Things I didn't keep: presumably lost?

[ThomH]

With no small measure of vanity or large quantity of hope: during a period around 2000–2002 I put out a few small Lynx programs which I have long ago lost. I don't suppose anybody is so enthused about grabbing every demo from everywhere that these things have survived?

 

Specifically:

• a file originally distributed as EliteLynx.zip which is the rotating Cobra Mk3 wireframe of Elite title screen fame;
• a complete Mined Out clone;
• an incomplete overhead shooter, Command: Starship, in which your ship has a fixed position and a battlefield of vector enemies and a starfield rotates around it. You could shoot, and the bullets would inherit your velocity and direction plus a bit. So you could then accelerate and catch up with them. Enemies were very dense indeed, pretty much just rotating to face you and then advancing; or
• a Repton clone — a bit like Boulderdash but emphasising puzzles over reactions. Likely to have been a single screen only.

I don't really expect anybody else to have kept these; they're valueless. But it felt like asking wouldn't hurt.

[sage]

where did you release them?

[LX.NET]

Yes. Good question sage. That might help tracking them down. They should be around if released back in the days. I have been collecting every file, cartridge and piece of source code since 1992 that I could get my hands on. Haven't found it yet in my archives.

[sage]

I myself have a lot of "unrelease"/lost screen which I got from other people. SOme of them even were playable for few minutes. Maybe I should put a gallery on line.

[ThomH]

where did you release them?

 

 

It's really painful to read — akin to rediscovering your teenage poetry; but Elite and Starship: Command were announced via alt.games.lynx and, at the time, stored on my university hosting.

• Starship: Command
• Cobra Mk 3

The Mined Out clone appears to have been submitted to the 2000 Songbird games competition, but I can find no evidence it was otherwise released. So likely gone.

Edited September 5, 2018 by ThomH

[ThomH]

Apologies; links above were broken, going merely to alt.games.lynx. They're fixed now, connecting to announcement posts including the original download URLs. I've also managed to get a couple of screenshots from archive.org; here's my Mined Out:

 

And here's Command: Starship:

Edited September 5, 2018 by ThomH

[IronWorks]

Hi, quick search on my hard drive turned up Starship Command....

Don`t think I downloaded Cobra.

Used to play Starship Command a lot on the BBC micro.

Starshipcommand.zip

Edited September 13, 2018 by IronWorks

[ThomH]

Hi, quick search on my hard drive turned up Starship Command....

Don`t think I downloaded Cobra.

Used to play Starship Command a lot on the BBC micro.

 

 

Oh my gosh, amazing! Thanks infinitely!

 

I was an Electron owner so my experience of Starship Command is likely to have been even more glacial than yours; on reflection I'm not sure the Lynx is the greatest platform for that game because you need it to be slow paced to give the appropriate heft, but unless you're going to render all the enemies at about two pixels wide you can't really do that.

 

A rotating and zipping about shooter, more like this as far as it got, would work though I think.