DCGames

The origins of DCGames date back to 1989. The oldest versions ran in EGA mode at best. Presumably with version 4 (on the DCGames website there never was any info or documentation for versions previous to this) support for SVGA and extended memory was introduced.

The following list of features is taken directly from the (defunct) website:

• Supports VGA and SuperVGA graphics modes.
• Runs on 640KB but will use Extended and Expanded memory if available.
• Up to 1000 worlds, each of the with up to 65536 (64K) tiles per world, with up to 10 palettes of tiles to choose from and 256 tiles in each palette.
• Up to 512 characters and objects per world (total 512,000)
• Direct support for PCX and other graphics formats.
• Over 95% of the system is configurable and can be modified using simple but powerful scripts.
• Supports most SoundBlaster and AdLib compatible boards. Up to 64 automatic voices per character, unlimited script controlled voice and music. Can use the PC speaker if no voice card is present!

DCGames is mostly dead. The FAQ was last updated 1995, the website 1998, the FTP archive 2001, and around 2003 it all went down. Only one game ever seems to have been finished, DeBray Bailey's DBQuest.

About this File

What you can download here is version 4.09. It is not the latest version, but the latest I could get a 100% intact archive of. It has some significant graphical improvements over 4.0.

• If you want to run it in DOSBox, you will need version 0.7. In DOSBox 0.65, DCPLAY.EXE will crash, though DCWORLD.EXE seems to work well.
• The graphics files included in this archive are for 640×480, 256 colors. Thus you need an SVGA card with at least 512kB memory, if you want to run it on an old computer.
• An extensive documentation is included. Read all the DOC files.
• David Hernandez suggested to put all the system files in one directory (DCHOME) and put that in the path, then create seperate directories for the sample game and your own projects each. Unfortunately, the INSTALL.DOC, which should have detailed what is a system file and what is game-specific, was not in any of the archives I downloaded. So I suggest you just put everything into one directory for now.

Links

• Carl Olsson has 48×48 tilesets in Origin view (like Ultima VII).
• AbyssWare has tilesets, scripts and some tools.
• Lost Dragon (DeBray Bailey) is the author of DBQuest. On his website, he has some tilesets.
• Warpspeed Software was last updated 1999. One of the two demos can still be downloaded, the other link is broken.