Suggest an underdog / Is this an underdog?

[LotBlind]

EDIT: Aside from the existing stuff, this thread will also be used with me asking the audience whether they've heard of or played certain games that I'm looking at as underdog candidates. If anyone has an idea of how one might go about checking how well a game fared (in some way that doesn't start approaching actual journalism), I'll take hints.

So we've started to add new Underdogs now! The plan is to have one in each of the quarterly updates. So far I've written all of them. Because I have limited time, I'll inevitably end up writing on games that I've already at least half-finished, meaning it's going to be from the slightly less underground end of the spectrum. HOWEVER, there's two ways in which an underdog of your liking could get inducted:

1) Suggest a dog here, wait for it to get approved, then write about it yourself.
2) Suggest a dog and leave it for someone else to write about.

I might genuinely need some more suggestions at some point. At current I know of maybe four different games (including the add-on to Descent 3) that I feel represent underdogs and have already played enough to be able to do the write-up. Still, if you really wanna be sure to see it on the site, you should write your own review/article.

There may be some confusion about what an underdog actually is supposed to be. For example, I just edited the entries for the three Gabriel Knight games which are some of the most popular and classy adventure games out there and even though the genre is perhaps a bit on the niche side (it's not Mario), I'm not sure the first part at least is truly an underdog. Despite this, you should be able to defend your choice in some way, not just "it's my favorite game".

Once your game has been approved, you should next look up all the meta data like publisher, developer, genre etc. that you see given in each article and write the article itself. We can't currently host any files but feel free to look for relevant links to fan sites that host them.

I think the number one thing that bugs me with the articles on this site is they tend to be too verbose, so don't repeat the same points over again just to make it longer. Make it concise instead and assume the reader knows the basics about games.

Looking forwards to seeing what you come up with!
-LotBlind

[Laurie Stearn]

Well, here's one. MyReels.

It's been given a good overhaul- for everything except the gui. :P

Here's a dev thread for it at the Assimilation Lab. You'll like us over there as well because it isn't just another TES fan site. :)

Direct download link, my homepage, and the github portal.

Here's my take on it- the graphics are bad, but they do stretch to accomodate lower res screens. Some things like the buttons don't size or fit properly. That's because it's a vb6 program, which will continue to work in Windows for some years to come,.but eventually it won't, that's why it'll probably end up in somewhere in an Archive site for Virtual Box enthusiasts or similar.

 Too much of a headache to directly attempt to port at this stage- and working on new stuff anyhow. 

Used to be hosted on Moochers, Nonags, Winsite, Freeware Games, MyZips, MadMonkey, FileHeap, freewarepub, AllGamesList, hotwinfiles, gamesxtazy, either because the sites have tanked or undergone housecleaning. Yep, it happens.

Brothersoft- well it used to be there- but the site is succumbing to ads, and adware.

TuCows (still in there- but can't get any response from the dev support about a defunct email address), download.hr, CNET- still there.

Kinda turned out to be (yet another) trip down memory lane after all!

What do you think?

[LotBlind]

Hmm... It's unusual for the developer himself to candidate a game although not fundamentally wrong I guess. Aside from that, isn't it just a customizable slot machine? If that's all it is, I'm not so sure about this... some of the underdogs on the site are kind of underwhelming as it is and I'm trying to find something a bit original or substantial to add to the collection now.

[Laurie Stearn]

It's a customizable slot machine, yep, fairly ordinary from that point of view. Also comes with quotes, so it may belong in the Edutainment for Adults category. Might appeal to some. :)

Also refer to the Future Improvements in the help file to see what it might have been. Publishers don't do that so much these days, in lieu of spending most of their energies & time in squishing bugs emergent from the current fare!

[Laurie Stearn]

As an afterthought, there's also an application geared for users with more than one monitor.

PrgLnch is an Autohotkey script designed as a program launcher. Again, if one gets past the interface, it might come in useful for certain games & applications, but it has not been evaluated for every possible monitor configuration.

[LotBlind]

Right, so if this was the bees knees in slot machine simulators (like how we have poker, chess, backgammon etc. simulations) with a bunch of those features in the IFIs list implemented, then at some point it would turn into a valid candidate but really HotU is quite "elitist" compared to any given downloads site. I think I'll ask the main guy whether he sees an underdog in the game just in case he disagrees.

As for the other program: I'm not very knowledgeable in technical aspects of computers but I get that you can use it to start a lot of programs all at once (like some kind of Windows batch file) but with more options? Do you happen to have some video demonstrations of what kinds of things you could accomplish with the tool that you can't do more simply with the Windows Command Prompt, and how to work it in general? Also what versions of Windows is it compatible with?

[Laurie Stearn]

Platform: Basically Win32, XP SP3  to 10.

Ok, give me a bit, just tying up a few odds & ends in a service update for this PrgLnch.

[Laurie Stearn]

Well, heh- it's a bit awkward, but not entirely impossible to make a movie of something happening in a multimonitor scenario. Would be a fun exercise though. The other alternative is an AOO Impress presentation. It doesn't offer a portable format though, so might not be everyone's cuppa.

However, the latest version offers a better description in What is PrgLnch, and an extended and illustrated Getting Started in the bundled help file- This should cover most bases when trialing the program. Also Softpedia have reviewed the original release, so that might provide an idea of its capabilities as well.

[LotBlind]

What I'm after is some concrete examples of what you could achieve with this program that are difficult or impossible to do otherwise. And mainly from a gaming point of view. Could I take some old-school game that doesn't support widescreen and get it to display in widescreen? Could I launch Descent at 1600 x 900 without a port? What do other people do with this kind of program? I guess I can get a complex setup of several windows arranged neatly across the screen in the exact positions and exact resolutions that I want for working on something like video editing but I know I can also launch multiple programs through a Windows batch file. I don't necessarily need a video or screenshots, but just some examples of how people make use of it would help.

[Laurie Stearn]

I understand, well yes, it depends on the game, and what engine/libraries it used. We attempted to get Dr Sulphur going a while back, but it's one of those where much of the code has to be decompiled in order to see what it is trying to do.

Again, early versions of Descent uses own resolution modes, and colour depth which may not be compatible at all with later versions of Windows.- so again it wants decompiling before proceeding- because resolution requirements of these games were/are not set in the headers. Parallax have now folded, so there's even less chance of obtaining worthwhile info on the game engine.

We can go down the rabbit hole of discussing the pros & cons of thousands of games- here's a few general points:

• Yes, one can run programs with a batch file, PrgLnch does it in a different flavour. In a batched sequence, run your game in monitor one, run any performance analytics, tweakers or settings/mod managers for quick access in the other monitors.
  
• AMD & NVIDIA drivers provide a stretch option for rendering in wide screen- if it works for a given game, the rendering may not be as one would have hoped- so the only option would be a game port.
  
• Any game with a titlebar should be fine with PrgLnch.
  
• Many old DOS based games are better played under DOSBOX used with a wrapper like D-Fend- PrgLnch isn't a match for those. Even games like Zeliard are best played under DOSBOX in a maximised browser- there's nothing PrgLnch can do that would ever enhance the resolution of that game in a standard 768p outfit.
  
• Some games may play better with more or less resolution- or not at all- there are countless variations- testing with a tool like PrgLnch makes it easier.

Above all, PrgLnch isn't a magic wand, it's just yet_another_tool- it may or may not be the best tool for a particular task- and at the end of the day it's a purely subjective matter for anyone to ascertain the level of difficulty for a particular task at hand.

[LotBlind]

Okay, I think I'll offer you two alternatives.

1) I'll give the program a shoutout in the next update. It is, after all, related to retro gaming, and I'm sure some people will find some way of utilizing it, at least just to get their standard desktop programs launched and neatly ordered faster.

2) If you provide some concrete (as I requested) examples of games that you COULD in any way enhance with PrgLnch with an as-detailed-as-possible delineation of what it might work with, what not so much, we may consider adding it into the HotU database as well. You've already given some insights: works with any game with a title bar (does that mean any Windows game?) but typically not the best choice for DOS.

"Some games may play better with more or less resolution- or not at all-"

Which ones did you test? Which ones did you find better played at resolutions not given in the options? Just recently I played... not Descent, but Descent 3 which has no widescreen support. Some people were able to use the game's start-up parameters to get it running in a sort of widescreen (http://www.wsgf.org/dr/descent3) but this would cause parts of the HUD to be left out, or be stretched. Furthermore, for whatever reason, I couldn't make the game react to those params at all myself. Could your program do anything for me there?

[Laurie Stearn]

Thanks.:)

Well the best suggestion is to look for old Windows games (other than big ones like Descent) that were designed to run in XGA or SVGA.

As for Descent 3, had a quick look through this thread and this one- as with more recent games it's advisable to create a GPU profile- but as Krom noted:

In Descent 3 the menu screens and automap are hard coded to 640x480. Custom resolutions don't kick in till you're in the actual game

They seem to have had success with 1080p though- maybe try that?

Want a screenshot? Here's Nethack played through Prglnch in 800X600.

It's the same quality of render for higher resolutions, but the important thing is the image is enlarged so that one avoids squinting at the tiny images.

Another one is, heh, you guessed it- MyReels run its native res of 1024X768.

The video is here, but note the limitations of the XBOX capture in the description.

Haven't tried PrgLnch on anything greater than 1080p- looking at the new modes here, there's a lot of testing ahead! :)

[LotBlind]

Hmm... I just tried Nethack and it looked to me as if the window was freely resizable already. Unless you mean you've stretched the tiles within the game with PL?

Descent 3: I'll take a look at those threads when I get back to reviewing the add-on to that game!

Keep me updated and I hope you can find some really useful examples! For example getting a wider FOV in an RTS game (or why not turn-based) is an interesting idea. I'm still not sure whether your program can do such things or not and you'll really have to spell it out to me as you can tell.

[Laurie Stearn]

What was found with NetHackW in higher resolutions is the actual tiles are tiny, no matter what the window size is. You need to lower the res to make them appear larger.

Another example is the original Lemmings at 800X600. 

Dope Wars at 640X480 filled the screen:

Unfortunately, screenshots in lower resolutions taken with XBOX snapshot don't show the granularity wrt actual screen size - so in most cases they are the same DPI as ones taken of the games in the current res. But there was certainly a difference. An improvement, won't comment.

There's sure to be others- will keep you posted. :)

 

 

[LotBlind]

Can't you just use some screen capture program to capture the full screen or something? I use ScreenHunter. Well, you would know better.

I think Lemmings is a pretty good example: you have to be able to click very precisely in that game but if you're not bothered with that, seeing more of the screen at once is something that sounds like an enhancement.