Two new freeware titles released

[Joe Siegler]

Apogee Software has been around for 17 years now - the first title was released back in 1987 when Apogee was nothing more than Scott Miller by himself in his bedroom. The games released back then were quite different, and over the years, we've released quite a few titles (well over 50 at last count - here's a complete list). Anyway, today we're here to bring you a freeware release of some of the earliest titles from our past. The two we're releasing are "The Adventure Fun-Pak" and "The Puzzle Fun-Pak". Each of these packs consist of four titles on their own. Here's a rundown on what's in them:

Adventure Fun-Pak:

• Rogue Runner
• Night Bomber
• Raiders of the Forbidden Mine
• The Thing

Puzzle Fun-Pak:

• Block Five
• Asteroid Rescue
• Phrase Master
• Maze Machine

Most of these are old text based games, and some of them won't run terribly well on today's faster computers. We do offer two "slow down" programs on our downloads page (Moslo & CPU Kill) - you might need to make use of one of these in order to play them. The slowdown programs are not ours, we're just offering them as a convenience - we can't help in getting them working for you. We're also told that the DOSBox emulation program has slowdown routines, too. Furthermore, we offer no assistance of any kind with these freeware releases - we do not support them anymore. Please don't ask for help with them, you won't get any.

Keep in mind these games are being released as freeware. They are NOT public domain. The difference is that while we will allow you to download these for free, we still retain copyright on the titles, and you can't turn around and sell them; you can't do whatever you want with them, basically. You can grab the zip file with the two packs here. Enjoy these really early examples of our company's legacy for free! We do have two previously released early titles available as freeware - old text adventures Supernova & Beyond the Titanic - you can get them from the downloads page as well.

If you'd like to learn more about the early days of the company, we strongly urge you to read the "Apogee FAQ", which is available on the FAQ page of our website. It has answers and information for just about anything you could possibly want to know about us.

[Wamplet]

Cool!

I'll see if my computer can handle them.

[Uncle Duke]

Directly linked right in the post and everything . . . this is the best thing that's happened to me all week. I should get out more.

But thanks, guys!

[Shielder]

Joe, on the homepage, the link to "Discuss This News Story" is linked to the wrong thread. Instead of linking it to this thread, you've got it linked to something about Max Payne 2.

While I like Max Payne and all, I thought i'd let you know so the link can be changed to what it should be linked to.

[TerminX]

Sweet, I'm playing THE THING on my Linux box via DOSBox right now. I wish I could wander through caves in real life and find gold nuggets worth half a grand.

The game's interface really reminds me of 90s era game installation routines, which is a pleasant blast from the past.

Eeeeeck, a giant bat flies into the cave, picks you up, and drops you in another cave!

Edit: shit, the Wumpus ate me.

[Justin]

DosBox is useful for running old stuff like this too. You can adjust the emulated CPU speed with Ctrl-F11 and Ctrl-F12 or specify it in dosbox.conf. Rogue Runner seems playable at about 800 cycles, but I have no idea what the "correct" speed is.

[Vetek]

Not exactly new. These were placed on Apogee Central (with permission) years ago.

[EDIT]

I even made articles for them:

Adventure Fun-Pak

Puzzle Fun-Pak

[EDIT #2]

Apparently the download links are dead from those old articles, but they should be availible in the 'Discontinued Games Section'.

As well, there are several other ancient full version Apogee games similar to these two paks that Apogee gave me permission to release some time ago. Checkout the 'Discontinued Games Section' to see some really ancient gems.

[CyTex]

Hooray for Joe Siegler!

[Justin]

Adventure Fun-Pak

You need to learn how to use <pre> and convert encodings, my friend. :P

http://gothmog.homeip.net:8000/stuffage/afun.html

(although IE still ****s it up, what a surprise)

[8IronBob]

Oh, cool, free DOS games from the original Apogee days! Don't mind if I do, stranger!

[Flaose]

(I'm liking this emoticon) Now I don't have to ask for permission if I ever get that Classic Shareware page of mine created

[megarust]

Taken from the read-me:

"Better than any adventure by Infocom." -- George Brossard, TX

Don't suppose he typed that in the read-me himself, did he?

[TerminX]

Taken from the read-me:

Don't suppose he typed that in the read-me himself, did he?

I don't know what's worse -- the typo or the fact that I actually know what you're talking about.

[IwantMORE]

Well Joe keeps saying that no free software is any good, but I'll give them a try anyway

[Frenkel]

Rumors: A new KROZ trilogy is in the works. SUPER KROZ will have many new
features and improvements. A TRIVIA FUN-PAK is also close to completion.

What ever happened to that Trivia Fun-Pak?

Even Earlier

Unknown: Scott did release some games in "packs" (The Puzzle Pack, The Adventure Pack) back before 1987. These games had names like Asteroid Runner, Block 5, etc... We're attempting to dig all of these things off some dusty floppy disks. When we do, we'll detail them here.

Source
Time to update that page .

[IwantMORE]

Tried them, dosDOX on osx managed to play them all except Phrase Master, which I guess is to graphicaly intensive for it

All thouse games and they are probably smaller in file size than a DNF texture

I've got better games on my spectrum emulator that are older than that, but I guess PC's weren't realy made form games at that point.

"Press c for color or m for mono"

[Justin]

Tried them, dosDOX on osx managed to play them all except Phrase Master, which I guess is to graphicaly intensive for it

It's a CPU error, not graphical (I have a debugger version). Oddly, it works if you run PHRASE.COM or PHRASE.EXE by itself but not if you run it from the menu. I'll report it to the DosBox guys.

[Brick_Sledge]

Far out!

[8IronBob]

Yeah, it's games like these that make me wonder whether I should've been doing my Word Hunt game for QuickBASIC now. That type of game wouldn't stand a chance with anything like these! Man, hard to believe that games like these were ahead of its time back in the 80s. I never knew that Apogee went back THAT far. Of course, I'm only acustomed to seeing Apogee games from 1991 on to present day. Serves me right for not noticing this sooner.

[Devil Master]

"Better than any adventure by Infocom." -- George Brossard, TX

Typical George

This is one of the reasons why we still love you guys

[MarkJ]

I think that that 'bomber' game needs a warning on it. If the 'gave over' screen doesn't induce fits, I don't know what will : ).

PS: Just in case you havn't seen it, the background colour changes very rapidly between random colours, looks quite odd.

[Dr.Dude]

This is great! "The Thing" is awesome especially.

[Frenkel]

Are you ever gonna release this Pak as freeware? (although I already got it)

ÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ»
º SUPER GAME PAK º                                                  Only $10
ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ

This is a new disk that's been put together to introduce you to Apogee's game
line. All games are fully playable, there's no "demos" or "crippled" versions.

The games are:   þ Shrine of Kroz -- Same as Return to Kroz
                 þ Raiders of the Lost Mine -- Avoid the Skull while you dig
                           for gold nuggets
                 þ Word Whiz -- Volume I of the new word challenge series
                 þ Rogue Runner -- Kinda' like Pac Man, but a lot different!
                 þ Trek Trivia -- Volume I for Star Trek fans
                 þ Asteroid Rescue -- Fly through asteroids as you save
                           astronauts from being crushed
                 þ Block Five -- Play computer in ancient strategy game

Even if you have one of two of these games already, it is still worth the
low "trial" price to get the other games.  Also, knock five dollars off the
Super Game Pak price if you order $30 or more of any other Apogee games.

[Joe Siegler]

I have all those games on their own - not as a pak.

I don't think anyone here has the actual pak packaging for that, but if I were to release more freeware, I'd probably go after Kroz next.

[moron]

I never played that but I did a lot of superZZT witch was cinda a ripoff or so I hear

[8IronBob]

I have all those games on their own - not as a pak.

I don't think anyone here has the actual pak packaging for that, but if I were to release more freeware, I'd probably go after Kroz next.

Oh yeah, Kroz was cool, I believe that I played the shareware version of that waaaay back when. That was about 5 - 10 years ago, if not more. Man, tat would be cool to bring those days back again! That's back when Apogee games were more "Atari-ish" so to speak. Yeah, those were the good old days. Can't believe how far game technology has gone these days, most games these days don't seem to have the same personality at all, but they are still as fun as the old ones, can't explain it!

[Rider]

just to take you a little into Gaming history...

1951 - The first video game EVER: Tennis for two! Playable on a 5" oscilloscope

1962 - The first COMPUTER game ever: Spacewar was released, but it never sold very well. Reason? It was too complicated!!

You should play it! You'll know how far computer games have gone these days.

oh and for you computer nitwits who sincerely believe pong was first, it wasn't:

1972: Pong is released.

only 2 decades too late though...

[8IronBob]

That's right, then I believe that Atari and Pac-Man came out shortly after Pong was out on the market. Can't remember how soon after that was, tho. That was in that timeframe sometime.

[Dr.Dude]

oh and for you computer nitwits who sincerely believe pong was first, it wasn't:

1972: Pong is released.

only 2 decades too late though...

I think the "Pong was first" thing comes mainly from that how extremely similar Tennis for Two was to Pong, with the exception that it was from a played from a "side" view as opposed to the classic Pong top-down view.

[Volte]

Tennis For Two is from 1958, not 1951.

[Night Hacker]

Cool!

I'll see if my computer can handle them.

LOL.. I have a DOS computer set up just for my old games. I'll have to try these out on it. (it's a 333MHz system so it still may be too fast, heh)

[Rider]

Tennis for two is from 1958 not 1951

not entirely true. The game was made in 1951, but it was first shown at some expo 'round 1958.