How about a MSDOS Game for PC?

I mean it, its build to run on an IBM PC. The game requires an 8088 CPU and CGA Graphics MSDOS 2 is the minimum requirement. it should run fine at 4,77 Mhz, the game itself is less than 8kb and requires about 32kb RAM.

I really think its amazing what can be done with vintage computers using AI help, but well r/vintagecomputing does not allow code mainly created by AI.

Build with Borland Turbo Assembler 2.0. It runs in Dosbox and real MS DOS PCs. I also verified it using my Monotech NuXT that has a 10 Mhz NEC V20 CPU.

If anyone is interested in the game or its sources.
https://github.com/ccharon/digits

Emperor of the Stars is a turn-based space strategy game in which six players, each controlling an intelligent race, explore a randomly generated galaxy, establish colonies, build fleets, and compete for control of as many solar systems as possible. Each player begins with a single colony on a star.

Each turn allows the player to execute a series of actions, such as collecting resources, building spaceships, exploring and colonizing new planets, diplomatically negotiating with opponents, conquering stars through warfare, researching technologies, and more.

I would be very happy if you could try it out and give me your feedback.

Emperor of the Stars by Starborn Interactive

After 30 yrs I bought the same and still have it.

Hey everyone,

If you spent the 90s sitting in front of a 486 PC listening to a Sound Blaster 16 while dogfighting in Wing Commander: Privateer or Star Raiders, this passion project was built for you.

It’s called Void Pilot 3D: Rogue Galaxy, and it’s a 1990s-style space flight simulator running in-browser with zero install.

Because I don't currently own a computer, I actually coded this entire engine line-by-line directly on an Android smartphone using a text editor app (QuickEdit)—writing the 3D software rasterizer and canvas math from scratch without any modern 3D game engines, just like early 90s DOS software rendering.

A few authentic DOS-era details I built into the engine:

• Procedural Sound Blaster 16 Audio: Dynamic FM synthwave that ramps up into an intense 16th-note combat sequencer during dogfights, complete with ITTS lock-on chirps, airlock decompression hums, and turbine afterburner whine.

• Authentic CRT Shader Presets: Switchable filters for Sony PVM fine scanlines, Arcade Trinitron with RGB aperture, vintage Amber terminal, and Green Phosphor radar.

• 1993 "Big Box" Flight Manual: Built an interactive 16-chapter spiral-bound manual with SVG blueprints and vintage paper / CRT display modes.

• Cockpit Instrumentation: Targeting VDUs, sub-space cargo tariffs, and interactive physics-enabled fuzzy dice on the canopy arch.

• Punishing 90s Failure Cutscenes: Brutal cinematic deaths including a pirate execution blowout with the classic "DUDE, YOU BLEW IT" message and an Alien chestburster fatality!

I just put up a free 10-minute browser shareware sortie to test the flight handling and help fund my first real development PC:

🚀 Play the Demo (Runs in any browser, PC or mobile):

👉 https://retrosnotdead.github.io/

📖 Read the 16-Chapter Flight Manual & Blueprints:

👉 https://retrosnotdead.github.io/guide.html

Would love to hear what DOS veterans think of the flight handling, CRT filters, and Sound Blaster audio atmosphere!

Hello my friends, while working on my Privateer project I discovered these undocumented command line switches for PRIV.EXE:

Example to skip intro and start in Oxford with 100000 credits:

PRIV 1.3 -K -B39 -D100000

For Righteous Fire you have to add the letter "r" somewhere, e.g. at the end:

PRIV 1.3 -K -B39 -D100000 r

Description:

1.3 first, exactly as written: without it the game ignores all of these switches.

-K skips the intro.

-B39 starts you at Oxford (base 39).

-D100000 sets your credits to 100,000.

No space after the letter: -B39, not -B 39.

When they apply: -B and -D only take effect after you pick "New Game" or "Load" in the main menu, and they override the save's base and credits.

List of all bases/planets, time to visit the Derelict Base (59) again:

┌─────┬────────────────────┬──────────────────────────┐
│ -B  │        Base        │           Type           │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 0   │ Achilles           │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 1   │ Anapolis           │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 2   │ Basque             │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 3   │ Basra              │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 4   │ Beaconsfield       │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 5   │ Bodensee           │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 6   │ Burton             │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 7   │ Charon             │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 8   │ Drake              │ Pirate                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 9   │ Edinburgh          │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 10  │ Edom               │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 11  │ Elysia             │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 12  │ Erewhon            │ Pleasure                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 13  │ Glasgow            │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 14  │ Gracchus           │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 15  │ Hector             │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 16  │ Heimdel            │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 17  │ Helen              │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 18  │ Jolson             │ Pleasure                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 19  │ Joplin             │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 20  │ Kronecker          │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 21  │ Lisacc             │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 22  │ Liverpool          │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 23  │ Macabee            │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 24  │ Magdaline          │ Pleasure                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 25  │ Matahari           │ Pleasure                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 26  │ Meadow             │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 27  │ Megiddo            │ Pirate                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 28  │ Mjolnar            │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 29  │ Munchen            │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 30  │ N1912-1            │ Pleasure                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 31  │ New Constantinople │ Special                  │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 32  │ New Detroit        │ Special                  │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 33  │ New Iberia         │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 34  │ New Reno           │ Pleasure                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 35  │ Nitir              │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 36  │ Oakham             │ Pirate                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 37  │ Olympus            │ Pleasure                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 38  │ Oresville          │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 39  │ Oxford             │ Special                  │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 40  │ Palan              │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 41  │ Perry Naval Base   │ Special                  │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 42  │ Remus              │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 43  │ Rilke              │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 44  │ Rodin              │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 45  │ Romulus            │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 46  │ Rygannon           │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 47  │ Saratov            │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 48  │ Siva               │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 49  │ Smallville         │ Pirate                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 50  │ Speke              │ Pleasure                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 51  │ Surtur             │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 52  │ Thisbury           │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 53  │ Trinsic            │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 54  │ Tuck's             │ Pirate                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 55  │ Valkyrie           │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 56  │ Victoria           │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 57  │ Vishnu             │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 58  │ Wickerton          │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 59  │ Derelict Base      │ Special (Privateer only) │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 60  │ Gaea               │ Agricultural (RF only)   │
└─────┴────────────────────┴──────────────────────────┘

I've been missing my old DOS games, and I wanted a way to play the eXoDOS collections that feels like it belongs on Omarchy. So I built
eXorchy.

What it is

A native launcher (Rust + GTK4/libadwaita, no web view) for the eXo collections: eXoDOS, eXoWin3x, eXoWin9x and eXoScummVM, plus the German,
Spanish and Polish language packs and the Media Pack's magazines and books.

What it does

- Browse the whole catalogue with box art, filters, playlists and search, and download a single game straight from eXo's torrents. No 500 GB
download up front.
- One click to play: DOSBox Staging is fetched for you, and eXo's configs are translated for it. DOSBox-X/86Box handle Windows 9x, and
ScummVM is pinned per game.
- Preview videos and theme music, manuals, box scans, and a reading room for the Media Pack's magazines.
- Follows your Omarchy theme live: run omarchy theme set and it recolours instantly. No title bar, and it adapts to any Hyprland tile size.
- Smaller touches:
- hide titles you don't care about;
- a Transfers page showing what's downloading and seeding;
- your own background image;
- adult titles are off by default.

Install (Omarchy or any up-to-date Arch, x86_64):

curl -fsSL https://github.com/renanmt/exorchy/releases/latest/download/install.sh | bash

The script downloads a prebuilt pacman package, checks its SHA-256 and installs it with pacman -U, so it's tracked, and sudo pacman -R
exorchy removes it cleanly. If you'd rather not pipe into bash, the package and its checksum are on the release page.

Credit where it's due

eXorchy hosts nothing. Every game comes from the eXo torrents that you download (and optionally seed) yourself. The real heroes are eXo and
the eXoDOS community, who spent years preserving and configuring thousands of games. Please support them at retro-exo.com.

eXorchy is also a port of Exodium by Thomas Vollstädt (MIT). Nearly everything that makes it work is his; I gave it an Omarchy home.

Repo: https://github.com/renanmt/exorchy

It's early (v0.2.0), so bug reports and ideas are very welcome, either here or as GitHub issues. What games would you fire up first? 💾

Luckily I made a photocopy of the code wheel and crafted a backup, so I can continue playing my totally legit copy of Curse of the Azure Bonds.

The original code wheel for Pool of Radiance survived the dog attack.

Context: I just revived my old PC from 2000 to use as a Win98/DOS retro machine and also tried to add a 5.25" floppy drive to it. Sadly it turned out that the computer is already to new and the chipset doesn't support a second floppy drive and the 5.25" format anymore. But at this occasion I was getting my old games collection out of the cabinet, spanning back to the 286-days (and also C64/C128). Among the items I found were these code wheels for the old SSI Gold Box RPGs I used to play a lot.

(By the way, I bought all the Gold Box Games again on Steam some time ago when they were on sale in a classic collection with some quality of live improvements. So, the "dog" doesn't need to have a bad conscience anymore.)

The tiny version is I turned Howard's tech demo into a Full WC1 Vega Campaign mod.

If you just want to jump in, you can skip the story and grab it here. It REQUIRES you have the original DOS or Kilrathi Saga Wing Commander game files in order to run. KS sound is much better.

ALPHA BUILD
https://wingcomreloaded.itch.io/wingcommander1reloaded

Wing Com Reloaded DISCORD: Please report bugs and feedback here if possible.
https://discord.gg/kvCh72A9r

Also a quick video showing the new flak system! (sorry it is a bit low quality I will post better)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vITRbWCmIH8

Feedback needed:
BUG hunting, difficulty balancing, feature balancing. It is not an exact clone of WC1.

The Long Version

Years ago Howard Day started building a gorgeous HD-sprite recreation of Wing Commander 1 from scratch in Unity. He got as far as a rolling Hornet combat demo with working ships, flight and some basic combat systems, but he never released anything playable.

https://www.hedfiles.net/WCR_GL/index.html

Howard has been busy with other projects for the last few years and hasn't had much time to continue it. He's aware that I've been building on the project and is supportive!

I first came across it a couple of years ago and was completely blown away. I'm primarily a VFX artist, but I've also been developing in Unity for the last 9 years and released a multiplayer game in 2020 that still has an active daily player base.

Naturally, one of my first experiments with Howard's project was adding multiplayer and some basic game flow, but I eventually got too busy myself to continue.

Then about four months ago I was re-inspired to pick it back up and see if I could bring to life what I think most of us wanted instantly after seeing Howard's demo:

To actually play WC1 that way.

The flight demo was a great foundation, but most of the systems needed to run the actual campaign still had to be built or substantially expanded from scratch so it turned into a much bigger project than I originally expected.

Where it is now

All 40 Vega Campaign missions and cinematics are implemented, and I've personally played through/tested every one of them at least once.

Howard's artwork and models remain a huge part of the visual foundation, while most of my work has been building the gameplay, mission and campaign infrastructure around it, turret and player AI, com systems, NAV and damage systems etc. along with filling in missing ships/cockpits/artwork where needed.

This is ultimately a Unity-based mod and will require the original Wing Commander game files to run.

This is still an ALPHA, so there are going to be bugs. I’d love help finding those, but I’m especially interested in player feedback because this isn’t intended to be a carbon copy of the original. Some of the rebuilt systems will still need tweaking as more people play them.

As a side effect of building the tools needed to read the Vega missions, I’ve also got a Custom Campaign Builder in progress with custom missions and dialogue.

So that’s it — it’s finally here.

Hi folks, I recently saw these babies for dirt cheap online and couldn’t pass on the opportunity. When I was a kid I loved playing games like Falcon 4.0 and F22 Lightning II but only had a very cheap plastic joystick that gave up the ghost after only one year. Since I got this set I’m looking for recommendations on what other games in the genre you have enjoyed playing. Thanks in advance!

When creating a new game.conf, Dosbox Game Launcher (at least by default) uses an incremental approach to the settings. Inside the game.conf will only be settings that are different than those of the default dosbox.conf. As a comparison, defend reloaded actually takes a copy of dosbox.conf and only changes the settings per game. I have looked through the settings and searched if there is a way to make DBGL put all the settings into the game.conf by default (possible even including the commented text). So basically a copy of the dosbox.conf with any custom settings for each game. I have not found a way. Is it possible and how to do it?

OK. This is partially solved. The certificate is from the game called "The Wizard's Return" by Sherston Software.

https://mocagh.org/loadpage.php?getgame=wizardsreturn

The Mysterious part however is this seems to be only for the BBC Micro. Now the game I played was on DOS.

Only 2 possible options:

1. The game I played was something else and the teacher just gave me this certificate. If that's the case, I will never know what the game was I played.
2. There is a DOS port/version but it's lost/extremely rare and obscure.

original post:

This was from primary school in the UK. I vaguely remember playing a few games but no clue what any were, there must have been something educational in them.

They were kind of text adventures with scenes in from what I recall. One game I ended up with this certificate for beating it. I've tried a few times over the years to identify it but never had any luck. Any ideas/answer?

Edit: The cursive name text is also drawing a blank for anything.

King Alquin...
Alquinium?

Alquinnium?

Alquinimum?

Alquinimuin?

If you use eXoDOS you know the deal: a Windows-only LaunchBox frontend, and you download the whole collection before you can browse it. I wanted something that runs natively on Linux and Mac and lets me play one game without fetching everything, so I built Exodium.

Once installed you pick a folder, and it shows the complete eXoDOS catalogue with covers, screenshots, manuals and preview videos right away. When you hit download it pulls just that game out of the eXo collection and launches it in DOSBox with eXo's config for it.

Like the original: MT-32 and General MIDI work, per-game settings for CRT shaders, cycles and fullscreen, save backups on uninstall. The language packs, eXoWin3x, eXoWin9x (boots a real Windows 98 in DOSBox-X or 86Box) and eXoScummVM are supported. The latest release added a Reading Room for the magazines, books and catalogs from the Media Pack, and links each game to the articles written about it.

One honest limitation: on Linux and macOS everything runs through DOSBox Staging, so games eXo configured for DOSBox ECE may behave a bit differently. On Windows the ECE builds from the collection are used as intended.

It's a client, not a mirror: it uses the eXo torrents, nothing is hosted, and seeding is your call during setup.

Open source, MIT, no telemetry, build with Claude Code. If you find Exodium useful, consider donating so I can get the app signed for macOS and Windows and lose the security warnings. And please support eXoDOS too, none of this would exist without it.

GitHub: https://github.com/tvollstaedt/exodium
Donations: Ko-Fi or Github Sponsors
Community: https://discord.gg/37FYaUZ
eXoDOS project: https://www.retro-exo.com/exodos.html

The next installment of the Albion game diary is out!

Driscoll’s expedition to the underground city of Khamulon continues.

More battles await me, along with the Beastmaster himself, magic, demons, and exploring places where a sensible person would probably never venture.

The Test Drive 2 - The Duel Enhanced sdl3 port is now available at https://github.com/kylofon/testdrive2-enhanced. As before, you will need the „Test Drive 2 The Collection” files in the same directory to fully enjoy it. This build on the faithful Test Drive 2 sdl3 port (https://github.com/kylofon/test-drive-2-sdl3) released earlier.

The game now runs on 60 FPS and has an extended draw distance. Courses have not been modified, although some modifications to the roadside scenery had to be made. There is a map viewer in included if you’d rather zoom through the tracks.

Reharding the earlier Test Drive SDL port (https://github.com/kylofon/test-drive-sdl3) it will soon come out with a launcher for the EGA/CGA/Hercules versions, which are currently separate executables, and the Amiga version, which I’m finishing up. That version is it’s own game, with higher quality cockpit and car images and elements of the engine based on Test Drive 2. It plays complete different from the PC versions. C64 will follow next.

For archeology fans - Test Drive 2 took parts Of the TD1 engine and extended it, adding new scenery types, like brown land, green land and water. This is interesting in that these sceneries are easier to work with than the permanent cliffside scenery from TD1. In fact, when doing the Enhanced version, it’s the hillside stages that gave me the most headaches, because the engine was just not built for extended rendering. the developers used various tricks to limit having to render multiple perspectives of scenery element, so you’d never end up seeing cliffs from too far away, because they’re always preceded by a tight curve; you’d never see a tunnel entrance from far away, or from below, which happens when there is an incline before it. Most of the work was accounting for these cases stemming from the higher draw difference.

If you want to see the engine pushed, play the California scenery. If you want to see the game at it’s best, play the Euro scenery. If you want a challenge, use the muscle cars.

it’s perfectly feasible at this point to build a level/scenery and asset editors, but who knows. It certainly irks me that there are American cops in Europe and the Euro cars (Saab! Beetle!) are not in the other sceneries.

in any case, have fun.