Hazily Remembered Games With Only the Vaguest Notion of What They Were

I assume it isn't this, then - due to the Atari-style blocky graphics.

Yeah, that's way too advanced. (Looks cool, though.) The game I'm thinking of had one color per thing. This is not the game, but has a similar level and style of graphics...though I recall the walls being large chunks rather than lines; blocking off bits of the space. I think it scrolled or had some kind of transition between screens because the maze levels were definitely larger than one screen.

Maclintok wrote:

Much success! Much triumph! Much pain-staking research being naughty using my phone at the dinner table scrolling through the wikipedia list of every 2d fighting game ever created. Good times!

OMG I had to do this once too. There was a twin stick sci-fi tank arcade machine that I played for hours with a friend one afternoon when I was 13 and it has been stuck in my mind ever since. A couple of years ago it took me hours looking at screencaps of arcade machines at KLOV to find it.

Turned out it was Vindicators or Vindicators II
http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_de...
http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_de...

Was it Shamus, Gremlin?

IMAGE(http://img.squakenet.com/snapshot/4297/129990-Shamus.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/lHJYgrw.gif)

Nope, still too many colors. Specifically, I don't think there were patterns in the walls, just blocks of solid colors. And the characters were less detailed than that.

Was it Adventure on the old Atari 2600

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

Adventure, perhaps?

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/mej4Qkz.png)

Edit: Crap, DanBhausered

This thread rocks.

When I was a little girl, I remember playing a game about dinosaurs on my dad's Tandy (probably 1987-88ish). You went back in time to various eras like the Triassic and the Jurassic, and had to answer questions or solve puzzles or otherwise Do Something involving knowledge about which dinosaurs lived in what eras, etc. Graphics were rudimentary, at best, but they did exist; and the game was probably geared for kids, though IIRC it went pretty deep dive into the dinosaur facts. Any thoughts?

DanB wrote:

Was it Adventure on the old Atari 2600

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

See, I'd guess that it was Adventure, but I don't think Adventure had an overworld with mountains?

Gremlin wrote:
DanB wrote:

Was it Adventure on the old Atari 2600

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

See, I'd guess that it was Adventure, but I don't think Adventure had an overworld with mountains?

I can't be 100% certain, but that has the exact visual style, and the exploration gradually revealing map bits fits my memory.

I don't remember all of the details that the gameplay in the video has, but I was probably about 6 at the time, so that's not surprising.

KaterinLHC wrote:

This thread rocks.

When I was a little girl, I remember playing a game about dinosaurs on my dad's Tandy (probably 1987-88ish). You went back in time to various eras like the Triassic and the Jurassic, and had to answer questions or solve puzzles or otherwise Do Something involving knowledge about which dinosaurs lived in what eras, etc. Graphics were rudimentary, at best, but they did exist; and the game was probably geared for kids, though IIRC it went pretty deep dive into the dinosaur facts. Any thoughts?

Sounds like "Dyno-Quest" from here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=EE...

...That's all I've got.

Apple version -

IMAGE(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTYwMFgxMjIx/$(KGrHqVHJC8E8+3Ul4flBPQOkbcI,w~~60_57.JPG)
IMAGE(https://archive.org/serve/DynoQuest4amCrack/playable_screenshot.png)

IBM compatible(?) version
IMAGE(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51%2B1mFtRnrL._SY300_QL70_.jpg)

imbiginjapan wrote:
KaterinLHC wrote:

This thread rocks.

When I was a little girl, I remember playing a game about dinosaurs on my dad's Tandy (probably 1987-88ish). You went back in time to various eras like the Triassic and the Jurassic, and had to answer questions or solve puzzles or otherwise Do Something involving knowledge about which dinosaurs lived in what eras, etc. Graphics were rudimentary, at best, but they did exist; and the game was probably geared for kids, though IIRC it went pretty deep dive into the dinosaur facts. Any thoughts?

Sounds like "Dyno-Quest" from here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=EE...

...That's all I've got.

It reminds me strongly of a DOS game we had, with I think EGA graphics? All yellow and red on black. It had a mode where you walked a dinosaur through a series of screens from left to right, avoiding predators, and a dinosaur assembly/coloring book mode where you could print off pictures of dinosaurs. I remember that there was a certificate you could print off if you managed to walk a dinosaur through enough eons.

Gremlin wrote:

Yeah, that's way too advanced. (Looks cool, though.) The game I'm thinking of had one color per thing. This is not the game, but has a similar level and style of graphics...though I recall the walls being large chunks rather than lines; blocking off bits of the space. I think it scrolled or had some kind of transition between screens because the maze levels were definitely larger than one screen.

This sounds like either Venture:

IMAGE(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P5Ypo1MmidQ/UDpzGGSC7HI/AAAAAAAAChI/5epI6Mc4hl0/s1600/venture-article2-atariteca.jpg)

IMAGE(http://www.consoleclassix.com/info_img/Venture_2600_ScreenShot1.gif)

Or SwordQuest:

IMAGE(http://www.digitpress.com/faq/swordquest/sword36.jpg)

CptDomano wrote:

I wasn't actually looking for a real answer, I was just making a comparison between saying "a game from the 90s with the word fighter in it that had a blonde guy wearing jeans" is pretty generic. And apparently the joke has totally bombed.

IIIII got it! In my defense this IS the thread called "Hazily Remembered Games With Only the Vaguest Notion of What They Were". And I did remember Lan and his chinese long shirt and FRANK's awesome spinning elbow + cross special move. My goodness, what a terrible name for a fighting game character: Frank. (no offense to any real Franks in the house)

But guys, we're ignoring the fact that Super Fighter was a super sweet SF clone albeit a shameless cloney-ass clone. And I want to know if anybody else played this in the early 90s? The video I linked is showing a modded version that added ultra/critical arts supers to all the fighters which is pretty rad although there's still very little depth to the gameplay.

imbiginjapan wrote:
KaterinLHC wrote:

This thread rocks.

When I was a little girl, I remember playing a game about dinosaurs on my dad's Tandy (probably 1987-88ish). You went back in time to various eras like the Triassic and the Jurassic, and had to answer questions or solve puzzles or otherwise Do Something involving knowledge about which dinosaurs lived in what eras, etc. Graphics were rudimentary, at best, but they did exist; and the game was probably geared for kids, though IIRC it went pretty deep dive into the dinosaur facts. Any thoughts?

Sounds like "Dyno-Quest" from here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=EE...

...That's all I've got.

Maybe? It's hard to tell without a screenshot (apart from the title screen that you provided).

KaterinLHC wrote:

Maybe? It's hard to tell without a screenshot (apart from the title screen that you provided).

Sadly that was the best I could find. The site with that screenshot does appear to have a disk image for Apple that i guess you could emulate (at your own risk of course).

Alz wrote:

This sounds like either Venture: Or SwordQuest:

Both of those have too many colors, though they're close. I specifically remember that the sprites were monochrome. At this point I'm pretty sure that it's either Advanced Dungeons & Dragons for the Intellivision or something super close to it.

Oh wow 3-Demon. That wasn't even a hazy one, it was completely gone from my mind. I can't even remember if I liked it much or not but I know we had a copy.

Ali Baba?

IMAGE(http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/43186-ali-baba-and-the-forty-thieves-apple-ii-screenshot-title-screen.gif)

Even this picture looks more colourful than I remember...

Both of those have too many colors, though they're close. I specifically remember that the sprites were monochrome. At this point I'm pretty sure that it's either Advanced Dungeons & Dragons for the Intellivision or something super close to it.

The intellivision DnD game was my best gues but was beat too it. Perhaps you are combining similar games from that era? One of my favorites at that time was Swords and Serpents from Imagic (that would later become Activision). Imagic definitely made some of my favorite intellivision games for sure. It did not have an over world though.
https://www.google.com/search?q=swor...

I was struggling for at least a year to remember where an animated scene stuck in my head was from. Until yesterdy I thought it was from a TV cartoon, possibly Dungeons and Dragons. The scene was of one or more figures trying to run down half pipe avoiding giant balls that were rolling back and forth perpendicular to the pipe. There's one other detail I forgot, but came back to me when I finally remembered it was a scene from a game instead. Anyone want to guess the game?

Spoiler:

Dragon's Lair! What an insane game.

Now here's another scene, definitely from a game, but I can't remember which one:

It was a first person graphics adventure with text input, so like early Zork but with visuals. All I can remember is that I think the game starts with you surviving a plane crash (or possibly it landed) on an island. I could never get very far, but I clearly remember a colorful parrot in one of the early scenes. It was either extremely hard (do almost anything and DIE) or I just couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do to advance. That's all I got to go on.

Oh and pretty sure I was playing on Apple IIGS, though it was probably designed for the general Apple II platform. 16 color graphics most likely.

Hugo III - Jungle of Doom?

Edit - looks like it was DOS only but it's the first thing that came to mind after jungle plane crash.

DC Malleus wrote:

Hugo III - Jungle of Doom?

Edit - looks like it was DOS only but it's the first thing that came to mind after jungle plane crash.

The storyline sounds familiar, but I'm pretty confident the game I'm thinking of was played through the eyes of the protagonist.

edit: Interplay's Mindshadow looks reeeaaallly close, but I don't think this is it.

Nope! It's not. I asked my brother and he remembered it: Amazon, by Michael Crichton.

f*cking Paco! That's all I remember from the game. Well seeing the TV scene at the intro rung a bell too.

Alz wrote:

This sounds like either Venture:

IMAGE(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P5Ypo1MmidQ/UDpzGGSC7HI/AAAAAAAAChI/5epI6Mc4hl0/s1600/venture-article2-atariteca.jpg)

OMG!!!

That thing was sleeping in the back of my brain!!! The hours --HOURS-- I spent on that game...

Back on the Amiga, I'm pretty sure there was a game 'nee' interactive sci-fi story that was very much a bulletin board/hacking based thing, might even have been about a Portal Corporation possibly; main thing I remember was it had a musical theme running through that was a real ear worm. Anyone else remember it, or confirm the title? Any attempts to search for Portal just concentrates on Valve's masterpieces?

ShynDarkly wrote:

Back on the Amiga, I'm pretty sure there was a game 'nee' interactive sci-fi story that was very much a bulletin board/hacking based thing, might even have been about a Portal Corporation possibly; main thing I remember was it had a musical theme running through that was a real ear worm. Anyone else remember it, or confirm the title? Any attempts to search for Portal just concentrates on Valve's masterpieces?

Probably the Activision game/interactive novel Portal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioBT...

http://www.filfre.net/2014/11/portal/

DanB wrote:
ShynDarkly wrote:

Back on the Amiga, I'm pretty sure there was a game 'nee' interactive sci-fi story that was very much a bulletin board/hacking based thing, might even have been about a Portal Corporation possibly; main thing I remember was it had a musical theme running through that was a real ear worm. Anyone else remember it, or confirm the title? Any attempts to search for Portal just concentrates on Valve's masterpieces?

Probably the Activision game/interactive novel Portal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioBT...

http://www.filfre.net/2014/11/portal/

Oh well done sir! That's it!