Vintage gaming community.
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I'm pretty sure Doom will be the most popular (and my pick too), but I'll throw a shout-out to Epic Pinball; that Android table was the best one in the game anyway.
A couple of people have mentioned Raptor: Call of the shadows, which was an absolute favorite of mine. Skyforce Reloaded is pretty close in terms of gameplay. I wish there were more games out there like Raptor
You try Tyrian? It was like raptor but dialed up to 11 with different planes and an actual storyline :o
There's a pretty good Android port now! Look up OpenTyrian.
Woah didn't know about the Android port! Def gonna check it out. Thanks!
I spent a lot of time playing Raptor: Call of the Shadows, a vertically-scrolling shooter with an upgrade system.
There was also Rise of the Triad, a pretty decent Doom-clone
Colobot - don't think it was "shareware" but it absolutely came as a demo on ceebot.com (still hosted there today I believe). Literally THE game that got me into computer programming and whatnot.
Otherwise for actual shareware, I loved Jazz Jackrabbit 2, Crazy Gravity and The Worm (found it!)
I really wanted to play a couple shareware games called Jetpack Joyride, and Hot Chix n Gear Stix as a kid, but neither of them would play on my Windows XP netbook as they had a hard check for if you were on either Windows 95 or 98, even with compatibility mode.
Jazz Jackrabbit always crashed out on my 486 D: I wanted to play it so badly.
Oh, I just remembered Castle of the Winds, too. What a great era for games!
I was a huge fan of Solar Winds: The Escape. Cool plot, aliens, dogfights, ship systems management, evil shadow governments, rebels.... what's not to love? It was my introduction to the genre and will always hold a special place
Solar winds blew my mind once I actually figured out all the controls. The universe they built was super cool and I really dug the combat. Can't count the number of times I got owned by this guy trying to blow him up from the get go.
I think this question just fried my brain. I don’t even know where to start.
Most played shareware of all time though was probably Transport Tycoon.
I played a lot of 2 games that nobody I've spoken to has ever heard of: Mordor the depths of dejenol Exile escape from the pit Both were great, I think exile had been remade by the programmer with a different title too
Escape Velocity and its sequels.
Geez, I'd forgotten about that game. I spent an unreasonable amount of time playing those.
ITT: everyone had the same “500 games on two CDs!” Shareware compilation CDs that I had growing up.
I played a lot of TetriNET and Subspace Continuum with my old online community. Great times.
More detail edit: TetriNET walked so Tetris 99 could run. Version 1 does not install on Windows anymore (but has a Linux version). Version 2 works, complete with its archaic user registration that asks for too many details.
Continuum is a large PvP arena Asteroids-like 2D space shooter. It's on Steam now. Starts tough to control and with a high skill ceiling, so be wary of the veterans. The Death Star Battle map is a blast with a big group. It feels like trying to speed through a narrow maze on bumper boats during a huge battle.
ZZT, the game that launched Epic. Say, there's gotta be a ZZT community somewhere on lemmy, right?
I didn't realize anybody else had ever played that game. I downloaded that from AOL back when I was signing up for a free month trial every month from those CDs in the mail.
I was so addicted to ZZT back then! The player-made worlds were such a delight, and my slow-ass computer which choked on so many then-current games ran them without trouble.
Now I want to try it out again.
People are still making games using it! When I get a bit more free time I want to polish up and republish the ones I made.
I always wanted to play with the editor and make a game with it back then, but never got around to it. Perhaps it's still not too late!
Sky Roads, Test Drive 2, Jill of the Jungle, Halloween Harry, Jetpack, so many great games that I played the hell out of their shareware versions.
Duke Nukem 3D probably. That or Rise of The Triad.
I eventually bought DN in the 90s and played the shit out of it.
RoTT WAS SO FUN! How about heretic, another Doom clone? The chicken weapon was a favorite of mine.
Heretic 1 and 2 were great fun
