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[eyeball_kid]

Vette! an open world 3d racing game set in San Francisco... from 1989

Yeah...I remember spending many hours one summer vacation playing that as a kid on my Mac Plus, with R.E.M.'s Document as a constant soundtrack.

On a similar note, and not obscure at all, but around the same time I was also playing the hell out of Test Drive II with the European Challenge expansion pack.

 

[harrypmgaga]

Every single Hoyle card/board game collection.

Some Microsoft puzzle compedium/box thing? I dunno, it was a while ago, but I friggin loved that thing.

 

[The_Darkest_Red]

I loved that game!

 

[gzero]

One Must Fall 2097, one of the most famous DOS games.

Not obscure.

I can still hear the title song on my head. Haven't played it since the late 90s..

 

[Fahrenheit]

The Devil Inside, got a new voodoo card and all. Never heard anyone ever bring it up.

 

[Elrina]

Champions of Krynn
Death Knights of Krynn
Dark Queen of Krynn

I remember my cousin getting me to read the Dragonlance Chronicles when I was like 10, and then playing these games on the computer afterward. I haven't tried playing them in probably 15 years, but they were fun as hell when I was a kid. I don't think I've ever met anybody else who has played any of them.

 

[GuyKazama]

I've never met anyone else that's heard of Galapagos: Mendel's Escape. It was a fun little AI 'experiment'.

Also, The Market Place -- the superior sequel to Lemonade Stand that has been lost to history.

 

[Kilvin]

Oh man did I ever play this. But to make matters worse, I bought it as a birthday gift for a friend of mine. He opened it and looked at me like "why the hell did you buy me this?"

Nevertheless, we installed it on his computer, played it for an hour and then never ever touched it again.

My then girlfriend (now wife) bought me this for Christmas because she knew I was constantly driving an hour out of the way to play the arcade version of Initial D.

It was a thoughtful gift and she really did try, but man oh man was that game a steaming pile of crap.

 

[pancakesandsex]

Champions of Krynn
Death Knights of Krynn
Dark Queen of Krynn

I remember my cousin getting me to read the Dragonlance Chronicles when I was like 10, and then playing these games on the computer afterward. I haven't tried playing them in probably 15 years, but they were fun as hell when I was a kid. I don't think I've ever met anybody else who has played any of them.

Never played Kyrnn, but I played Treasures of the Savage Frontier and the Dark Sun games.

 

[Karak]

Skyfox but I bet someone actually did.

 

[old]

I've never heard anybody talk about these so I will say:

1. Capture the Flag (dos) - super fun. Wish there was a modern mobile remake.

2. Don't know the name. It was a maze game that I played on Prodigy back in the early 90's. It was a first-person maze explorer where you had to answer questions, pick up items, unlock doors...etc.

 

[maks]

Stick Fighter 2. Came out before any Street Fighter 2 games hit home systems. Someone on GAF probably has played it. I still remember how funny Zangiefs piledriver was.

http://www.old-games.com/download/8341/stick-fighter-ii

 

[Sciz]

Some Microsoft puzzle compedium/box thing? I dunno, it was a while ago, but I friggin loved that thing.

This?

There's a few gems in that, yeah.

I've never heard anybody talk about these so I will say:

1. Capture the Flag (dos) - super fun. Wish there was a modern mobile remake.

The guy behind that one is apparently still selling it, oddly enough.

 

[TheBaldEmperor]

Does anyone remember Hyperman? It came in a bundle of games with my IBM Aptiva.

Whoa....I played this a looong time ago. Had completely forgotten the name. It was awesome!

 

[bndadm]

Old MS DOS game called Backroad Racers. Kind of rednecky but my friend had it and neither of us could ever get to the actual race at the end of each environment and finish.

If you broke the speed limit I think there would be cops that would chase you (or rival racers).

Found it a yeat or so ago but from a European dealer. Talking Windows 3.1 days here.

This thresd is a goldmine.

 

[eso76]

I spent a dumb amount of time playing Burning Rubber on Commodore 64

That' makes 2 of us.

I could hum the music right now. Man, was it bad

 

[bndadm]

That' makes 2 of us.

I could hum the music right now. Man, was it bad

Wait was this game not the same as Bump & Jump on C64?

Edit: Damn Lemon64 is new to me. Finding a lot of classics. Wonder where I got Bump & Jump from?

 

[BarrettW]

Loved this game, very atmospheric. Played it the other day and it absolutely holds up, it's kind of like Myst without the puzzles. The acting is really cheesy but the level of exploration kind of reminded me of Dear Esther and Gone Home.

 

[Pockafella]

Close - "Logical Journey of the Zoombinis." I can never forget that game - came here to post it. I have no idea how widespread it was, but it was amazing (and super educational).

If I had to pick another one, it'd be:

Also no idea how obscure this was. Anyone else play these?

Yes- the Incredible Toon Machine!!

 

[Farmboy]

Never played Kyrnn, but I played Treasures of the Savage Frontier and the Dark Sun games.

I remember these, especially Pool of Radiance, the Krynn games and the amazing Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures -- which was a construction kit with which you could build your own campaign. Amazing stuff. Collectively, they're known as the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_BoxSSI Gold Box Games.

As for my own, here's a few from the MSX:

Zakil Wood, a pretty terrible text adventure (with some images):

Happy Fret, a platformer with a protagonist that was clearly ripped off from Mario, although the gameplay was more platform-adventure (collecting items and using them elsewhere) with a metroidvania-esque structure. Would have been a neat little game if the jump mechanics had been better.

Feud, a great concept: two feuding wizards roaming about a pretty large top-down viewed area, collecting herbs to take back to their cauldron to mix spells, which can be used to kill your (computer controlled) opponent. Always scary to see him suddenly enter your screen when you have no spells ready! Really is begging for a remake that actually allows multiplayer.

 

[Nikodemos]

I can still hear the title song on my head. Haven't played it since the late 90s..

The Power Plant theme (and its many remixes) is pretty famous, though many people are only dimly aware it's from this game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3R3oiM6-6k

 

[DXPett1]

Two side scrolling platformers from my DOS days

Monster Bash

Xargon

 

[figadapaura]

 

[bjork]

I was like in 6th grade. I remember sneaking my cousin's credit card to pay for it. i guess i did'nt expect her to check her statement.

I really enjoyed Toontown. I remember some lady at the E3 booth showing it to me and I hadn't played much in the way of online games prior to this, so it was a good gateway title. Also had the best customer service ever, when I cancelled due to being on strike at work and not having the money to keep my account going, the guy dug up my records and credited money back to my account since I hadn't logged in for a little while. I wish they'd do this game on 3DS or something, I'd totally get back into it.

Anyway, my game for this thread is an old C64 game called Death in the Caribbean, a graphic adventure from a company called Micro Fun. It was one of those games with the two-word parser and a static image, so you would "GET ROCK" and the game would tell you that you couldn't get it without the wagon. So once you GET WAGON, you could go GET ROCK and then COVER ANTHILL with the rock, so the ants didn't eat you. And so on. I just remember being blown away because I was 7 and had only really played 2600 and Intellivision or whatever, so seeing graphics that good and having a game on two double-sided floppies felt like I had the biggest adventure ever. It also came with a map and a hint card.

I'd love to own a copy of the C64 one again, but I've never even met another person who has played it, let alone having a complete copy to sell.

 

[Nikodemos]

Wasn't it released for free at some point? Or am I confusing it with another game?

 

[Rick Dangerous]

Tobal 2 on my ps1, played it to death.

 

[jeffers]

C-dogs

great game, played with my friends loads back like 5/6 years ago.

Had a demo (some 100 game on CD thing) of this that I dont think I've heard anyone else talk about.

 

[Steeven]

Spend so many hours in this. Revolutionairy game.

 

[dark10x]

great game, played with my friends loads back like 5/6 years ago.

Had a demo (some 100 game on CD thing) of this that I dont think I've heard anyone else talk about.

Baldies? Ha ha, yes, that was released on the Jaguar as well. Weird game.

 

[Kaworu]

I remember Machines fondly

I also want to mention the horrible Formula Karts Special Edition ( I played the Saturn version but it's a PC/PSX/SS game )

 

[Sportbilly]

Wasn't it released for free at some point? Or am I confusing it with another game?

It was, yes. Not sure it really meets the criteria for the thread, mind you...

 

[Blizzard]

Glider

Good times

I've played, or at least watched my brother play, Glider and some other miscellaneous black-and-white Mac games (Dark Castle, Beyond Dark Castle, etc.)

There was also some weird Egyptian game that was very difficult, and some lawn mower game. We never managed to bet several of the games, like Glider, because of difficult spots. In Glider

Spoiler

there was a cat you have to dodge

and we may not have ever figured out the trick.

 

[bndadm]

There was also some weird Egyptian game that was very difficult.

Would it happen to be Scarab of Ra, which was a first person maze kind of game? Ran into snakes and mummies and such?

 

[Darkmakaimura]

Master of Magic on the C64. It had some great music.

I can still hum this and most music from C64 games to this day. Currently, I got the overworld theme from Crystalis on NES in my head.

 

[Blizzard]

Would it happen to be Scarab of Ra, which was a first person maze kind of game? Ran into snakes and mummies and such?

No, it was a side-view game. You had one room at a time I think, and had to defeat or survive some sort of flying enemies. I just vaguely remember sphinx-style enemies and Egyptian heiroglyphics. It was grayscale because my brother only had a grayscale Mac, so I have no idea if there was a color version. In theory it should be on this list, though I don't know if I would even recognize the name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Macintosh_games

*edit* A screenshot of Scarab of Ra -does- look rather familiar though. Maybe I saw that too. It reminds me of some (Hypercard-based?) adventure game set in a school that was on there.

Speaking of color versions, here is what Space Station Pheta looked like with color:

 

[low-G]

A lot of titles here that I've never even seen. But 2 people mentioned MegaRace, which I also played & enjoyed.

There's one game I'd played and I'm sure no one else has.

There was a tech demo for a jet fighter game, sometime around 1994-95. The jets were very nicely gouraud shaded polygons. The gameplay was super arcadey. It had some really generic name and I'm pretty sure it was never a full released game. Definitely PC only (never played a console title quite like it).

Another one is a fairly neat little FPS with cool polygonal rain effects released around 95 or 96. The shareware was very dark, there was breaking glass, and the rain, of course. Outdoors, sort of a toll booth looking area. It was pretty advanced, the shareware was out before Quake's release.

I think I mentioned the title before on another forum and people eventually found it but it was finally released in 1998... dunno.

 

[SuomiDude]

Pizza worm
Beer worm
Minebombers
V-wing
Wings
Tapan kaikki 2
Rally sport

Another Finn here? Played these games out of your list, and yeah, most of them were tons of fun.

 

[Thing on a Spring]

I can still hum this and most music from C64 games to this day.

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I find myself whistling the Ocean loaders, Commando music or tunes from The Last Ninja on a regular basis. And of course, the theme from Thing on a Spring.

 

[Rich!]

On the BBC Micro there was this game...a medieval type of setting, real basic graphics.

You had to go from one side of the map (the left), avoid monsters, and eventually get past a dragon on the right (over a river I think) and save the princess. It was a top-down setting.

no fucking idea what it was, and I may have been one of the very few people to ever play it.

Spoiler

help me find it please

 

[Green Yoshi]

 

[2MF]

There are a lot of games I'm not able to find / remember the titles of, but let's start with these three:

Nesquik DOS game, not kidding (video here):

Gods, an old platformer I haven't heard many people mentioning:

Metal mutant this game was rad as hell and fucking hard too i remember.

I remember this one too

 

[Armitage Shanks]

Hermagerd! I played the living offal out of this game with friends. It was actually pretty great!

This thread delivers, maaaaannnn... I want to waste the weekend trawling through abandonware sites and relive some old memories.

I recently had a quick look at Gods again, actually. I probably want to do a Bitmap Bros. retrospective geek out session soon. They were the bee's bollocks!!

 

[d1rtn4p]

 

[Nikodemos]

Okay, I'm pretty certain nobody else but me played this one:

Stratosphere: Conquest of the Skies

A weird strategy/shooter/sim/wtf where you pilot a flying island fortress and fight other such fortresses. It was insanely hard.

 

[Nyoro SF]

I've never heard anybody talk about these so I will say:

1. Capture the Flag (dos) - super fun. Wish there was a modern mobile remake.

Oh my god you just brought back a ton of memories with this. I remember the accumulated group rages over this game lol

 

[DoktorEvil]

A classic favorite of mine for the old Macs. I don't think a lot of people know about this game, but it's very addicting and simple to pick up.

 

[clem84]

Don't know if this was popular back in the day but no one I knew was playing it.

 

[Night_Trekker]

The two Neophyte games created by (I think) Alien Software. Two shareware episodes were released: Neophyte and Neophyte: Koplio's Story. (Actually, come to think of it, there may have been a third starring a female protagonist, but I can't remember what it was called.) They were top-down, console-like ARPGs with an anime style, but I think they were created by American (?) teenagers. The full games never came out, to my great disappointment.

Years later, I contacted a guy who owned a lot of the leftover merchandise. II bought one of the last remaining print t-shirts, and he threw in disc versions of the first two demos.

Another good one: the Japanese-made Legend of Treasure series. They were also top-down ARPGs but with more emphasis on action. The first game had multiple characters with different stats and weapons, and you could find different weapons and loot and stuff. I can't remember if the levels were randomly generated. I remember the sprites were all saved as bmps, so you could edit them and add your own enemies to the game.

The second game I only played as a demo, but it was much improved and expanded, and I really enjoyed it. Sadly, the developer's website is gone, and I can't find the second game's demo anymore. I don't know if the full game was ever finished/released.

Then there's Gobliiins, or Goblins 3.

I still have the 5 floppy discs somewhere, but I never managed to finish the game. I think it was badly translated, I might get it from gog.com and give it a try.
Also, it creeped me out as a kid, some things were twisted.
EDIT: I just noticed the yellow sticker, it is the same I have on my box since it had an Italian translation. Ha.

The translation might not have helped, but the game was an unfair pixel hunt, far worse than the first two games (of which I only played shareware versions). This was, I think, the only PC game that ever pushed me to call a hint line. I can't believe me mom let me do that... what a fucking ripoff those things were.

But I loved the game and the series. So much great, absurd humor, and the pixel art was excellent.

You kids today with your GameFAQs... you don't know how good you've got it!

 

[Armitage Shanks]

Loopz (wpedia)

Loved this game (DOS, EGA). Not come across many people who have played this.
Kept hoping someone would do an iOS/Android version of this somehow (though rotation and placement confirmation might make it difficult on a touch screen). So far noone has yet.

 

[dickgumshoe]

Flood was the game I got with my Amiga. It was awesome then.

Rodland (Amiga)

I'm pretty sure those games weren't the most well known.

Loopz (wpedia)

Loved this game (DOS, EGA). Not come across many people who have played this.
Kept hoping someone would do an iOS/Android version of this somehow (though rotation and placement confirmation might make it difficult on a touch screen). So far noone has yet.

I played this game a lot, it's probably not very obscure. IIRC it won some awards.