Pharaohs Tomb, Arctic Adventure, Monuments of Mars

[Zach]

Played the shareware episodes when I was younger. Noticing they were discontinued, call me masochistic, but I wondered if they still worked. They work perfectly in DOSBox if you just slow down the cycles a lot.
Which lead me to a few questions:
1. Why are they discontinued? (Legal reasons? Don't want to deal with support requests?) Just curious, I missed the announcement.
2. Any plans to change this? It would rock to be able to buy all of them and play them through.
3. Is there a level editor anywhere for these games?

[DOSGuy]

1. They were discontinued because they don't work on a modern computer without the aid of external software such as DOSBox. 3DR shouldn't have to provide technical assistance for someone else's software, so anything that doesn't work in Windows gets discontinued.

2. Yes. Joe has said on many occasions that 3DR intends to release all of their discontinued games as freeware, if they can legally do so.

3. Not likely. These games were based on the FAST engine (Fluid Animation Software Technology), which was only used in those three games. Some early games, such as Jumpman Lives!, came with editors, but most games of that era weren't designed with custom user levels in mind.

[Joe Siegler]

Originally Posted by DOSGuy

2. Yes. Joe has said on many occasions that 3DR intends to release all of their discontinued games as freeware, if they can legally do so.

We're probably due for something else to be released as freeware. We had freeware releases back in March, April, & May. I'll have to examine the situation and see what's available. I might tie it into the release of the old advertising pdf's I talked about in another thread.

[Frenkel]

3. There was a level editor for Pharaohs Tomb, but I can't find it right now.

[DOSGuy]

Homebrew! I didn't think that Apogee would have released one. Cool stuff.

[rprott]

Pharoahs Tomb is awsome, I still play it all the time!! if you find the editor for this game please let me know

[Flaose]

Originally Posted by Joe Siegler

We're probably due for something else to be released as freeware. We had freeware releases back in March, April, & May. I'll have to examine the situation and see what's available. I might tie it into the release of the old advertising pdf's I talked about in another thread.

You're the best, Joe.

[Frenkel]

Here's PTombEd. It needs shareware version 2.9, which you can get from Classic DOS Games. It doesn't work quite right on version 3.0.

[DOSGuy]

Interesting. I've never been able to see any difference between the versions. In fact, there was some doubt that the different versions were even real. I searched very hard to find the few versions that I have, and I take this as some measure of validation that Apogee really released a v2.9. If it's different enough from v3.0 that the editor will work on one and not the other, that suggests that there are internal changes that go beyond someone simply hex-editing the version number.

This is a really special find, Frenkel. This editor has increased our understanding of the history of Pharaoh's Tomb, and it's just a darned cool toy.

I'm so impressed by this that I would like to announce a contest to see who can create the coolest custom level for Pharaoh's Tomb. Contest rules for the Pharaoh's Tomb Custom Level Contest can be found here. There will be a prize!

[Qbix]

cool move DOSGuy! Good luck with the contest!

[Frenkel]

Version 3.0 of Pharaoh's Tomb added joystick support.