DOS Game Club

Florian has been counting all of our regular "one game a month" episodes, and it turns out we've hit 100 of them! We started this club back in March of 2017 with the first DOS game that came to mind, which happened to be DOOM (id Software, 1993). In hindsight this was a bit of […]

We're back with a big one, in more ways than one! Normally we do a different game every month, but between December and February we've focused on Ultima Underworld for three months in a row. This was mainly done to give ourselves a chance to catch up, as we've been lagging behind with the podcast […]

We've featured a lot of different kinds of sim games over the years. We've piloted fighter jets, space ships, a ww2-era bomber and even giant mechs. But never before have we gone under water! In a lot of ways, 1993's Subwar 2050 by Particle Systems and MicroProse could be described as "aquatic Wing Commander". But […]

The Serpent Riders have made the kings of Parthoris their puppets and their undead legions are swarming the land. Only you, the Elf Corvus have the power to - you know what? The story probably isn't one bit more important than it is in DOOM, the masterpiece that this month's game is based on. Heretic […]

UK studio Revolution Software might be most famous for their "Broken Sword" series of adventure games, but before they released those they had found quite some success already. After their first game "Lure of the Temptress" in 1992 did well, they had higher ambitions for their second game: "Beneath a Steel Sky". Working together with […]

When we started DOS Game Club back in 2017, one of our earliest members Mike ("toasty") asked us if there are cricket games for DOS. Being a keen cricket fan, this was a genuine interest of his. Or perhaps he was joking. Either way, the thought of checking out some DOS cricket games lingered in […]

Niccolò Machiavelli was a Florentine diplomat, author, philosopher, and historian who lived during the Italian Renaissance. He is best known for his political treatise The Prince (Il Principe), written around 1513 but not published until 1532, five years after his death. None of this is in any way relevant for Micrprose's 1995 strategy game "Machiavelli […]

!!!Newsflash!!! A huge City Minecrawler is headed straight for the gaming community of DOS Game Club, DGC And you are Kurt Hectic, janitor on board the space station Jim Dandy and Earth's only hope. So get into your "Doctor Hawkins' Amazing Coil Suit" and strap on your "Doctor Hawkins' Incredible Ribbon Chute" and start skydiving […]

In 1992, Nintendo released Super Mario Kart and all we PC gamers were terribly envious of our friends with a Super Nintendo. In 1994, Beavis Soft came to rectify the situation and gave us our own Mario Kart clone "Wacky Wheels". People rejoiced and everybody thought it was a really great game. But was it […]

After successfully keeping the Holy Grail out of Nazi hands, Indiana Jones returned in 1992 with a brand new adventure. And unlike 1989's The Last Crusade, Fate of Atlantis is not based on any of the films, but instead presents us with an entirely original story! With two playable characters (sometimes), three possible paths, randomised […]

You're in a Nazi prison, with a dead guard on the floor in front of you. You take his gun. Now you can fight your way out. This is the exciting premise of 1992's Wolfenstein 3D, developed by id Software and published as shareware by Apogee. Now we all know Wolfenstein 3D was not the […]

You start out with a single city on a map that's mostly covered in a fog of war. Use the city to produce units. Use the units to explore the map, seize more cities as you grow your army and eventually conquer the map by beating the AI. Sounds familiar? Before Sid Meier's Civilization there […]

Do you ever feel the world is just too... nice? If so, perhaps Dungeon Keeper scratches that itch, because even though it's a classic game of heroes vs demons, in this case you are the demon! Dungeon Keeper was a big hit for Bullfrog Productions back in 1997, but by no means their first. After […]

Can you believe we're 90 episodes into this show and still haven't looked at Lemmings? Lemmings! What a classic! When Lemmings (by DMA Design, published by Psygnosis) arrived on the scene in the early 90s it was an instant hit. Everyone's played this game, apparently over 15 million copies were sold over the span of […]

We've done Prince of Persia, we've done The Last Express. So when The Making of Karateka was released in late 2023, we figured this was the perfect opportunity to have a look at Jordan Mechner's very first published game. Originally released in 1984 for the Apple II, the PC got a port of this game […]

For the Halloween season we try to pick suitably scary games, so back in October (welp) we took a look at Realms of the Haunting (1996, Gremlin/Interplay). This game ticks a lot of boxes: haunted mansion, ghosts, scary monsters, but also... Time travel? A psychic partner? Interdimensional portals? Building a bong?? It's no exaggeration to […]

Everybody know The Secret of Monkey Island. But few people have ever heard of Donkey Island. This game was made by two Czech teenagers on their school computers in 1994 and ended up being the first commercial game to be developed and published in Czechia. Besides a sub-par and, frankly, weird German translation, this game […]

There is one game that showed everybody that the PC was starting to become as viable a gaming platform as any console on the market. While DOOM was an entirely new experience, Jazz Jackrabbit replicated the experience players had on their SNESes and Mega Drives. Its protagonist even became a mascot for PC gaming at […]

You're in some sort of cave. A red light eminates from the northern wall, while a green light pours in from the cave's exit. This is Azra, a strange far away world where many dangers loom. You are an acolyte of the Scarlet Lady's Red Court, and have no memory of how you ended up […]

Making commercial games for DOS nowadays is not a good business model, right? Hadrosaurus Software is hard at work proving this claim to be totally wrong. Their games Acronia and The Aching (which we played in July) are getting a lot of attention from the DOS gaming community, and rightfully so, we think. Company founder […]

The late 80s and early 90s were filled with "true 3D" polygon-based first-person driving games. There was Hard Drivin' in the arcade by Atari, Geoff Crammond released Stunt Car Racer, Spectrum Holobyte published Stunt Driver, to name a few. But the one game that proved to capture the hearts of many and remains being played […]

The original Speedball from 1988 was already a highly acclaimed futuristic sports game, lauded for its action-packed arcade-style gameplay and superb audiovisual presentation. But when the Bitmap Brothers released the sequel in 1990 for Amiga and Atari ST they truly outdid themselves. Both horizontal and vertical scrolling at a blistering pace was an achievement rarely […]

The official Terry Pratchett-approved Discworld point & click adventure game has been pinned on our forums for over two years, as April 2023 would have been his 75th birthday, had he lived to experience it. Although Pratchett was initially apprehensive about the project, after been shown early demos he gave his approval and by 1995 […]

"It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, and space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet." - Sound […]

In 2119 the United Nations Seedship Calypso was launched. Headed for Beta Caeli, the farthest star yet attempted, this ark ship holds thousands of people in cryogenic sleep ready for colonising this remote system. Ever since the first interstellar war with the Centaurians broke out in 2043, the future of Earth and therefore the human […]

Europe, 1943. World War II is in full rage, the United States joined the war effort and are now supporting the British air raids against German occupied western Europe with their legendary B-17 Flying Fortress bombers. Can your crew help end the war by successfully bombing strategically important targets while German fighters and Flaks turn […]

In 1995 Blue Byte released Albion, an ambitious 2D/3D scifi/fantasy RPG, exclusively for MS-DOS PCs. It's made by some of the same people who previously, under the banner of Thalion Software, made Amberstar and Ambermoon, an ambitious series of RPGs that shares some cosmetic similarities with Albion. But despite this overlap, Albion is very much […]

This is a special extra bonus episode! In December we played Albion, the 1995 fantasy/scifi RPG by Blue Byte. We had the chance to speak to Erik Simon and Jurie Horneman, two of the creative forces behind the game. We discuss everything from the early days at the German demoscene, Thalion software, developing Amberstar & […]

In 2097 the World Aeronautics & Robotics corporation (W.A.R.) is looking for a suitable representative to watch over Ganymede, the Jupiter moon that will soon be colonised. The Board at WAR has decided that the applicants for the position, being equally qualified, should fight for it. Now, the ten applicants must choose which Human-Assisted Robot […]

British photographer John T. Parker travels to the isolated New England town of Illsmouth in 1910, to take pictures of Halley's comet. During the previous passing 76 years before, Lord Boleskin had made some interesting discoveries, but he subsequently went insane. Parker has three days to finish Boleskin's research before the comet passes in the […]

Did you ever want to be in control of the entire hive mind of an ant colony? How about taking over the house of some jerk who doesn't even acknowledge your existence and runs you over with his stupid lawn mower? Still not enough? How about gruesome, explicit and very flowery descriptions of death? In […]

Evil creatures beneath Waterdeep? We can't have any of this. Time for our party of heroes to investigate. But what's that? Just as we enter the sewers, the corridor behind us collapses and we're trapped down here. Will we survive? Find our way out? Will we succeed in our quest to cleanse Waterdeep of whatever […]

Robert Cath hastily jumps off a speeding motorbike onto the Orient Express, as it departs from Paris on the evening of 24 July 1914. He's been invited to join the train by his friend Tyler Whitney, who apparently has made a remarkable deal and wants to tell Robert all about it. But as soon as […]

Evil dictator Dr. Funfrock is ruling the remote planet of Twinsun with an iron fist. And now that talk of the legend of Sendell has been forbidden, you have even been sent to prison for having strange dreams. What a mess! Luckily your ancestors have hidden various magical items for you, which give you a […]

FMV cutscenes with very quirky humour? Check! Ridiculously over the top scenario? Check! Giant acid-squirting scorpions vs. six-wheeled flame thrower ATVs? Check! In 1997, Beam Software released the first game in the KKnD series. Is it just an unimaginative Command & Conquer reskin clone? Or did it bring something unique to the then still young […]

You're seated in the cockpit, twelve meters above ground, your Mech's 75 tonnes stomping heavily on the desert ground. You're getting close to nav point beta, no sign of the enemy, yet. "Enemy Mech Detected!", your computer tells you in a sterile, cold voice. You arm your missiles and lasers and fire your first salva […]

There isn't much we need to say to introduce you to Quake. It's Quake, after all. Quake may be one of the most important games crossing the bridge between the "old" and "new" gaming worlds. It still came out as a DOS game, originally, as shareware, rendered fully in software. But it was also there […]

Real life isn't real enough for you? You need the daily treadmill also in your gaming? Well, we got something for you! In Sierra's 1991 game Jones in the Fast Lane, you get to live your spectacular life as an absolutely ordinary person whose biggest goal is to become assistant manager of the paper company […]

Update: In case it wasn't clear already, this was an april fool's joke. We made an English language podcast about Jones too and will keep the show in English of course. --- Original post: --- It's 1 APRIL again and that means we look at the game we played in February, which in this case […]

The Mega-Corps pay well, for those good enough to survive. They call you into the shadows with dreams of wealth, and you answer, the only way you know how. Apogee's 1994 vertical shooter Raptor - Call of the Shadows was a game that impressed many young players back in the day with its slick graphics, […]

What have you gotten yourself into this time, Roger Wilco? You wanted to have an easy, laid back job as a janitor on a space ship, but somehow it all went straight to crazy land the moment a bunch of space pirates came to take away a mysterious device you wouldn't understand anyway. Will you […]

Did you really, really want a model train set as a kid, with a landscape modeled after your preferences, stations where you want them and amazing trains that you control? Was it absolutely out of reach for you as well? Well, thanks to Chris Sawyer's Transport Tycoon, we got what we wanted in the end, […]

Oh no! First Penelope is kidnapped by the evil Dr. Hammerstein, then your uncle Horace is murdered and finally, you crash your airplane in the South American jungle where Penelope gets bitten by a venomous spider! Join us as we explore the world of the Hugo series, made for the most part by one man […]

Hang on to yer helmet while we drive over a couple pedestrians and cows and try to wreck the other drivers in Stainless Software's 1997 cult classic "Carmageddon". Join us as we try to figure out what the whole hype was about, exactly how far over the top this game really is and whether this […]

It's time for round four of our "year of the adventure game"! So far we've covered Day of the Tentacle, Lost Eden and Simon the Sorcerer, but now it's time to go beyond the stars with Interplay's 1992 Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the original series. Originally released on floppy disk […]

Back when Blizzard Entertainment was still known as Silicon & Synapse, they made a funny looking puzzle-platformer called The Lost Vikings. It's hard as nails, utterly unfair, but also weirdly kind of compelling. What more can we say about it? Listen to find out! Joining hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") for this episode are […]

Calypso needs your help! The evil sorcerer Sordid has turned him (and a couple other people) into stone. You need to become a Wizard and save the day in Adventure Soft's 1993 graphical adventure hit "Simon the Sorcerer"! Joining hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") for this episode is Richard ("Pix"). [ download mp3 ] […]

In May we played Syndicate, the 1993 tactical shooter game by Bullfrog. Set in a futuristic dystopian cyberpunk world where governments have been replaced by corporations, it's quite a bit grittier than many of Bullfrog's other titles. But is it fun? Listen to find out! Joining host Martijn ("Tijn") for this episode are Rob ("Spoonboy") […]

Prince Adam of Mo, Eloy, Dina and yet more of their friends try to unite Dinosaurs and Humans in an attempt to save the world from the evil Morkus Rex, who, together with his army of Tyrannosaurs, threatens to kill them all. Join us as we guide them towards victory and find out what the […]

Join us as we side with the High-Risk United Nations Taskforce and try to rid the world of evil El Oscuro's cult who wants to destroy Los Angeles using their "transmitter" in Apogee's 1995 first person shooter "Rise of the Triad". Joining hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") for this episode are Björn ("TigerQuoll") and […]

Well, you know what they say: "If you want to save the world, you gotta push a few old ladies down the stairs" - and that's exactly what we did! Join us as we save the world from the evil Purple Tentacle in LucasArts' 1993 absolute masterpiece Day of the Tentacle. This is not a […]