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Posted Thu 21 Sep, 2023.
Why would anyone want to spend time making DOS games in 2023? That's a fair question. I guess there could be different reasons; but for me it is fun. There was also a bit of nostalgia involved, although it isn't big a factor for me.
I found this podcast "DOS Game Club" that is nice and, coincidentally, there were a couple of people making DOS games in my Mastodon. Then I wondered if DJGPP was still around an maintained, because that distribution of the GCC compiler suite for DOS was very important for me back in the 90s. It was almost life-changing, because it was my first contact with GNU and free software, even before I had a chance to try Linux.
Anyway, turns out that DJGPP v2 is still a thing, so I thought it would be fun to make a game for a DOS game jam --a game making competition--, and stream the process on Twitch. And that's how my first game came to be.
Making a DOS game videos on YT
I didn't finish the game on time for the game jam, but I had a lot of fun and good memories of me playing with DJGPP in the late 90s. The streaming part of it was a bit stressful --I made in a month and a half the type of game that usually takes me 3 to 4 months--, but there were a couple of people joining me on the chat and it was interesting, and less lonely.
Then another jam was coming, this time to make a COM executable for DOS --limiting the game to 64K on disk--. I investigated a bit, and found this:
Which is an old-ish version of GCC that generates binaries for Intel 16-bit. And that meant I could make a game for the original IBM PC/XT!
My first PC was a Olivetti Prodest PC1 --that was a clone of the IBM PC-- with 512K of RAM, NEC V40 CPU (80188 compatible), integrated CGA card, and "beeper" for sound. So I decided to make a version of my "The Return of Traxtor" --an arcade puzzle in the mood of Columns and Tetris--, imitating one of those early DOS games I played on my PC1.
And that's how my second DOS game came to be after a couple of weeks of work:
Of course I had no idea on how to program the VGA, the keyboard, the joystick, the CGA, the PC speaker, etc; that was part of the fun experience!