Classics for free

[XavierHyde]

i wonder why everyone forgets Worms as a classic...it definately is :0 from team 17

We haven't forgotten it, in fact I and other forum members have been in talks with Martyn Brown about it and it payed off. It's now available at Squirminator2K's Team17 fansite Dream17, listed in the top post. Go to Softography+, it's there. The version available for download is Worms: The Director's Cut, the ultimate version of Worms 1, and it was only released on Amiga. Get yourself an Amiga Forever package, the latest version of WinUAE and feel the power! There are even reports of people who have been able to play W:DC over a network despite the fact that it was never designed for network use.

All other versions of Worms are NOT available for free at this time. This is the decision of Team17 and we will respect it. Maybe the rest of the games will be released at some time in the future, but rest assured that I will be asking Martyn Brown about it again and any news will be published here.

[EugeneE3RD]

Zelda Classic is a freeware remake of Zelda with lots of features including the ability to create your own Zelda quests. Zelda quests are games created with Zelda Classic. The game comes with 2 adventures & the editors which allow you to create your own Zelda quests. Zelda Classic can be downloaded from the Zelda Classic homepage at http://www.zeldaclassic.com/ & the Zelda quests created by users of Zelda Classic are at http://www.armageddongames.net/zeldaclassic/qdb.php (there are 103 Zelda Quests). You must have Zelda Classic installed to play the Zelda quests since they require Zelda Classic to run.

Even though Zelda Classic has always been freeware, I am posting it here since it is a clone of the Legend Of Zelda NES game.

[aranj]

Hi.

I?m new here and enjoyed reading all the posts ? particularly the ones where one person just couldn?t understand that the thread was primarily concerned with "previously commercial games gone freeware? Annoying, yes - but amusing!

I consider myself to be fairly eloquent, so would relish putting forward our aims to ?the men in suits? in a way that they would find difficult to refuse (ha ha).

It seems to me that one major problem is working out who to contact. The developers have often been out of business for years and the publishers have been bought and sold many times over, with several of those going by the wayside too.

What we need is some sort of ?family tree? showing mergers, acquisitions and so on of these companies. Is there such a thing to be found anywhere?

Another useful thing would be a list of targets that have not been very co-operative or unreachable so we know where to concentrate our efforts.

Just a thought.

Thanks for an interesting thread.

[aranj]

Abyss of Pandemonium (Quake add-on) for PC now freeware

http://www.planetquake.com/impel/

Slightly off topic:

Ray Game Designer (RGD) a previously commercial game authoring tool is now freeware.

http://eicart.free.fr/rgd/

[XavierHyde]

Hi.

I?m new here and enjoyed reading all the posts ? particularly the ones where one person just couldn?t understand that the thread was primarily concerned with "previously commercial games gone freeware? Annoying, yes - but amusing!

I consider myself to be fairly eloquent, so would relish putting forward our aims to ?the men in suits? in a way that they would find difficult to refuse (ha ha).

It seems to me that one major problem is working out who to contact. The developers have often been out of business for years and the publishers have been bought and sold many times over, with several of those going by the wayside too.

What we need is some sort of ?family tree? showing mergers, acquisitions and so on of these companies. Is there such a thing to be found anywhere?

Another useful thing would be a list of targets that have not been very co-operative or unreachable so we know where to concentrate our efforts.

Just a thought.

Thanks for an interesting thread.

Welcome to Neowin!

To answer some of your questions:

As you might have seen at least some results have come from my efforts (Team17 releasing more and more of their classics through forum fellow Squirminator2K for example).

More results might come from communications I'm having with other companies right now. As you might understand, if I talk about it in detail, it might not happen. Suffice to say I am very excited about the games I might be a:)e to link to. :)

As for a "family tree" of companies and mergers, it's all in my head right now. I have been very busy tracing the rights of games I wanted to have released, and tracking down the original developers. I'm going to organize this into an online database some time in the future IF time permits, but right now I'm too busy with life to take on such a big :laugh:ays I... :laugh: ).

There are good ways to trace the company relations though. Home of the Underdogs maintains a good company database listing company history and mergers, and Mobygames is a good place to look as well. If all else fails, the company has likely been bought out by either Infogrames (who insist on calling themselves Atari),:DA or VUGames. :D

Right now I like to keep this a one-man effort and bring in helpers as needed (Squirminator2K has been most helpful when campaigning at Team17) so I can maintain some control over what gets said to who and what's being done at what time. Too many people campaigning towards too many companies might mean overlaps and that's just annoying for the companies involved and might put them off.

I'll consider your suggestions though. I'll continue to post updates on my progress here, though things are a bit hectic right now so I'm not dedicating as much time to my campaign right now as I might want to. EugeneE3RD is a frequent poster though, who keeps track of what gets released outside the context of my project.

And the link you posted to RGD is in no way off topic, as you might see in the top post I am listing some applications there as well.

[EugeneE3RD]

Dungeon Master Java is a freeware remake of Dungeon Master. Dungeon Master is a commerical 3D RPG which was released during the late 1980's/early 1990's for DOS, Amiga, Atari ST & SNES. Dungeon Master JAVA requires the Java Runtime Enviroment (JRE) to run, this enables the game to run on all systems which have the JRE, systems such as Win95+, Linux, Macintosh, UNIX clones, et al. The game & source code can be downloaded from http://www.cs.pitt.edu/~alandale/dmjava/

Chaos Strikes Back is a freeware remake of the game called Chaos Strikes Back. Chaos Strikes Back is a commerical 3D RPG & it was the sequel to Dungeon Master. The Chaos Strikes Back remake can be downloaded from http://dmweb.free.fr/CSBForWindowsLinux.htm (there are versions for Windows, Linux & MacOS X plus you can also download the source code).

Both of these remakes are great (I've played both of them). This is the only legal way to play Dungeon Master & Chaos Strikes back since the it's illegal to download the original commerical versions.

Gamehippo came up with an idea last month. Gamehippo's idea is to take some of the revenue that they make & us it pay some shareware author's to release some of their game(s) as freeware. You can read about this idea at http://gamehippo.com/news/244.shtml .

[being-obtatyion[2]]

Dungeon Master Java is a freeware remake of Dungeon Master. Dungeon Master is a commerical 3D RPG which was released during the late 1980's/early 1990's for DOS, Amiga, Atari ST & SNES. Dungeon Master JAVA requires the Java Runtime Enviroment (JRE) to run, this enables the game to run on all systems which have the JRE, systems such as Win95+, Linux, Macintosh, UNIX clones, et al. The game & source code can be downloaded from http://www.cs.pitt.edu/~alandale/dmjava/

Chaos Strikes Back is a freeware remake of the game called Chaos Strikes Back. Chaos Strikes Back is a commerical 3D RPG & it was the sequel to Dungeon Master. The Chaos Strikes Back remake can be downloaded from http://dmweb.free.fr/CSBForWindowsLinux.htm (there are versions for Windows, Linux & MacOS X plus you can also download the source code).

Both of these remakes are great (I've played both of them). This is the only legal way to play Dungeon Master & Chaos Strikes back since the it's illegal to download the original commerical versions.

Gamehippo came up with an idea last month. Gamehippo's idea is to take some of the revenue that they make & us it pay some shareware author's to release some of their game(s) as freeware. You can read about this idea at http://gamehippo.com/news/244.shtml .

that game sucks ass! :angry: :angry:

[XavierHyde]

Dungeon Master Java is a freeware remake of Dungeon Master. Dungeon Master is a commerical 3D RPG which was released during the late 1980's/early 1990's for DOS, Amiga, Atari ST & SNES. Dungeon Master JAVA requires the Java Runtime Enviroment (JRE) to run, this enables the game to run on all systems which have the JRE, systems such as Win95+, Linux, Macintosh, UNIX clones, et al. The game & source code can be downloaded from http://www.cs.pitt.edu/~alandale/dmjava/

Chaos Strikes Back is a freeware remake of the game called Chaos Strikes Back. Chaos Strikes Back is a commerical 3D RPG & it was the sequel to Dungeon Master. The Chaos Strikes Back remake can be downloaded from http://dmweb.free.fr/CSBForWindowsLinux.htm (there are versions for Windows, Linux & MacOS X plus you can also download the source code).

Both of these remakes are great (I've played both of them). This is the only legal way to play Dungeon Master & Chaos Strikes back since the it's illegal to download the original commerical versions.

Gamehippo came up with an idea last month. Gamehippo's idea is to take some of the revenue that they make & us it pay some shareware author's to release some of their game(s) as freeware. You can read about this idea at http://gamehippo.com/news/244.shtml .

Thanks, that's certainly two great games and I hope the remakes are as good as the originals (rest assured I will try them out). I'm a little hesitant to list remakes in the top post, but your contribution is very much appreciated.

Now if only there was a good remake/replacement-engine for Dungeon Master II (Skullkeep)... :D

GameHippo's idea is great, I wish them the best of luck and will be monitoring the site for progress.

[aranj]

Jetpack, Squarez Deluxe and God of Thunder from Adept Software now freeware.

http://www.adeptsoftware.com/classics/

[EugeneE3RD]

David A. Caruso released his Commodore 64 fantasy role-playing and Dungeon Master's creation system called Dungeon as freeware 4 yrs ago. Dungeon was distrubuted/published in 1990 by Loadstar. The game's download is at http://www.efn.org/~dungeon/canvas-download-01.htm . There are 2 downloads which are labeled:

Dungeon for the Commodore-64

Dungeon for DOS or Windows 95/98/2000/NT

The download for Dungeon for DOS or Windows 95/98/2000/NT is the Dungeon game+PC64 Emulator. Unfortuntely, the PC64 emulator is very old. The PC64 emulator only runs under dos & it was discontinued by the author in 1997. PC64 is a shareware emulator which was made freeware in 1997 & the author discontinued programming PC64 after he made it freeware. Download Dungeon for DOS or Windows 95/98/2000/NT only if you want to start playing the game but understand that the emulator is very old & might have problems.

I would suggest that anyone who wants to play this game, goto the site above & download Dungeon for the Commodore-64 & then download a version of the VICE Emulator from http://www.viceteam.org/. VICE is one of the best C64 emulators.

I was hesitating about posting the next software but I will. About 4 yrs. ago, Cosmi released their old Commodore 64 games called Forbidden Forest, Beyond The Forbiddden Forest, Super Huey 1 & 2 as freeware to promote the PC remakes which are Forbidden Forest & Super Heuy 3. Basically, Cosmi released a zip file (which used to be at http://cosmi.com/download/c64.zip) called C64.zip which contained the disc images of Forbidden Forest, Beyond The Forbidden Forest, Super Heuy 1 & 2+ Vice Emulator. Unfortunetly, Cosmi removed the download several years ago from their server. To those who don't believe that Cosmi released these games as freeware, goto these sites: http://www.lemon64.com/games/permissions.php , http://www.go64.de/english/nogfx/news3.htm , & http://www.retrogames.com/122000.html .

[EugeneE3RD]

Several years ago, Crack.com which was the company who made the shareware game called Abuse were working on another game called Golgotha. Unfortuntely, Golgotha was abandoned by the developers but they released the source code & data as public domain several years ago. You can read what the developers said at http://jonathanclark.com/golgotha/free.html & you can download the source & data at http://jonathanclark.com/golgotha/browse.html .

cappuchok,

I saw that you mentioned under the Sierra listing that:

"Sierra: offers several great titles for free, among which are Johnny Castaway (best screensaver ever), and revolutionary RPG Betrayal at Krondor, and flight sim Red Baron. I can't seem to find them on their download pages anymore though. If anyone knows more about this, please tell us more in this thread. They ARE free and legal, though, so if anyone finds a reliable source, notify me and I'll post it here."

I have no clue why Sierra removed the downloads of Betryal At Krondor & Red Baron from their servers but I'm guessing it might be because of bandwith but I'm thinking it might be because these are old DOS games & certain DOS games have trouble running on newer computers/newer hardware & the newer versions of Windows have dropped DOS support.

Betryal At Krondor was released as freeware during 1997 to promote the sequel called Betrayal at Antara. Red Baron was also released as freeware during 1997 to promote the sequel called Red Baron II . These games used to be avaliable for download from Sierra's servers but not anymore but you can download Betryal At Krondor & Red Baron from many sites on the Internet. Just do a Google search for Betryal At Krondor & Red Baron & you will find downloads for these 2 games.

[ootput]

Abuse was an awesome game. Way ahead of its time.

[EugeneE3RD]

Well, I like to mention the game creation software called Fenix. Fenix is a freeware clone of DIV Games Studio. Div Games Studio is a commerical game creation system for DOS & Windows 95+. Fenix has support for games written in DIV which allows you to compile games written in DIV (This only applies to DIV games which come with source code). There are versions of Fenix for Windows, BEOS, Power PC, Mac-OS X (10.2 or better) & Linux. Souce code to Fenix is also avaliable. These can be downloaded from http://fenix.divsite.net/download.php?lang=en (Sample games also avaliable). There are also versions of Fenix for Dreamcast & GP32. Many games written in Div Game Studios are at http://www.div-arena.com/ (Many of these come with source code). The current version of Fenix is 0.84. Unfortuntely version 0.84 of Fenix is the last version which allows you to compile games written in Div Games Studio. Fenix version 1.0 which is in development will not support games written in Div Games Studio.

I am posting about Fenix since it allows you to compile games written in Div Games Studio. Div Games Studio is a commerical game creation software which is written only for DOS & Win95+. Since Fenix allows for you to compile games written in DIV, this open's the door since can enjoy the games written in DIV. Div also allows people to compile the games written in DIV but you have to pay money to use DIV since it is commerical software. What this means is that a Linux, Mac, Beos user, et al can download Fenix & be able to compile Div games which come with source code since Div is only for DOS/Win95+.

[Bizkit]

I wish that Worms World Party was free,

[EugeneE3RD]

Beam software released their commerical C64, Spectrum & CPC games as freeware several years ago. Unfortuntely, Beam Software's website & FTP server went down about 4 yrs ago & has been dead ever since. You can download their Spectrum games from the Internet archive page at http://web.archive.org/web/19970418033939/...u/oldstuff.html , the C64 & CPC games used to be store on Beam Software's FTP server which used to be at ftp://ftp.beamsoft.com/pub/beam/old_games/c64 & ftp://ftp.beamsoft.com/pub/beam/old_games/c64/cpc but the FTP server went down several years ago just like their website. You can see the Spectrum/C64 & CPC games which they released as freeware at http://web.archive.org/web/19980416073612/...play_games.html . Unfortuntely, you can't download from http://web.archive.org/web/19980416073612/...play_games.html ,so you will have to download Beam Software's C64 & CPC games from other site's on the Internet.

[EugeneE3RD]

Jeff Minter released his commerical C64, Spectrum & Vic-20 games as freeware several years ago. Jeff Minter is the programmer who create the games such as Attack Of The Mutant Camels, Headbanger's Heaven, et al. Jeff Minter's homepage went down yrs ago but you can download his games from the archived copy of his site at http://web.archive.org/web/19990501195343/...et/~yak/emu.htm .

[EugeneE3RD]

Crime Fighter has been released as freeware. Crime Fighter is a 2D game where you start out as a low level criminal & you go up the ranks of the criminal underworld, as you advance, you can also create your own gang which will help you when having to fight the police, shop owners, et al. In this game, you can kidnap kids & hold them for ransom of sell them for cheap labor, you can rob banks, steal cars, blackmail people, et al. It was originally released as shareware but it is now freeware. The homepage for Crime Fighter is at http://www.pssoft.de/english/index.html . This is a very fun game, in fact, i've played this game many times.

[EugeneE3RD]

Tripline Turmoil has been released as freeware. In this game, surprisingly, a small triplane and try to kill as many opponent planes as possible. You can use bombs to destroy their ground installations, shoot or be shot by troops and select from four different planes available. This game was originally released as shareware but it has been released as freeware by the author. The games homepage is at http://www.megabaud.fi/~teemut/triplane.html

[EugeneE3RD]

DAR Systems International released their commerical Apple 2, MAC & TRS-80 games for download. You can download these games from http://www.darsys.net/downloads.html .

Jeff Fink released his shareware Apple 2 RPG game called Silvern Castle as freeware. You can download the game from http://www.gno.org/pub/apple2/prodos/games/role.playing . To unlock the total game, you have to email Jeff Fink at [email protected] . The game download at http://www.gno.org/pub/apple2/prodos/games/role.playing/ is a .shk file which is the compression format for the Apple 2. You can download a dos program to uncompress .shk files at http://ifarchive.jmac.org/if-archive/downl...pc/nulib324.zip . Beforewarned, Silvern Castle is not an Apple 2 disc image. After you uncompress the .shk file, you will have to create an Apple 2 disc image from the uncompressed files.

Adventure Construction Kit is a shareware RPG game creation system released during the early 1990's which allows you to create games similar to Ultima. Adventure Construction Kit couldn't be registered cause the author's home address changed & his email address went dead years ago. Seth Hopkins was able to get in contact with the author after years of searching & the author gave him a code to register the game. The game & registration code is at http://www.thevine.net/~hopkins/msdos.html .

[EugeneE3RD]

Several yrs ago, Epic Megagames released their shareware games called ZZT, Super ZZT, ZZT's Revenge, Toxic Terminator & Best of ZZT as freeware. Basically, Epic put the full versions of these games on their FTP server & you were allowed to freely download these games. Unfortuntely, Epic's FTP server which held these games went down yrs. ago & Epic removed the web page which had the download links for these games. You can read the webpage from 1998 which Epic had for these games at http://web.archive.org/web/19980214170034/...mes.com/zzt.htm . Since the download links on the archived page leads to Epic's defunt FTP server, you will have to download these from other Internet sites.

Edited July 7, 2004 by EugeneE3RD

[EugeneE3RD]

Protovision has released several of their commerical games which they used to sell as freeware. The games are Cascade ( http://www.protovision-online.de/games/cascade.htm ), It's Magic ( http://www.protovision-online.de/games/itsmagic.htm ), Snacks 4 Snakes ( http://www.protovision-online.de/games/snacks4snakes.htm ) & Stroke World ( http://www.protovision-online.de/games/strokeworld.htm ).

[zephiK]

CS 2D!

DOWNLOAD (WinRAR): http://home.ripway.com/2003-2/267/index/391506-dcs2.rar

DOWNLOAD (WinZip): http://home.ripway.com/2003-2/267/index/CS2D.zip (DOWN)

DOWNLOAD (exe): http://vsl.havoctech.net/files/counterstrike_2d.exe

not really a classic but it looks like it haha

[XavierHyde]

Posted "Mini Golf Maniacs" in the top post. It's been released for free by Dynamix, who were never given a chance to publish it due to Sierra axing the team one month before the game going gold. A community effort hosted at SourceForge.net has been arranged to complete the game (which was 80% done when Sierra went on a downsizing spree). Read more about the game and get the links in the top post! :D

[blueshirt]

Thanks for the list.

[XavierHyde]

While I'm at it, I might as well tell you all that since I contacted Cinemaware last time (about a certain missing game in their Vault) they've been so kind as to add it. The game in question is "Defender of the Crown II" which was only ever released for the Amiga CD32 console/computer hybrid system. I just saw it so I haven't played it yet, but rest assured this particular retrogamer won't get enough sleep for a few days! :D