I haven't posted in a bit, so I thought I'd mention one of my favorite games from way back in the day. It was a freeware DOS game called Tunneler. It was programmed by Geoffrey Silverton in 1991, who released 2 fun DOS games before dropping off the grid.
Tunneler is a game of minimalism. Two tanks play on a large, random map. Moving, digging, and shooting uses energy. To recharge you can either return to your base, or sneak into your enemy's base.
Shooting an enemy reduces their shield. If their shield hits zero, they lose a life. If you return to your base, you can recharge your shield.
These simple rules lead to interesting strategies. Do you explore the random world, and risk exposing your path to your enemy? Do you dig around your base, so that you can easily get back quickly, without wasting energy digging? How far from base are you willing to go, knowing that the same energy you use to attack is also used to get back to your base?
The original binary is public domain, and works beautifully in dos-box. An SDL-based free-software remake has also been made of this game, but the original is better, IMO. I kind of wish that there was a project that didn't just mimic the capabilities of the current game, but would expand upon the concept, with different map types, Internet multi-player, or even just being able to have more than 2 players. (But with the same 16 color graphics, of course.) Maybe this could be a fun project to work on, but it'll have to wait... I've got other fish to fry. :)
Remake: SDL Tunneler:http://users.jyu.fi/~tvkalvas/code/tunneler/
Original DOS Version:http://members.chello.at/theodor.lauppert/games/tunneler.htm
Note: I scanned that DOS binary with clamscan and it came up clean, but run your own checks. No disclaimer, etc.
Next game I'll be nostalgia-ing over is the "Pedro the tank" game by Sammyspace Software, which was a freeware Scorched earth clone, with awesome graphics and horrific violence. Unfortunately, it seems all of the original DOS binaries have disappeared from the web... :(
EDIT: I finally found the DOS version of Pedro the tank, but most people don't know that there were actually 2 sequels as well. (They were Pedro 2: Nothing to do with Pedro, and Pedro 3 beta) Sadly, I can't find those, now... I've found the old pages on archive.org, but the zips weren't archived. :(
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