I have fond memories of playing Jazz Jackrabbit...and Commander Keen, Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, Secret Agent Man, Jill of the Jungle, and so on. Epic Games and Apogee were the logos I remember seeing most often.
Such a simple but awesome game. The level editor was hours of fun. And the best part, it worked on all my friends computers, no matter how cheap or old they were!
We were allowed to play Castle of Dr Brain in class, but there was no save feature, so some of us got pretty good at speedrunning the first puzzles to spend the rest of class on the next one.
Looking up images of DOS platformers like Secret Agent and Crystal Caves reminds me of a game that was loaded on some elementary school computers in 1998. I don't recall if they were Mac or DOS, but they certainly weren't the cutting edge G3. I think the game had a character in a trench coat and they were maybe a sleuth of some kind. The color palette was dark but there were yellow-ish lights coming from above in a conical shape.
I know memories are usually warped and wrong, but hopefully this is enough of a description to jog someone's memory. I have been able to rediscover all of the games I played as kid. Most I never revisited, but it feels satisfying to learn what they were. Big ones that bugged me for ages are Tyrian and Descent.
The detective character you're describing sounds a lot like the character from the Super Solvers: Gizmos & Gadgets series. I've linked a video but not sure if it's the exact game you're thinking of
Apogee had some great games for their time. Some of the full versions and many of the free/share ware versions are available at the various DOS game archive sites.
Ah yes, we almost finished Death Rally with a Sentinel (best car in the shareware version).
Sometimes I hang out with my little brothers on Discord, with one of us playing DR (or a similar game), the rest watches the stream. We have some snacks and pretend we travelled back in time to the era when we shared the same PC and had a (very elaborate) hot-seat queueing/watching and commenting system.
"streaming" as watching your buddy play in the same room beats Twitch for me every time!
Recently I had fun with The Curse of Monkey Island and Microsoft Bob experienced in the same way. Although the latter is more like bringing your friends home for a Tommy Wiseau movie night.
Recently, thanks to linux gaming support, I was able to run Jazz Jackrabbit 2 (using proton). Nothing beats fun nostalgia. So happy it lives forever on open source now.
As a kid, my family got a new PC and it came with the full version of Jazz Jackrabbit 2. Both the campaign and the local multiplayer were a lot of fun, but quite often the multiplayer crashed. I also read about the game having a level editor called the Jazz Creation Station, but my copy absolutely didn't come with it. I looked though the game files and all that. I loved level editors so I was really disappointed.
We had a closer look at the disc and it was a mysterious "OEM Version" (I know what that means now, but none of us did back then). But it said version 1.0 so surely it was meant to have everything? We contacted Gateway, like "is there any way we can upgrade to the actual final version of the game?" And the answer was no.
They were bundling an unfinished version of the game!
----
> OEM Versions
> These beta versions were originally distributed alongside Intel's manufactured hardware, as a result of a partnership between Epic and Intel. While most people who acquired these versions assumed they were the same as the retail release, they were actually builds from halfway through the game's development.
> Two OEM versions exist: 1.00g, which is the most common, and 1.00h. These versions have quite a lot of differences compared to the final release, such as different file formats, many levels use different tilesets or are in different orders, many sound effects weren't coded yet into the game, different screens for loading and menus and different and/or glitchy physics for weapons and objects.[0]
Half life (1998) also had an OEM version called "Day one" containing the first half of the game along with some slightly last minute changes missing from it, compared to the released version (different handgun ammo count etc).
Wondering why oem versions were dumbed down pre-releases
I wish Jazz had been more popular. I loved Jazz Jackrabbit 1 and 2, and I believe there were plans to make a third, but they decided it wouldn’t sell enough copies. If anyone here can recommend platformers similar to Jazz that run on a Mac, I’d love to play them. I never got into shooters or 3D games, but always enjoyed platformers like Mario and Contra, and Jazz felt perfect for me.
I would check out Celeste or Shovel Knight. Neither is exactly the run and gun style of Contra or Jazz. However, Celeste is extraordinarily polished with best-in-class controls and movement, and Shovel Knight borrows heavily from classics like Mega Man while ditching the stuff that didn't age as well.
Yeah, it's interesting, but I think it's not a huge loss. Early 3D games have aged very badly, while many from the 2D era are still perfectly playable. So a higher res 2D followup might have actually been better.
It's worth mentioning that there's a dedicated online community over at https://www.jazz2online.com/ and the linked discord, which maintains a community patch called JJ2+ (https://docs.jj2.plus/) which does amazing things with the game, including online coop.
Although I never played Jazz Jackrabbit, I remember in our town there was this guy (I think he was a picture frame-maker) and I think my dad was friends with him.
I remember going downstairs into the work area and I remember he was playing Jazz Jackrabbit on his old computer, and I remember thinking that this game must be epic.
Anyway, random story. It just evokes that memory for some reason.
I loved this game when I was a kid. I created a huge map with the editor and I hosted a multiplayer server with this map and people would join and we would be running around this huge map with some players and have fun. People were impressed by the map and I was super exited about it. It was the first time something I created that was used by random people on the internet. I've long since lost that map of course, but still have good memories ^^
I have great memories of playing Jazz Jackrabbit 2 online multiplayer, if I'm not mistaken at some point the official game servers were killed and to still play online we had to patch it to connect to a server hosted by someone I only remember as being called Nimrod (I didn't remember that I knew this until I started writing my memories). I think he was from the UK.
I met a friend by being in a "clan" in JJ2 who kind of introduced me to caring about music, and I went to my first concert with. We are no longer in touch, but I do have one pen pal friend from that "clan" from another country who I still exchange birthday/christmas cards and gifts with for over 23 years now (and occasional messages throughout the year).
Having said all that, I haven't played the game in years though. I remember the excitement over Jazz Jackrabbit 3D that I believe never saw the day of light, or well I vaguely remember there being a playable demo. Not sure, I could probably quickly search for it online but I'll leave that to you, the reader.
One of my favorite games growing up! In high school, one of my earliest programming projects was a VB6 program that could unlock locked Jazz2 levels. I can't remember whether those levels were locked because you had to achieve something or if you had to buy them. In any case, I somehow figured out how to manipulate those files to make them playable. There wasn't any encryption or anything. It was just a matter of finding the right byte and changing it to something else.
Something I liked about Jazz2 was how performant it was on my lousy Intel Celeron PC I had at the time. Strangely, I remember the menus and stuff being kind of laggy, but the game itself always worked really well.
Jazz Jackrabbit is like if Sonic The Hedgehog was on acid had a gun! I never understood why the game wasn't more popular. Epic Megagames really underappreciated what they had.
Readit News
OMG! Jetpack from Adept Software is still available?! https://www.adeptsoftware.com/jetpack/
And the lost mind/island of Dr. Brain.
I wish I could still play them!
They have Lost Mind as well, but not emulated because it's a Windows game. I wouldn't be surprised if it still runs, though.
Looking up images of DOS platformers like Secret Agent and Crystal Caves reminds me of a game that was loaded on some elementary school computers in 1998. I don't recall if they were Mac or DOS, but they certainly weren't the cutting edge G3. I think the game had a character in a trench coat and they were maybe a sleuth of some kind. The color palette was dark but there were yellow-ish lights coming from above in a conical shape.
I know memories are usually warped and wrong, but hopefully this is enough of a description to jog someone's memory. I have been able to rediscover all of the games I played as kid. Most I never revisited, but it feels satisfying to learn what they were. Big ones that bugged me for ages are Tyrian and Descent.
https://youtu.be/OzXHI22IOSA?t=113
edit: This DOS game might be the one you're thinking of
https://youtu.be/Wei0C21LBNM?t=28
https://store.steampowered.com/app/358350/Secret_Agent/
[1] https://www.lemon64.com/assets/images/games/screens/blues_br...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blues_Brothers:_Jukebox_Ad...
https://www.gamebrew.org/wiki/OpenMoktar_Vita
Abuse had that crazy scriptable level editor, I must have spent more time in it than actually playing.
I don't know of anyone else who's tenure in the industry is 30+ years.
Sometimes I hang out with my little brothers on Discord, with one of us playing DR (or a similar game), the rest watches the stream. We have some snacks and pretend we travelled back in time to the era when we shared the same PC and had a (very elaborate) hot-seat queueing/watching and commenting system.
"streaming" as watching your buddy play in the same room beats Twitch for me every time!
Recently I had fun with The Curse of Monkey Island and Microsoft Bob experienced in the same way. Although the latter is more like bringing your friends home for a Tommy Wiseau movie night.
I love that game!
We had a closer look at the disc and it was a mysterious "OEM Version" (I know what that means now, but none of us did back then). But it said version 1.0 so surely it was meant to have everything? We contacted Gateway, like "is there any way we can upgrade to the actual final version of the game?" And the answer was no.
They were bundling an unfinished version of the game!
----
> OEM Versions
> These beta versions were originally distributed alongside Intel's manufactured hardware, as a result of a partnership between Epic and Intel. While most people who acquired these versions assumed they were the same as the retail release, they were actually builds from halfway through the game's development.
> Two OEM versions exist: 1.00g, which is the most common, and 1.00h. These versions have quite a lot of differences compared to the final release, such as different file formats, many levels use different tilesets or are in different orders, many sound effects weren't coded yet into the game, different screens for loading and menus and different and/or glitchy physics for weapons and objects.[0]
[0] https://jazzjackrabbit.fandom.com/wiki/Jazz_Jackrabbit_2/Dev...
Was very confused at the time that we appeared to have the full version but it was missing features. Still spent many hours playing it.
Edit: Also some motorbike racing game that came with the same (probably Gateway) PC. Can't remember much about it, but many hours wasted.
Wondering why oem versions were dumbed down pre-releases
it's not very good though (except the music, Alexander Brandon is still amazing)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gckYADZp0A
Yeah, it's interesting, but I think it's not a huge loss. Early 3D games have aged very badly, while many from the 2D era are still perfectly playable. So a higher res 2D followup might have actually been better.
That game is the dark souls of platformers though.
Hollow Knight, Ori, Celeste.
For multiplayer, Towerfall.
I remember going downstairs into the work area and I remember he was playing Jazz Jackrabbit on his old computer, and I remember thinking that this game must be epic.
Anyway, random story. It just evokes that memory for some reason.
I met a friend by being in a "clan" in JJ2 who kind of introduced me to caring about music, and I went to my first concert with. We are no longer in touch, but I do have one pen pal friend from that "clan" from another country who I still exchange birthday/christmas cards and gifts with for over 23 years now (and occasional messages throughout the year).
Having said all that, I haven't played the game in years though. I remember the excitement over Jazz Jackrabbit 3D that I believe never saw the day of light, or well I vaguely remember there being a playable demo. Not sure, I could probably quickly search for it online but I'll leave that to you, the reader.
Something I liked about Jazz2 was how performant it was on my lousy Intel Celeron PC I had at the time. Strangely, I remember the menus and stuff being kind of laggy, but the game itself always worked really well.
Jazz Jackrabbit is like if Sonic The Hedgehog was on acid had a gun! I never understood why the game wasn't more popular. Epic Megagames really underappreciated what they had.