The Design Desktop - Play unreleased sneak peaks of upcoming SCI releases

[Cloudee1]

So once it became official that jDOSBox would allow us to play sci games through our browsers... albeit a little slow. I have been trying to decide the best way to make use of this.

This is the angle that I have chosen to launch with. The Design Desktop. The idea is that these games are offered as online previews only. They are not demos, they are not full games, they are simply sneak peaks into an in-development game. A brief glimpse of what's to come, what's been done and quite simply of what is possible.

If anyone would like to submit an in-progress game to be displayed on the Design Desktop, zip it up and drop it in the fangames upload form. Just add a little bit of additional notes if you need to provide any additional information to aid in play.

While I am sure that our fan games as well as Sierra's demos are to follow in the whole play it online deal, for now, let's take a look forward and show off what it is that we have in the pipeline rather than offering a slowed-down version of what is already available.

[gumby]

While I am sure that our fan games as well as Sierra's demos are to follow in the whole play it online deal, for now, let's take a look forward and show off what it is that we have in the pipeline rather than offering a slowed-down version of what is already available.

Fair enough.  I do believe I owe Scavenger at least a peek at what I've put together for an persistent on-screen display.  Uploaded, bugs & all.

Cloudee, I think you need a new category of game on the upload form for 'Developers Desktop', no?

EDIT:  Also, adding a note on the Desktop about how long it takes to crank up the games would be good (I just waited 2 full minutes before Fab Las Vegas did anything).

[Cloudee1]

Hey gumby, I'll get your game through the works as soon as I can. As for the upload form, I am in the middle of creating a new one now just for desktop game uploads. It's not entirely essential, since the only really new bit is the part about additional notes on play. I still want a zip but really it just needs to contain the 3 resource files. swap those out, rename my img file and the game is ready. Changestates that rely on cycles or any counting are really slow. Point of reference, 50 cycles till the moonrise in the missile command room of shoot em up.

[Collector]

Your Fabulous Las Vegas  looks intriguing. I take it that you do not have views for Baby Spice done yet.

[gumby]

Uhhh, isn't Baby off to the far right?

EDIT:  Nevermind.  I see what you are getting at.  Views 

[Cloudee1]

Well I'm not real sure how to make her gyrate from that pose and still maintain any babiness, and I don't even have all the views for the ego. But thats whats kind of cool, I sure want to now more than I did yesterday. And with any luck, others do too.

[Cloudee1]

Ok so the new form is up, it's just as not fancy as the other one. It can be found at the top right on the desktop page.  gumby I fought with your game in dosbox... it won the first round.

[MusicallyInspired]

Uploading.

EDIT: Err...it keeps telling me to add game instructions even though I put stuff there. Is that like commands that jDOSBox needs to run? Or instructions on how to play the game? Either way it keeps thinking I haven't added anything in the field.

[Cloudee1]

If the hotels got wifi, I'll fix it tonight. Probably some variable mismatch...

[gumby]

Ok so the new form is up, it's just as not fancy as the other one. It can be found at the top right on the desktop page.  gumby I fought with your game in dosbox... it won the first round.

If you like I could create my own disk image & zip it up if it would help.  Are you using DiskExplorer and just replacing the necessary files?  Not sure if DE will like that (it does have that problem with deleting files), but I can't find anywhere that it won't ilke it.

[Collector]

Deleting files from an image is one thing that WinImage has no trouble doing. I think the shareware version should be able to do everything needed for this.

http://www.winimage.com/download.htm

[Cloudee1]

I'm wondering if it isn't that extra resource file in there. Watching it load in the console window, it seems to send a lot of extra commands at load up.

Also the form has been fixed and tested. Sorry about that Brandon.

I haven't had any reason to delete any files, I'm just rewriting ones that exist and or adding new ones like mpumidi.drv. Every other game I have done it too has gone fine.

[gumby]

Uploading.

EDIT: Err...it keeps telling me to add game instructions even though I put stuff there. Is that like commands that jDOSBox needs to run? Or instructions on how to play the game? Either way it keeps thinking I haven't added anything in the field.

Ahh!  The basket of goodies! 

[MusicallyInspired]

Lol. Did I ever solve that problem? I don't remember if I did or not.

[gumby]

I tried all the combinations I could think of to 'take basket', but no dice.