Exhaustive list of games made in DOS 3DGCS

[Mystery]

And here are the files: archive.org/details/3dgcs-archive-2.0.4

As I said previously, everything that's still (to my knowledge) commercially available has been excluded from the archive. If a direct link is not welcome, I'll remove it of course. You can always find the archive by searching for "3D Game Creation System MS-DOS archive 2.0.4" on archive.org

[lgb3d]

Oh my goodness there are some real gems here. A few Goofs but some real special stuff overall. Currently exploring terror out of the deep.. they knew what they were doing I could tell that from the start. But when you meet the bartender he tells you they're closed but you go through the door anyways. Wasn't expecting him to attack me but yeah I kicked him.. I kicked them all the way through the wall. They did really good with that series of animations and trigger, as well as with the whole game... they knew what the GCS was capable of and how to utilize it . Thank you so much for what you have done and are doing salvaging and preserving all of this.

[schizoid26]

I feel like I may have a couple of things to contribute to this, either with the art mega pack or with some games or music. If you want you can send me a DM and we can see if I have anything of value. I actually learned about GCS from owning that Awesome Game Creation book and bought the 3.14 edition with a discount from the book. It came with the art mega pack as well, I believe.

[Mystery]

Aug 1, 2024 16:24:29 GMT -5 lgb3d said:

Oh my goodness there are some real gems here. A few Goofs but some real special stuff overall. Currently exploring terror out of the deep.. they knew what they were doing I could tell that from the start. But when you meet the bartender he tells you they're closed but you go through the door anyways. Wasn't expecting him to attack me but yeah I kicked him.. I kicked them all the way through the wall. They did really good with that series of animations and trigger, as well as with the whole game... they knew what the GCS was capable of and how to utilize it . Thank you so much for what you have done and are doing salvaging and preserving all of this.

Yes, some of the games are really well done. I think I remember D-Day and/or Elapse having some good ideas as well.

Glad my efforts are giving all of you some of the good old GCS nostalgia

I remember being really impressed by Terror of the Deep as well, some good inspirations in there!

Aug 1, 2024 18:15:07 GMT -5 schizoid26 said:

I feel like I may have a couple of things to contribute to this, either with the art mega pack or with some games or music. If you want you can send me a DM and we can see if I have anything of value. I actually learned about GCS from owning that Awesome Game Creation book and bought the 3.14 edition with a discount from the book. It came with the art mega pack as well, I believe.

DM sent! Thanks a lot for the offer!

[whitemagicraven]

Jan 22, 2019 14:44:40 GMT -5 spungulas said:

Hi all. I appreciate the compliments on Astroreptilio. I recently uploaded the registered version for anyone who hasn't gotten it. I can't list the site here for some odd reason but just google it. I implemented the first ever jet pack into the game. It worked pretty good albeit crude.
Anyhow, I wanted to share here that I'll also be releasing 6 more games to the same site, when I can locate them and test them. As follows: Minimum Security, Apotheoso, Myomer Wars parts 1, 2 and 3 and Nasty Aliens. In my opinion the Pie DOS GCS with its menu add on was the best engine ever made. Even now. I'll let you all know when I get these located, although it may take some time. Take care all!

Hello, a lot of games mentioned on web but only Thindra full/demo , Astroreptilio full/demo, and Norman's Escape demo available.

Other demos or maybe full versions lost, can you please re-upload them?

[gerharar]

Hey there Mystery . Thanks for your archival efforts, great work!


I've stumbled on your list while working on a project of my own, and after going through your whole list & archive I've got a couple of corrections I wanted to share with you:


3-D Shooter

This game is dated 1995 (go to annex.retroarchive.org/cdrom/nightowl-017/024A/SHOOTER1/ and check readme.txt)


Cavemaze 3D

As with other GCS-based shooters from Gary Acord, the game is split into 3 parts. Game 1 is available for free as shareware, games 2 & 3 are not. This policy is stated in zaplog.doc, and if you go to "Info" menu from the main game screen, it explicitly says the full registered version includes 60 levels, while the game available on Gary Acord website (and in the archive) has only around a dozen.

Demon

The archive actually contains the game "Vendetta". I'm not sure if this is an error on the archive/packaging side (somebody packaged "Vendetta" instead of "Demon" mistakenly), or it's a different name for "Vendetta" game.

Iraqi Scum-Bag

This game is apparently called "Desert Raider" (check the vendor's website: web.archive.org/web/20000819011333/http://www.crosswinds.net/~gcsassist/iraqi.html)

L.A.: The Dead Town & Master Dinkins: LOOSE!

I'm not sure these games actually existed, since I've found literally zero traces of them on the internet outside of mention in the readme.txt of "Troubled Tower" that they might be coming. Note: I suspect this might also be true for some other "full" versions of shareware games that are listed as fully lost -- they might not have existed in the first place, if there wasn't enough interest in them (and they were mentioned/promoted before being made).

Realms Of Evil

This game is not present in the archive, so the status should say not "Archived", but "Fully lost" (I wasn't able to find it anywhere, at least).

Secret Agent Rescue

According to gcsinst.dat, this was made by Dangaroos Kipawa Entertainment.

Siren's Chamber

Sirens' Chamber (spelling taken from the game) from the archive is not a full game. Full game is supposed to have 39 levels (according to win screen, can be seen at youtu.be/pYZJldlOScQ?si=i4H2xIPqIQZfIoHK&t=828), while archived copy only includes 6 (check THEATERS.TXT).

   

Zone Force 1

This one is dated 1996 (see file_id.diz in zfshr20.zip)

    

Hope this helps. Keep up the good work.

[gerharar]

One more thing about Acord games: you've correctly noticed that while the games were made in 1995 (even though official website lists them as made in 1994), the copyright screen in the games says 2000 for some reason. According to an interview with Gary Acord (web.archive.org/web/20170629165354/https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/EJRTairne/20130516/192184/Inside_the_Mind_of_Gary_Acord.php), he went back and redid/updated "all games" around 2010. The interview focuses mostly on his games made in Game-Maker (so, platformers), but I think it's safe to assume, given all this information, that his GCS-based games were updated as well. I think this is why in-game copyright notice for his GCS-based games says 2000 instead of 1994/1995.

[Mystery]

Awesome sleuthing, thank you very much for your efforts. With the amount of stuff in the archive I was bound to miss some things, thanks for being so thorough!


I'll go through your notes and suggestions for the next update of the archive along with some other info I've received or found since the initial upload.


I agree with you that games without at least some concrete evidence shouldn't be in the archive. If we have no trace of a game other than it being mentioned somewhere by someone, maybe the entry should be removed or at least moved to a list of "rumored" titles. It gets more difficult with the shareware <> full version situation as we have no way of knowing if someone actually created the full game. Like you said, it's quite possible that they never made the full game since nobody cared to order it.


Edit:
Realms of Evil is not archived, there's only the dead cdrom.com link.
I might have made a mistake with the DEMON archive, I'll have to recheck it and put it in the new version of the archive eventually.

Everything else should be updated in the new document.

[Mystery]

Wow, the DEMON thing is really weird, I don't think I've made a mistake with the archive.

Comparing it to VENDETTA shows two differences:
1) The DEMON archive is missing the "REGISTER.TXT" and "VENDETTA.DIZ" files
2) The timestamps in the DEMON archive are ever so slightly different, off by a few hours or a day for the most part. File sizes seem to be identical.

I rechecked the magazine and it's indeed listed only as "Demon". I'm currently trying to get someone to verify the contents of the CD archive, but so far it looks like it's really just the "Vendetta" game with two text files removed.

[Mystery]

The internet archive upload function seems to be not working at the moment, they're still in the process of bringing everything back online after the ddos from early October.

Here's a preview of the next update. Several community members have contributed to this update, thanks to chris, shizoid26 and gerharhar for your efforts!

The following changes have been made in 2.1.0 (google sheets link):

New Software entries:

-The mega art pack has been added (BMP converted files, but better than not having it at all)

-An older version of the GCS (1.11 instead of 1.3) was also found

-The CD for the Awesome Game Creation book was recovered as well, but there is no new content on there related to the DOS 3DGCS so it won't be part of the archive.

The following entries have been removed:
-Demon > this was just a duplicate of Vendetta (mixup, rename). I've found another CD where the game was in a folder "demon" and the archive name was "vendetta".

The following games are now available with their original timestamps:
-3D Shooter
-The Return of the Dämons (we now know it's from 1996)

Alternate versions of the following games have been found:
-Space Station Escape (different dates and no game intro)

The following previously unknown games have been found and added:
-Escape from Gaza
-Ice
-Infiltrator
-Outlander
-Rapid Fire
-Reap
-Thugs

The following previously fully lost games have been found and added (for the most part not the full game, but at least a demo):
-Gangbusters Deluxe
-NARC
-Ninjawars
-The Big Hunter
-War-Bride

This is a huge update, after well over 10 years of searching I'm still constantly surprised whenever I find something new, because I always think there's nothing left out there. But this update was incredible, I haven't found that many new games in such a short time ever. Going to be hard to beat unless we get our hands on the GCS Pro version

As soon as the archive upload is back online I'll update the archive and first post with the link and let you guys know.

[lgb3d]

Wow.. I've really enjoyed your last upload playing all the games ton of fun. I'm looking forward to this. Yeah I heard something was up with the internet archive upload security something..

I'm Blown Away by how much you have discovered out there. So many times I've been scouring the internet and coming up with little to nothing other than vague references and a handful of stuff that was already uploaded to internet archive type pages. So it's truly a miracle that you've been able to salvage as many games as you have.

As for the alternate version of the dos GCS. That's something that's been on my mind for years. Every time I test a level it seems wrong to me. When I was a kid and I went to test levels it asked me if I want sound if I want music and if I want god mode. Three different options popped up The current version I'm using only ask if I want sound and God mode.

Other than my memory of pressing test level a million times I wonder what is really the difference, perhaps they were evolving the editor to be able to implement more of the engine features through editor with later release? I would be interested in exploring if that's the same version I received as a kid in the mail on floppy disk

[Mystery]

Thanks, I really appreciate it! I'm always really excited whenever I find something new and playable that I've never seen before or that hasn't been played by anyone for decades. Almost like digital archaeology

Actually I've just found another game that I haven't heard of before: "S.c.U.d.". The shareware version will be added to the 2.1.0 release as well.


Right now I think I've exhausted my current options, this might be the last update for quite a while as I won't be actively searching for stuff and more focusing on my own game for a while.

What might still be quite effective would be trying to track down the developers of the "missing" games, especially the Pro version ones and see what they might still have. Maybe next year.

[lgb3d]

Yeah a couple years back I tried contacting email addresses provided in game menu text files Etc as well as searching for the names listed in credits of games. I was able to contact a few people, but mostly zero response. One contact I was able to make was one of the names listed on Sirens chamber.. and was able to have a decent small conversation explaining that the uncle had made it and listed his name in the credits surprised that it still exists or people are finding it .. I say hey there's a group of us and we're looking for anyone who has anything GCS related he said he would let his uncle know never heard anything back . but nothing new media wise. Digital archaeology 100% bro.

[chris]

Mystery - I was all excited the other day when I found the search engine on discmaster.textfiles.com but I think you beat me to it lol, you seem to have found the same things as me Did you find Man in the Mirror, Pleiades and the Continuum 1.4 beta as well? Also remind me later, I found a beta version of Metalhead I can upload. Sadly the game data was lost in a drive crash so the final release of Metalhead was most of the menu VGA graphics changed and probably not much else.

lgb3d - I recently ran a hex compare on every pnocomp.exe in the archive and found basically 10 or so revisions of the engine. Not sure how many revisions of GCS there were, I know I was using 1.3 and 1.11 seems to be another common version? I should create a technical thread to post my findings, but seems the old versions didn't use the .ibk file, grenades go slower, no cheat mode, etc. Some revisions are just probably the same as other versions but changed from English to German.

[lgb3d]

This is exciting so many discoveries and group activity recently.

Something tells me this search engine you shared is a very powerful tool but I don't exactly know how to operate I messed around with it for a little bit this morning.

I feel guilty at times for blowing up threads, sure I blow up my own but when it's somebody else's topic and I Veer off topic OMG I feel guilty.

Yes if you are making technical discoveries with the engine, I am major interested and that definitely deserves its own thread. Really looking forward to what we all discover create and share here.