/index.php . It's been a great resource for me over the past few years for emulators and other things.

 

[Yavin4MFC]

Does anybody here remember WinTrek?

 

[JerryBoBerry]

Does anybody here remember WinTrek?

I may currently have version 1 and 2 installed in my DosBox/Windows 3.1 setup.

Use to spend a lot of hours playing it. And it's still one I dust off now and again. Have to say, I like version 1 much better. Never cared for the way they redesigned it in 2.

And yes, I see it's on Archive to be played online for free as well. https://archive.org/details/win3_WinTrek

 

[Yavin4MFC]

Oh wow, that screenshot is from a much newer version than I remember growing up with.

I literally can't remember the names of the first DOS games I played growing up. One was an ascii racing game, another a labyrinth game...I've searched MobyGames for hours and found nothing.

 

[Yavin4MFC]

Shoutout to RetroAhoy and LazyGameReviews for all that they've done for classic PC gaming.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

Oh wow, that screenshot is from a much newer version than I remember growing up with.

I literally can't remember the names of the first DOS games I played growing up. One was an ascii racing game, another a labyrinth game...I've searched MobyGames for hours and found nothing.

When I got my first pc with a hard drive and started getting software for it I got the idea of saving everything in its own folder, then adding a description to a text file. So I've still got every single piece of software I've ever used since the early days. Not just games, but word processing files, fonts, books, graphics, programming code...everything.
So the ones I liked from back then I have set up in Dosbox for Dos and Win 3.1, and Oracle VirtualBox for Win95 and on titles. It's nice still being able to run any of it.