The "unidentified game from your childhood" thread

[Jinks]

That sounds like "Stroker" and "Sex Games". I don't know who made Stroker, but Sex Games was programmed by two German teenage brothers. I think they were 15 and 13 when they wrote the game.

Awesome I can die now.. My life is complete..A buddy had a pirated copy of them.. Pretty amazing for a teenager. Maybe in real life they were chafing so to fulfill thier desires they were in psyical need of a substitute..

I will refer to them as mr. wackit and his sidekick cumsock..

Edited August 25, 2013 by Jinks

[carlsson]

For what it is worth, the original Stroker game is © 1983 Magic Carpet Software, while the best known version of Sex Games is © 1985 Landisoft. Regarding the latter game, according to an interview in Spiegel Online from January 2006, the brothers made somewhere corresponding to about 1000-1750 Euros from sales.

[Andromeda Stardust]

For what it is worth, the original Stroker game is © 1983 Magic Carpet Software, while the best known version of Sex Games is © 1985 Landisoft. Regarding the latter game, according to an interview in Spiegel Online from January 2006, the brothers made somewhere corresponding to about 1000-1750 Euros from sales.

So, is it anything like Beat 'em or Custer's Revenge?

[Jinks]

Its way more hard core.. less for the imagination with the better graphics of the c64..

[Skarrj]

My turn? It was an nes game....a dungeon crawler. There was a part of the game where you could release spores to kill the goblins, or you could save them. You were a sword wielding wizard. I remember playing the game for about 26 hours straight till i finally beat it....wth was the name though

Edited September 4, 2013 by Skarrj

[SoulBlazer]

My turn? It was an nes game....a dungeon crawler. There was a part of the game where you could release spores to kill the goblins, or you could save them. You were a sword wielding wizard. I remember playing the game for about 26 hours straight till i finally beat it....wth was the name though

Hey, I can answer one! The game was called The Immortal. Both the NES and Genesis versions are worth playing -- the two games are different enough. Fun game, VERY tough, I never beat it BITD. Finally did recently with save state help.

[bomberpunk]

i posted the following thread in january 2012 looking for a specific PC shmup game, and never found what it was. perhaps fresh eyes can help.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/193182-need-help-identifying-an-old-dos-pc-game/?hl=%2Bspace+%2Bshooter+%2Bpc

[Skarrj]

Hey, I can answer one! The game was called The Immortal. Both the NES and Genesis versions are worth playing -- the two games are different enough. Fun game, VERY tough, I never beat it BITD. Finally did recently with save state help.

 

Thats it!!...that game was brutal

[Kghastie]

Dupe post.

Edited October 8, 2013 by Kghastie

[Kghastie]

Soul Blazer, the game you are trying to remember is Mask of the Sun, an old fave. Getting off a plane to start, various temples, a snake (you had to shoot), an assistant Raul, 4 temples you had to go to, some heart pills you had to take, driving around in a jeep, a cave with bat guano, and of course - The Mask itself, which I forgot what it did. Hope this helps someone!

[Maury Markowitz]

Ok here's mine.

 

Atari 8-bit game, sold mail-order. You were a space-invaders-like ship at the bottom firing up. Your main opponent was a Qix-like "snake" that periodically dropped objects on you. As your score increased, the snake added a tail, which would later break off and go flying around the screen. Apparently later versions added more events, like meteors.

 

This one is interesting to me because I know it was written in my home town in Toronto. The address for the email is on a major through-route in the city, and I've passed the row-home many times and wondered if I should go knock on the door…

[Maury Markowitz]

The character you controlled looked like he was a robot or a guy in a slim spacesuit, wearing a helmet with a black faceplate and the a red uniform/spacesuit. I could never figure out the point of the game, I only remember walking the character up to a door and it sliding up to open.

 

You are almost certainly thinking of Brataccas.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brataccas

 

Great idea, absolutely terrible implementation. The game was basically completely unplayable due to control lag. I recall playing the game like mad in the hopes that it would eventually "work". It didn't.

 

All combat was sword play, which invariably degenerated into the characters running past each other while slowly swinging, invariably missing and often running right off the screen into another room. In spite of all the manual's warnings about playing it safe, I found that combat was so poorly implemented I could attack everyone and then walk around with the entire base swinging madly at me while nothing happened.

 

Worse, there was no indication of how you were supposed to win. I only learned how to win the game after the invention of the internet, when it became possible to look it up. As it turns out, I was one step away from winning, I simply had to walk through a particular door! No loss in the end, all it does when you win is show the credits.

 

Now normally a bad game is a bad game. But Alan Kay once said the Mac was the first computer worth complaining about, and likewise, Brataccas was the first game (of it's genre) worth complaining about. ONE SENTENCE in the manual would have cleared up the confusion about how to actually play it, and the dynamics obviously could have been fixed with some tuning.

 

Why bother? Because this was the first truly real-time GUI-based adventure game. You interacted with the other characters using menus, you could pick things up from the ground, and when you killed someone (which *was* possible, albeit random) they dropped everything. In *theory* this was an amazing game. But it wasn't. *sigh*

[ledzep]

 

You are almost certainly thinking of Brataccas.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brataccas

 

Great idea, absolutely terrible implementation. The game was basically completely unplayable due to control lag. I recall playing the game like mad in the hopes that it would eventually "work". It didn't.

 

All combat was sword play, which invariably degenerated into the characters running past each other while slowly swinging, invariably missing and often running right off the screen into another room. In spite of all the manual's warnings about playing it safe, I found that combat was so poorly implemented I could attack everyone and then walk around with the entire base swinging madly at me while nothing happened.

 

Worse, there was no indication of how you were supposed to win. I only learned how to win the game after the invention of the internet, when it became possible to look it up. As it turns out, I was one step away from winning, I simply had to walk through a particular door! No loss in the end, all it does when you win is show the credits.

 

Now normally a bad game is a bad game. But Alan Kay once said the Mac was the first computer worth complaining about, and likewise, Brataccas was the first game (of it's genre) worth complaining about. ONE SENTENCE in the manual would have cleared up the confusion about how to actually play it, and the dynamics obviously could have been fixed with some tuning.

 

Why bother? Because this was the first truly real-time GUI-based adventure game. You interacted with the other characters using menus, you could pick things up from the ground, and when you killed someone (which *was* possible, albeit random) they dropped everything. In *theory* this was an amazing game. But it wasn't. *sigh*

 

Holy crap. I think you are right! I remember the graphics being better but then I only saw it in the store once and gave up on ever buying it after trying to play it there. It certainly fits my memory. The cover art for the box was by Roger Dean (Yes and Asia album covers), that's probably what got me to consider it in the first place. The comments for the YouTube video I saw make it sound like a lovingly-remembered favorite game by most people.

 

Thank you for figuring that out for me.

[Maury Markowitz]

My pleasure!

 

Now if someone could figure out the one I'm looking for…

[Geryon]

I have, what I think is, an odd one that's been eluding me.

 

TRS-80 CoCo - The game's name was called 'Oogus', I think and the title screen played the Alfred Hitchcock Presents intro music (Funeral March of a Marionette). I remember running around a maze-like screen that tiled to other screens when you hit the edge. There were bad guys but I only remember these characters with 4 appendages that were spinning. I don't remember what the main character looked like. I was 7 or 8 at the time so my memory is really fuzzy and the floppy (I still have) is not readable anymore. My parents were part of some kind of CoCo club back in the day and they exchanged tons of games, 90% of them were knock-offs of popular arcade games like Pac-Tac (PacMan), Dunkmunk(Donkey Kong), Astro (Astro Blaster,), etc.. I can't find any reference to a game by that name, so I am assuming it's a knockoff of a copyrighted title.

[Hakogame 箱亀]

I have, what I think is, an odd one that's been eluding me.

 

TRS-80 CoCo - The game's name was called 'Oogus', I think and the title screen played the Alfred Hitchcock Presents intro music (Funeral March of a Marionette). I remember running around a maze-like screen that tiled to other screens when you hit the edge. There were bad guys but I only remember these characters with 4 appendages that were spinning. I don't remember what the main character looked like. I was 7 or 8 at the time so my memory is really fuzzy and the floppy (I still have) is not readable anymore. My parents were part of some kind of CoCo club back in the day and they exchanged tons of games, 90% of them were knock-offs of popular arcade games like Pac-Tac (PacMan), Dunkmunk(Donkey Kong), Astro (Astro Blaster,), etc.. I can't find any reference to a game by that name, so I am assuming it's a knockoff of a copyrighted title.

Sounds like it might be a knockoff of Pepper II?

[Geryon]

Sounds like it might be a knockoff of Pepper II?

 

So I've searched a number of times for this game and this morning I decided to search Google for "trs-80 game Alfred Hitchcock" and I found it. It was a knock off of Shamus, another game I never heard of but coincidentally I have a bid in for a lot of TI-99/4A games that includes Shamus. In fact, watching a YouTube video it was a direct copy of Shamus with the title changed.

[SoulBlazer]

Bump for a new game -- trying to recall a 'edutainment' game that I played a couple times back in middle school. This would have been late 80's, circa 86 to 89, but the game may be older. It was a classroom game for two 'groups' of students, played on the Apple II (I think).

 

The idea behind it was that each group ran a country, with things like resources, money, military, etc. Each turn one group of students would enter in a command, and then the next turn the other group would see that command and enter one of their own. The idea was to be the last country left standing. It was kind of like Utopia, only on a larger scale and designed for classrooms. Any idea?

[TheAtarianGuy]

Can anyone help me here? I remember a game I used to play with my brother when we were younger, I think it was either an old Windows or DOS game, it might have even been freeware game. But I think the name was gun battle, or something along those lines. It was an over head view, and it had two players. You could get weapon upgrades too, I think. Also, I'm not 100% sure, but I think there was an advertisement or something for MAXIS at the end.

[UKRetrogamer]

Back in the day, friend owned a Ti-99/4a while I owned a Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

 

Having spent the best part of a weekend at his home playing a 4-player turn-based game on his Ti-99, I came home and tried to re-create the game on my Speccy, purely from memory.

 

After spending a few nights learning the ins and outs of the Sinclair's ATTR command, I eventually ended up with something close.

 

At the suggestion of a friend, I submitted my game to Your Sinclair magazine and it was printed as a listing in the December 1986 issue under the name "Planet Proton".

 

Up to four players take it in turns setting off in a compass direction and continue moving until they hit an empty square, collecting Blue and Gold crystals on the way and the aim of the game was to amass points while trying to trap your opponents into a small area, thereby blocking them from collecting further crystals.

 

It was possible to win a game even if you ran out of places to move as long you'd collected enough gems beforehand.

 

My question is, can anyone name the original Ti-99/4a game which I'd based my ZX Spectrum code on?

 

I can't remember the name of the Ti game but I'd love to get hold of a copy so I can see just how close my game was to the original.

 

It may even have been a type-in from a book or magazine itself.

 

Does anyone remember playing a similar game on the Ti-99?

 

I've attached a screenshot from my game which can be downloaded as a .tap file from a number of ZX Spectrum sites for use in emulators or on a real speccy, from a divIDE interface.

 

[Nebulon]

Good post. I posted in my other post that I found out what the game was.

 

I have another game I've been trying to find, but it's an Arcade game. Nobody has been able to point me in the right direction yet.

 

All I remember is this deli had generic cabinets and swapped out the games inside every few weeks or so.

 

One game had a black case.. I thought it said Omni on it, but I can't remember.. I was probably 8 - 12 years old at the time.

 

You flew a space ship and went to the right. There were enemies to shoot and hoops you could go through. Colliding with the hoops and you died, but going through them scored you points.

 

Unfortunately it's about all I can remember.

It sounds like the 1981 SEGA game Space Odyssey.

[Nebulon]

I have one that's eluded me as well. More from my late teenage years, but same idea.

 

It was a platformer on the Amiga (similar to Gods), except that the color palette used a lot of red, yellow, and orange tones. I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be set in hades or something like that.

 

The main character was taller and thinner than the character from Gods and used a long hammer for a weapon. He'd swing the hammer over his head in a long arc. Enemies would walk up to you from either side and if you weren't quick enough, they'd sort of teleport or move away from you rapidly (sort of like the blurring effect of The Flash when he runs).

 

I saw it on an original chipset Amiga (A1000, A500, A2000). I'm guessing it was around 1989.

[0078265317]

Nothing is really fuzzy. Except once I was playing commodore 64 at a friends house. But I don't remember what we were playing. Flying through outer space or something like that. Left to right game. Little tiny white ship. Or was it yellow. Don't remember.

[sirlaitier]

I've figured out most of the Apple II games I remember playing back in elementary school like Odell Lake. But there are two I've never been able to track down.

 

In the first game, you controlled a person in a world and the perspective was like a 2D Zelda game. The overworld had a river running through the middle with a raft at the Western end that you could ride towards the East on. And there was a waterfall at Eastern end of the river. And I think there was a bridge that connected both sides of the river.

 

At the top of the overworld was a mountain with a ski lift that you could ride on where I think you started out at in the beginning of the game. At the Southern portion of the overworld was a small dungeon with a dragon. And I vaguely recall some sort of educational tie-in where you enter caves or something of the sort scattered throughout the overworld where you likely did something like solve math equations. I was fascinated by the overworld itself so I my memories aren't strong on the other component.

 

And I remember another game that seemed related. Not sure if the character was the same or the title of the game made me think they were related. It was some sort of carnival game where you went from booth to booth and participated in various minigames that likely had some sort of educational tie-in.

 

I remember planning to remember the title of the first game after 6th grade since I wanted to hopefully revisit it someday when I could really play it instead of just in short bursts on occasion. And I think I did manage to remember it for a few years but that has long since passed and several hours from time to time over the years glancing through lists of Apple II games online has never jogged my memory.

 

Anyone have any ideas what these two games were?

 

Did you ever find this out? I suddenly had a flashback to playing the first game you describe, and your post is the only evidence I can find that this game even existed! For some reason I'm remembering the character you played as not having arms. Am I way off base?

 

We can do this!

[sirlaitier]

This has been bugging me lately.

 

My brother used to have a ton of DOS games on his computer that he would download, and there's one I remember, but can't figure out what it is. All I can remember is that you started out in a big mansion, and the game was set up kind of like a Sierra Adventure game. And there was some guy that would block you from going up stairs or into a different room. I can't remember which. Does anybody know of any games like this?

Was this Hugo's House of Horrors?