Dos Game Club
July 19, 2018 12:24 PM   Subscribe

Are you bored of your book club? Do you love old dos games? Why not try out the Dos Game Club!

Every month the Dos Game Club plays and discusses a vintage dos game and posts a podcast. Seventeen games played so far, including Scorched Earth, Doom, SimCity 2000, Commander Keen, and Death Rally.

This month's game: Prince of Persia
posted by fimbulvetr (16 comments total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
I found this site because I have a weekly game of Scorched Earth with a university friend that has been going on since 1995.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:25 PM on July 19, 2018 [10 favorites]


I'm down with this. I just wish more DOS games were accessible to the blind, sadly the more graphical ones like Master of Orion aren't. This is not exactly different under Windows, so I guess some things don't change. :)

On the other hand, I can totally get onboard with playing some text-based games, especially obscure ones which didn't quite get commercial recognition. I may or may not have a game in mind. ;)
posted by Alensin at 12:26 PM on July 19, 2018


This type of club is so my thing. The ti99/4a group on AtariAge does a monthly play of a ti99/4a game which is always a lot of fun.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:34 PM on July 19, 2018


*something something games on fanfare*
posted by lmfsilva at 12:39 PM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


jcreigh: I never could figure out how to get "rollers" to work, so I was quite happy with Scorched Earth.
posted by SansPoint at 12:46 PM on July 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


I use rollers sometimes, but they are of limited use so not that game breaking. Hot Napalm and Death Heads are much more powerful. Lasers are extremely useful for close range kills. Then there are Funky Bombs and Heavy Sandhogs, which are just crazy chaos.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:54 PM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


I just started up my collector's edition version of Star Trek: Judgment Rites a few days ago. I think it's been about 10 years since the last time I played through it. That said, this is definitely in my interests!
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 12:55 PM on July 19, 2018


Hot Napalm and Death Heads are much more powerful. Lasers are extremely useful for close range kills. Then there are Funky Bombs and Heavy Sandhogs, which are just crazy chaos.

If you really want to break a game, it's dirt weapons. I've won games by pretty much just attacking opponents with them when they can't afford riot charges between rounds. One time lucked out the first player to die exploded into dirt, and managed to win by throwing sandhogs until most of them crashed time and time again until BOOOM.
posted by lmfsilva at 1:37 PM on July 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


Heh. In my weekly game we have a moratorium on dirt weapons for that very reason. That and guidance systems, as they take all the fun out of it.
posted by fimbulvetr at 1:59 PM on July 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


Dirt weapons are the Darkside on Scorched Earth.

(worth pointing out, I also used them on people who didn't knew Riot Charges were used to clear dirt, which is like, Extra Darkside).
posted by lmfsilva at 2:55 PM on July 19, 2018


Ooh, Scorched Earth! We DEFINITELY didn’t play a ton of that on the computer in the manager’s office at the Domino’s I worked at in high school.

I hope they cover ZZT some day, but that’s more of a target of its own “book club” (especially if you branch out into MegaZeux…)
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:12 PM on July 19, 2018


I feel like shields are the real game breaker in scorch: they both give a huge advantage to richer players and painfully draw out the game. Rollers are really powerful in the normal turn based mode, but if you play in the mode where everyone first inputs their orders and then all the tanks fire at the same time, they're more balanced because you can disrupt the landscape on a hill next to you to block rollers.

(BTW I've written I twitch-plays thing for multiplayer scorch that I could spin up if anyone is interested)
posted by Pyry at 4:35 PM on July 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


You know, I think there's room in this world for a TV+smartphone Scorched Earth game ala Jackbox. Run simultaneous rounds, and maybe add some round time limiters to reduce the player elimination downtime.
posted by pwnguin at 5:39 PM on July 19, 2018


omg Death Rally! I feel like I spent about a hundred hours on the single-track demo alone.
posted by turbid dahlia at 6:05 PM on July 19, 2018


I feel like shields are the real game breaker in scorch

But you could fill them up with napalm if you hit them just right...
posted by Avelwood at 8:44 PM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


Regarding the podcasts, though, I feel like these could really benefit from having videos.
posted by Pyry at 8:56 PM on July 19, 2018


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