The original full DOS version of Amulets & Armor has been released as a free download this Sunday, and is available from the new official website:
http://amuletsandarm...om/download.htm

Not sure if I posted this before but here's the complete archive of SynTax, "a disk based adventure/RPG/strategy magazine" that had been published from 1989 to 2004.

Hmm, the concept of the game as you describe it has reminded me of some game I read about some time ago, called something like Spycraft or maybe SpyNet... not sure but it was marketed as an "alternative" "indie" project.

On a second thought, the title could have been Deception or Sabotage or something like that..?

A detailed playthrough of Amulets & Armor (with YouTube videos for every level):
http://forums.someth...04&pagenumber=1

Another nice YouTube channel, lots of videos of DOS games:
http://www.youtube.c...8/videos?view=0

A very nice YouTube channel, lots of videos of DOS games:
http://www.youtube.c...8/videos?view=0

Recently I found out that quite a remarkable Russian* indie fantasy turn-based strategy/role-playing game called Eador. Genesis had been finally translated into English (the game was initially released in 2009) and is available from GOG.com.

Eador is made in a distinct old-school style and adheres to the best in the turn-based strategy and role-playing game traditions, improving on the ideas from such classic titles as Warlords, Master of Magic, Dominions, Age of Wonders and Heroes of Might and Magic, as well as Sid Meier's Civilization and Master of Orion. Despite its immediately familiar visuals, the game is neither a straightforward clone nor a simple mixture of any of those, but an independent, unique game, envisioned and designed by its author and project leader, Alexey Bokulev.

What makes Eador stand out is the complexity of the game world: it is meticulously thought out to the tiniest detail, and everything is important. The depth of the world isn't just for show, as it gives players a great degree of freedom in their actions, producing near-infinite variety of playing situations and possible solutions. Players are encouraged to develop their own style and ways of playing as they build up their armies, run the economy and manage politics, make alliances and acquire new technologies. There is absolutely no railroading on the part of the game whatsoever. Want to maintain a powerful army comprising entirely of ranged units? You can do that. Want to become a powerful necromancer? Sure thing. You wish to become a goody-good lawful leader who is allied with Elves or Dryads? That is also possible.

In Eador, it's easy to grasp the basics but you'll spend quite some time learning the intricacies of the game, some of which are not immediately obvious. Thankfully the game has a very friendly and extensive tutorial that allows to learn playing essentials without having to suffer from naturally occurring beginner's mistakes.

Combat is quite an important aspect in Eador but it's not the only thing that matters. You'll also need to manage your provinces, expand your influence by means of diplomacy or good reputation, and deal with a huge variety of unique events that occur in your kingdom from time to time. Every decision matters as it affects the player's reputation and moral alignment.

The mainstay of gameplay are heroes, who can be guided to become whatever a player desires. There are four basic classes (Warrior, Ranger, Commander and Mage), each with lots of unique skills and abilities, and the ability to multi-class once they had levelled up enough times, opening numerous paths of development. Each class serves its own purpose - thus a Ranger, for example, excels at diplomacy and province exploration, while a Commander can field the most number of units in his party at any time. Regular units also level up and can gain additional abilities as they grow in skill. Not all units and technologies are available from the start, as there is no fixed tech tree; some units can only be acquired by making alliances or visiting special locations.

Eador has too many features to be listed in their entirety without the list becoming an expansive strategy guide for the game. Much fun is in discovering them on your own. There's a Russian language demo available from the official site (I don't know if there is an English demo). There is also a screenshot gallery.

* Alexey Bokulev lives in Ukraine but the original release of the game is in Russian and Russian is his native language.

Oh, you've got a new avatar pic. Is that from Assassin's Creed (never played that game TBH)? I kinda liked the old one better (Arr!)

In the dosgames.com forum, a user asked about a role-playing game called Infinite Worlds, allegedly developed by Interplay, which that user has a beta of but could not find a full version. Some quick searching provided information that the game in question ended up as Demise: Ruse of the Ku'tan, but during development is was called Infinite Worlds and Mordor II: Darkness Awakening (the game is related to Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol).

What's interesting is that the beta versions of both Infinite Worlds and Mordor II are publicly available, and show the different stages of the game's development (among other things, it underwent a transition from 2D to 3D in the final game).

Infinite Worlds beta v0.993 is available from FilePlanet or StrategyInformer.

The beta versions of Mordor II are available from the official site:
Mordor II beta v0.991
Mordor II beta v0.992

Apparently, Mordor II, albeit at a beta stage, is quite playable, even though it's unstable at times.

A playable demo of the final product, Demise, is also available:
Demise demo v1.00 r2

The contents of the official Mordor & Demise demo disk also mention the demo of Demise with which is marked as 0.992 version r2, but I haven't been able to locate its download yet (if at all available).

Sorry for posting it so late, just learned about it myself. The giveaway at GOG.com is not over yet so you may still get Duke Nukem 3D for free there:
http://www.gog.com/g..._atomic_edition

SoftMaker Office had come to my attention some time ago - it's a nice and functional office suite from a German developer. They had released the old editions of their product (Office 2006 and 2008) as freeware, and now they run a charity campaign:

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Don't wanna make it look like an advertisement, but the SoftMaker office suite is really good quality software, and besides, it's free

Nice article! One thing though, some of the screenshots are quite blurred, I'm not sure if it's JPEG compression artifacts or the result of scaling them up in modern imaging software. Also it would have been nice if each screenshot had a caption underneath, identifying the game and platform it is from.

Other than that, excellent work! And thanks for detailing out almost every Dune II game or mod, official or fan-made, except for a few unfinished projects that aren't that much playable anyway Good job, and keep it coming!

A belated happy birthday to you, Nick! Many happy returns!

Another neat FTP:
ftp://ftp.padua.org/pub/msdos/dos/games/local/

I've just read that earlier this year, Jordan Mechner had found the source code for the original Prince of Persia for Apple II, and uploaded it on github. Apparently, this also includes game data as well.

The story of how the source was thought to be lost and then eventually found is recounted in Jordan Mechner's blog:
http://jordanmechner...2012/04/source/

Cool, I'm totally adding your site to the retro gaming websites list

Oww, the game looks very nice indeed!

BTW, I don't think Freedoom itself is featured on Reloaded?

Retrospec

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Thanks!

Following the feedback at FED2k Forums, Dune Dynasty v1.2 had been released:

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Would it be possible to upload the file and host it by AR? Or at least fix the link to point to that German fansite download?

The main download site of the game seems to be down for whatever reason, but I've found aworking download elsewhere:
http://www.turricanforever.de/download

It's a Turrican fan site.

An interesting collection of videos:
Shareware Oddities
Obscure DOS Games

Today a guy dropped by at FED2k Forums and announced a port of Dune II: The Building of A Dynasty called Dune Dynasty. This is an enhanced Windows & Linux port of OpenDUNE, which in turn is a very faithful recreation of the Dune II engine based on reverse-engineering of the original game.
Dune Dynasty offers to play in high resolution modes, adds multiple-unit selection, production queues and rally points, and also improves the AI and sound emulation. At the same time, the port stays as close to the original as possible.

NOTE: You need the original files from Dune II v1.07 to play.

The file archive at Demu.org had finally moved to the Classic PC Games collection at archive.org. It is now possible to browse games by various criteria, including year of release and developer/publisher, but thumbnail view is no longer available.

The original Demu.org website is now primarily focused on game research.