DM and that demo we d/l
Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 11:30 pm
When I was a kid, here in Houston Texas my cousin and I downloaded the DM demo from the Bulletin Boards or BBS. It floored us pretty hard. And it was ingenuous that they had the insight to promote it that way. Not shortly after that we found ourselves at Floppy Wizard (an awesome computer store in a mall here) purchasing copies. They had dozens of boxes empty that contained DM! I think there was just one case left they were tearing into when we got our copy. One guy there was purchasing an Atari ST computer JUST for the purpose of playing DM!
When we got home it was nerve wracking trying to play the game. Night time had come and we could only play for short periods of time as it was just too scary. And I was around 15 or 16 years old! But we made sure it was scary as we would play it in the 'computer room' and leave the lights off for maximum impact! Soon after that we had to move a small lamp near the computer because my father was advancing way faster than us by playing in the daylight and making maps on graph paper.
I remember having to cheat and look at his maps to get passed certain puzzles always filled me with shame.
At the time I was making games, top down scroller RPGs like Ultima 3 and 4. But they seemed to lose steam after getting DM. I had to make a choice to finish DM in a really hard session with shared information from my cousins and uncles so I could get back to the programming of my own game for the Atari ST. I released two titles and then got a game job at Williams/Bally/Midway where I worked with Joe Linhoff who worked on CSB. In all my time working with him and raving about the game I never asked him one thing...
What was the story with that demo? Was it the actual core engine that was moving the graphics? Anyone here know? I remember it being rather large at the time to d/l. anyone here know?
When we got home it was nerve wracking trying to play the game. Night time had come and we could only play for short periods of time as it was just too scary. And I was around 15 or 16 years old! But we made sure it was scary as we would play it in the 'computer room' and leave the lights off for maximum impact! Soon after that we had to move a small lamp near the computer because my father was advancing way faster than us by playing in the daylight and making maps on graph paper.
I remember having to cheat and look at his maps to get passed certain puzzles always filled me with shame.
At the time I was making games, top down scroller RPGs like Ultima 3 and 4. But they seemed to lose steam after getting DM. I had to make a choice to finish DM in a really hard session with shared information from my cousins and uncles so I could get back to the programming of my own game for the Atari ST. I released two titles and then got a game job at Williams/Bally/Midway where I worked with Joe Linhoff who worked on CSB. In all my time working with him and raving about the game I never asked him one thing...
What was the story with that demo? Was it the actual core engine that was moving the graphics? Anyone here know? I remember it being rather large at the time to d/l. anyone here know?
