DOS Games Discussion

I know that these "trialware" collection CDs are notoriously hard to track down, but I thought maybe there's a chance. I've looked through several sites that have some of these types of CDs documented, but still haven't found what I'm looking for. I've also looked at a lot of popular DOS game lists.

I would absolutely love to know all the games that were on that compilation CD. I know I'm not remembering some. Here's what I remember:

• Bought in the late 90's at a Sam's Club (like Costco) in Jackson, MS, USA
• Probably released between 1996 and 2000
• The box art was purple with yellow lettering, the title being something like "201 games in one" or "200 games megapack", something like that
• The games were DOS games, a lot of them had 16-bit graphics, some but not many were 3d
• The good games were just trials or demos

And these are the games I'm most certain were on there:

• Timeslaughter
• Alien Rampage
• Twinsen's Odyssey (Little Big Adventure 2) or the first one
• and possibly Cyberdog

Maybe there's a way to reverse lookup these games? For example, find every compilation CD these games were on?

The rest of the games were "padding" and I'd love to know these as well. There were a ton of basic ones named something like "Sword Fight" or "Ping Pong". They were basic vector games, if I'm remembering right. Basic wireframe graphics on a white background. I'd love to know more about these.

Thank you for any help!

drw158 wrote: ↑ Maybe there's a way to reverse lookup these games? For example, find every compilation CD these games were on?

Obviously that would only be possible if there were a complete, exhaustive index of every shovelware CD's contents, but there isn't, so you can't.

From my experience I can tell you that a lot of CDs like this had overlapping content, so if you just browse those which are available (e.g. here) you'll likely find many of the games that were on yours. Hallfiry's magazine coverdisk catalogue might be of some help but it's mostly about magazine coverdisks, not shovelware CDs (but more of those should be added in the next update).

The problem of course is that you'll never know exactly which games were on your CD, but given how many compilations were released, and how little value they actually have individually because of duplicating content, the CD that you had might never get documented or become available online. Sorry.

You can also look at Swizzley's Classic PC Games collection. He's from the US and many games he included are from compilation CDs that he owns.

UPD:

drw158 wrote: ↑Sat May 01, 2021 10:07 pm There were a ton of basic ones named something like "Sword Fight" or "Ping Pong". They were basic vector games, if I'm remembering right.

I remembered a game called TC Swordplay which I never played but it looks to have been rather common in shovelware collections. Any possible relation?

Yes!! Thank you so much. TC Swordplay is exactly the game I was remembering. There are several other TC games that include ping pong, tanks, etc. Wow it's so wonderful seeing these games after all these years.

This gives me a lot to go off of. I'll keep hunting those other games. Thank you!

MrFlibble wrote: ↑Sun May 02, 2021 7:15 am You can also look at Swizzley's Classic PC Games collection. He's from the US and many games he included are from compilation CDs that he owns.

Huh, that's the guy who uploaded the 6-CD C&C demo despite the fact I already uploaded the same thing four years before him

Nyerguds wrote: ↑ Huh, that's the guy who uploaded the 6-CD C&C demo despite the fact I already uploaded the same thing four years before him

That may be my fault, actually. I probably suggested to add the C&C CD demo to his collection before he moved it to archive.org, but apparently he only added it after that.

Then again, duplicate uploads at archive.org are fairly common.