Forums > Game Talk > inserting myself into MS-DOS games
Pseudo_Intellectual (66423) on 6/30/2014 5:25 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
To commemorate the 20th anniversary of my teenage BBS-era computer artgroup's first release, we're gathering the old crew and undertaking some creative computer art projects to celebrate the occasion.
One idea I had was to give us the "Forrest Gump" treatment and insert ourselves (references to us, group logos, slogans graffiti'd on in-game walls, etc.) into old MS-DOS games to make a little demo reel of fudged cameo appearances for a kind of encapsulated summary of our context at the time: here's what was going on technologically at the time, warez access to these games was basically the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the goal toward which we started making computer art in the first place. I thought oh, probably we could insert some textmode logos into ZZT levels, maybe draw a logo using the worm's tail in Nibbles or the rooms and hallways in Nethack, probably we could scrawl our name in the landscape and lay of the land in Populous and SimCity, or in the layout of the map hallways in Wolf3D or Doom.
I was wondering if anyone here had any good suggestions for easy-to-modify and well-remembered MS-DOS titles whose assets were malleable. Of course I can crank out a few using constructions sets like FRUA, but I'm not above running a 3rd-party map or tile editor application or even doing a bit of hexediting if need be.
For instance, I remember that the Scorched Earth death messages were just stored as text files and tried to swap those out with group slogans, but couldn't get any of them to trigger.
Rola (8482) on 6/30/2014 6:07 PM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Pseudo_Intellectual wrote--]but couldn't get any of them to trigger. [/Q --end Pseudo_Intellectual wrote--]
Modify SCORCH.CFG if you don't want to edit original files.
Talking Tanks ------ If this option is set to COMPUTERS, computer-controlled tanks will "talk" to you by flashing messages on screen, like comic characters. If it is set to ALL, then all tanks will print messages, regardless of who controls them. OFF means nobody talks.
Talk Probability ------ This determines how often tanks say something before they fire. 100 means they talk 100% of the time.
Attack file ==== talk1.cfg This should be the name of a file which contains messages tanks will say when attacking.
Die file ==== talk2.cfg
Pseudo_Intellectual (66423) on 6/30/2014 6:23 PM · Permalink · Report
Ahaha, many thanks. One down, several dozen to go!
Pseudo_Intellectual (66423) on 6/30/2014 9:28 PM · Permalink · Report
You've got the idea, though ideally something I can show "in action" with the camera rolling, just casually sauntering along playing the game and ... oh, how did that get there?
I suppose that would then look like a Incredible machine level that looks nothing like a Mist logo (in my case), but formed one once all the elements achieved a final resting state.
WillyWombat (10) on 6/30/2014 6:32 PM · Permalink · Report
I could brush up on my DOOM editing skillz. I was a wizard back in the day.
Pseudo_Intellectual (66423) on 6/30/2014 9:55 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
You're welcome to participate if you'd like, though my assumption was that only people who were actually colleagues lo those 20 years years back (heh, Doom is 21 years old this year!) would be interested in taking part. But of course the nostalgia is congruent for anyone who was making computer art and calling BBSes in the mid '90s.
My thoughts for a DooM map were specifically to wander around a level with bizarre geometry, maybe a couple of tiles altered to have Mist logos (I can provide assets) graffiti'd on them, and then pull back for a map overview for the big reveal: the entire level is one consarned Mist logo.
vileyn0id_8088 (21040) on 6/30/2014 7:05 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
I approve of thy ANSI art. Ah, firing up TheDraw/AcidDraw and drawing with blocks. Where would Mean Green and The Prophecy BBSs be without me today? gets misty eyed
Pinball Construction Set lets you pixel-art almost everything (har har). You can modify virtually all graphics and text in Star Control II by way of Ur-Quan Masters with its .PNGs and plaintext dialogue files. And hex-editing is always an option, sometimes an incredibly easy one - I remember being really proud of myself when I was like 10 and managed to insert myself into that huge-ass text scroller in Round 42. :-)
Commander Keen also has an active modding community with tools and so on so forth, so you could always load up that CK5 level and swap out John Romero and his Sassy Swastika for something of your own!
Then you've got all these (Q/GW)BASIC(A) games... instantly modifiable, by their very nature.
Pseudo_Intellectual (66423) on 6/30/2014 10:05 PM · Permalink · Report
I approve of thy ANSI art.
If you like ANSI art (and I already know you like old video games) you need to see this post at my blog. I've had a series of "video game-themed ANSI" posts, but nothing will ever top that one, all one piece by a single artist.
Ah, firing up TheDraw/AcidDraw and drawing with blocks.
I was a member of ACiD! If you have genuine nostalgia for the activity, a side-project of my group 20 years ago has strangely persisted and remains to be the dominant ansi editor for modern platforms today -- it's called PabloDraw.
Thanks for the leads on the Pinball Construction Set (I remember reading about someone, perhaps at Naughty Dog, using the PCS pixel editor to make graphics for their game for lack of their own graphics editor) and SC2.
I've been looking into the Apogee / iD games anyhow since some of them have ANSI art as part of the catalogues and game installers; I was figuring I'd just do the lazy thing and put a "Mist was here 1994" message in CK4's high score table while Keen dances and capers around on the bottom, but is there an editor you'd recommend? I looked into a few this morning and the community seems to have suffered a bad case of linkrot, so I can find tutorials for specific apps but not the actual apps!
Very true with the BASIC games.
vileyn0id_8088 (21040) on 7/4/2014 4:18 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Pseudo_Intellectual wrote--]If you like ANSI art (and I already know you like old video games) you need to see this post at my blog. I've had a series of "video game-themed ANSI" posts, but nothing will ever top that one, all one piece by a single artist.[/Q --end Pseudo_Intellectual wrote--] Ooooh, nice - even taking into account the disclaimer at the top. That Blocktronics pack is full of other good stuff, too... but what's with those ANSIs using non-ANSI colors?
[Q --start Pseudo_Intellectual wrote--]If you have genuine nostalgia for the activity, a side-project of my group 20 years ago has strangely persisted and remains to be the dominant ansi editor for modern platforms today -- it's called PabloDraw.[/Q --end Pseudo_Intellectual wrote--]
Hah, I know and love PabloDraw! That's what I've been using for my hobbyist creations for the past few years. I stick to 2.x though; something about the newer versions I found annoying though I don't remember what.
PD2 also proved more compliant with my attempts to mess with it, which let me repurpose it for tweaked CGA artwork (think ICON's textmode-bending shenanigans)... something I should really finish one of these days. :-]
Pseudo_Intellectual (66423) on 7/4/2014 6:14 PM · Permalink · Report
Ooooh, nice - even taking into account the disclaimer at the top.
The medium is not known for its original works, but rather its interpretations of Image comics panels. It's not like these were tool-assisted sprite conversions -- he still drew them, they just didn't come from his imagination 8)
That Blocktronics pack is full of other good stuff, too... but what's with those ANSIs using non-ANSI colors?
Toward the late '90s there were some efforts into expanding what was possible with tweaked textmodes with alternate colour palettes and variant character sets. Already we'd expanded the background colour combinations with icecolor and allowed ansis of arbitrary width with bins, then there were a slew of similar formats that allowed a great deal more customization: ADF (.ADF), iDF (.IDF), TUNDRA (.TND) and XBiN (.XB) ... these pieces are still basically mosaics, but the specific shapes and colours they have to work with are at the artist's interpretation.
I know and love PabloDraw!
Right on! We were always kind of second-stringers so it's nice to see one of our projects ultimately take the pie long after the game ended 8)
Pseudo_Intellectual (66423) on 10/25/2014 3:39 PM · Permalink · Report
So, I'm eventually getting around to this project, anticipated release on Oct 29th. Ville, I'm looking at The Ur-Quan Masters, and the only assets files I'm seeing are ginormous .UQM files. Is this something sneaky like a renamed .ZIP file?
Pseudo_Intellectual (66423) on 10/25/2014 3:52 PM · Permalink · Report
Oh, ha ha, that's exactly what the trick is.
vileyn0id_8088 (21040) on 10/30/2014 5:45 PM · Permalink · Report
Missed your post... but glad you got it figured out. So, was there a release?
Pseudo_Intellectual (66423) on 10/30/2014 11:14 PM · Permalink · Report
Every submission is in but mine, but tonight I'm packaging the art up and releasing it and then if I have time posting a master edit of my video game tribute through history. SC2 didn't make it, the trouble is there are too many required historical candidates and they all require a bit too much fiddling to slip your content into. The good news is that this leaves me plenty of games to hit up for another one this time next year. I'll post the video up here when it's done, in the meantime I desperately need to find a way to set the player's x/y coordinates in a ZZT level to finish up the big final sequence 8)
Pseudo_Intellectual (66423) on 11/2/2014 3:31 AM · Permalink · Report
So, the art pack is up sans my contribution at bit.ly/mist1014 , or if you like you can browse its contents at http://sixteencolors.net/pack/mist1014 ... and I will share my video here when it's done, hopefully not in too long.
Tracy Poff (2095) on 6/30/2014 7:15 PM · Permalink · Report
This is quite related to my latest programming project, so I can offer a couple of suggestions:
- For a pre-made multi-game solution, Camoto supports several games.
- The DOS Game Modding Wiki has information about some more games.
Pseudo_Intellectual (66423) on 6/30/2014 10:05 PM · Permalink · Report
Thanks again!
Havoc Crow (29905) on 7/1/2014 10:05 AM · edited · Permalink · Report
In-game text in Sid Meier's Civilization and Colonization is stored in ASCII files and is freely editable (I remember my attempts to translate the entire games into Polish. Don't know what happened to all my hard work though. :( )
I don't know if game construction sets count (too easy?) -- Unlimited Adventures comes to mind.
Pseudo_Intellectual (66423) on 7/1/2014 3:17 PM · Permalink · Report
A hilarious demonstration! This must be Gdańsk then...
Pseudo_Intellectual (66423) on 7/1/2014 3:16 PM · Permalink · Report
That's the FRUA cited in the original post, plus I'm sitting on Stuart Smith's Adventure Construction Set and the Bard's Tale Construction Set just in case.
Pseudo_Intellectual (66423) on 7/1/2014 3:15 PM · Permalink · Report
Ah yes, I forgot to mention what this was all building towards, an effort from another old crony to make a time-lapse video of reproducing selected works of ANSI art, block by block, in Minecraft.
I downloaded Inform 7 source for fan ports of Advent and Zork to get the ball rolling; I can put whatever additional text I like in there no problem.
Parf (7871) on 7/5/2014 7:56 AM · Permalink · Report
I'm not sure it it was said above (I didn't have time to read the whole thread), but the original Civilization had all of the in game text easily modified. It was stored in files you could just open in notepad and fiddle with. Me and my friends did some early translation attempts of the game to Swedish (but of the stupid and somewhat game breaking variety... we were young after all).
Pseudo_Intellectual (66423) on 7/5/2014 2:31 PM · Permalink · Report
Looking forward to both tweaking the in-game text and building some logos out of in-game MAPS! But I need to find a good editor... the main one these days seems to require me to apply for membership to a forum so the developer can track the users. Can it be worth the hassle?
Игги Друге (46653) on 7/12/2014 1:29 PM · Permalink · Report
Whenever I hear about a PC "scene" I get the same feeling I get when reading about "rock bands" in the east bloc.
Pseudo_Intellectual (66423) on 7/12/2014 2:16 PM · Permalink · Report
Ehh, of course we were weak on the demo side but I believe as far as the ANSI art niche went (and ultimately most music tracking over 4 channels, thanks to the PC-only Scream Tracker, Impulse Tracker and FastTracker2) , we had things pretty sewn up.
Future Crew started as a c64 group but within two years, by 1988 they had migrated to the PC. If they're not "scene", what is?
Игги Друге (46653) on 7/13/2014 1:20 AM · Permalink · Report
From my horizon, Future Crew were a curiosity, nothing else.
vileyn0id_8088 (21040) on 7/13/2014 10:59 AM · Permalink · Report
The Amiga scene seems to have had a different opinion - otherwise all those AGA-era demos wouldn't have started pretending they were on PCs by emulating a "chunky" framebuffer in software for VGA-like effects, by doing audio mixing/streaming and compression in software, and so on so forth.
Credit where credit's due: that phenomenon was so jarring precisely because the original Amiga "style" was so remarkable. Still, it would appear that the PC scene had a somewhat greater impact than that of Soviet rock. ;)
Игги Друге (46653) on 7/13/2014 4:04 PM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start vileyn0id_8088 wrote--]The Amiga scene seems to have had a different opinion - otherwise all those AGA-era demos wouldn't have started pretending they were on PCs by emulating a "chunky" framebuffer in software for VGA-like effects, by doing audio mixing/streaming and compression in software, and so on so forth.[/Q --end vileyn0id_8088 wrote--]
There are no VGA-like effects, VGA being only a dumb framebuffer, just as audio mixing in software isn't tied to any specific hardware.
However, you are right in that the Amiga was eventually overrun by sheer Intel CPU power, but as long as there was a choice of platform, choosing the PC for scene endeavours strikes me as akin to climbing the Berlin wall into East Germany.
Victor Vance (18130) on 11/2/2014 7:11 AM · Permalink · Report
I know it is a bit late but I didn´t know of this post until now! If you are still looking for easy editable games, maybe for a follow-up project, the game "Crime Fighter" comes to mind ( http://www.mobygames.com/game/crime-fighter ). You can input an own picture ( .jpg I think ) as the players photo. Our entry contains a link to the authors site where the game can be downloaded for free. It is a German game but if I remember correctly English language is selectable as well.