Last year I released two new DOS games (Gold mine run! and The Return of Traxtor), both made in the context of a game jam, even if I don’t really do game jams anymore.
Anyway, it was a lot of fun and it pushed me to get up to speed with the DOS platform, remembering in a way what I knew back in the late 90s, and going beyond that. And there are more DOS jams in 2024!
- 8086 Games Jam, starting in a few hours.
- DOS COM Game Jam 2024, starting in September.
There could be other jams this year, like the DOS Games Jam –that had its first edition in 2020–, but these two jams tick a couple of boxes for me:
- The target platform must be DOS (in other game jams is more about the feel, but I prefer going a bit more retro and make a game that runs on the actual hardware).
- There are some interesting limitations, being
8086code in one of them (meaning: Intel 16-bit), and aCOMfile the other one (all the game must fit in 64K).
Since I released The Heart of Salamanderland for the Amstrad CPC last month I’ve been going through some ideas for potential games, and I was suffering a bit of choice paralysis and not starting anything (neither continuing one of the on hold projects).
When I released Gold Mine Run I put together a DOS library to make games with DJGPP, which is 32-bit and not useful for any of these two jams. But because I made Traxtor targeting the IBM PC/TX, I have some interesting code that I can reuse.
I’m toying with the idea of making something for the first jam, although I’m not sure what I’m going to target yet. I don’t feel like doing CGA again –too soon, and it is hard to draw nice things I guess–, EGA is such a pain to program, and VGA may not be a great match for the jam’s limitations.
We will see. A month is not a lot of time, but at least this time I don’t start from scratch like when I streamed the making of Gold Mine Run!.
Update (2024-07-13): the DOS games July 2024 jam will be on as well in a couple of days!