DOS Game Club
DOS Game Club is a monthly podcast and online discussion group dedicated to classic DOS games. Each month, the club selects a game to play and discuss, with episodes covering gameplay, history, and personal experiences. The podcast features a rotating cast of retro gaming enthusiasts who share their insights and memories. It's a nostalgic journey through the golden age of PC gaming.
Episodes
Star Wars: TIE Fighter
After having run this club for almost 10 years now, sometimes we worry we might run out of good games to feature. Not that we only want to cover the best or most famous games, but we wouldn't want to feel like we're scraping the barrel either. Anyway, this fear is entirely unwarranted, because even […]
Pool, snooker and billiards
It's time for another multi-game month! After skiing, pinball, cricket and golf, we sat down for a nice game of computer pool. And snooker. And billiards. Basically anything where you use a cue stick to hit a ball on a table. Turns out there are quite a few of these for MS-DOS, but perhaps not […]
Sam & Max Hit the Road
Back in April we looked at Sam & Max Hit the Road, the first game featuring Steve Purcell's crime fighting comic strip duo. Tasked with finding an escaped bigfoot from the circus, Sam & Max find themselves on a big road trip adventure all across the USA, featuring many road side attractions of questionable quality. […]
The Terminator: Future Shock
In the futuristic year of 2015, Los Angeles is fully under Skynet's control. Extermination camps have been set up to wipe humanity off the face of the earth. You must escape one such camp and get in touch with John Connor, Kyle Rees and the rest of the resistance. This is the premise of Terminator: […]
ZZT
Way before Unreal Engine, Epic Megagames had already put out a different game creation system. In fact, it was their first product! Back in 1991 ZZT started out as a text editor, but apparently Tim Sweeney got bored and before he knew it, he was making the editor into a game. The editor remained part […]
Half-Life
Welcome to the WGC Mk. IV Podcasting System for use in hilarious environment conditions. High-enjoyment Windows gaming: Activated. Atmospheric cinematic shooters: Activated. Blue Screen Monitoring: Activated. Protagonist Dialog Suppression System: Engaged. Offensive Opinion Selection System: Activated. Unforeseen Consequences: Activated. Communications Interface: Online. Have a very fun day! "They
The Settlers II
In 1996, at a time when Realtime Strategy Games were more popular than ever, one game series decided to take a different approach to the genre and remove direct control over units and production. Like an actual Roman commander, in Blue Byte's Settlers II you don't tell each of your soldiers directly what to do, […]
Betrayal at Krondor
Dynamix is a studio mostly known for their excellent 3D simulation games, such as 1990s "Red Baron", so it was a little surprising to see them behind the 1993 fantasy RPG we looked at in December 2025: Betrayal at Krondor. Like blobbers of the 1980s, you explore the world of Krondor in a turn-based fashion, […]
Toonstruck
The Fluffy Fluffy Bun Bun Show needs more cute cartoon characters, and animator Drew Blanc is the guy who has to come up with them... by tomorrow morning! Working through the night, his TV suddenly starts acting up and he's sucked into a world filled with toons! Or maybe it's just a dream, who can […]
Talking to John Passfield and Pete Mullins
As regular listeners will know, our podcast usually includes a bit where we dive a little into the history of how a game came to be and who was involved with its creation. That part was missing from our recent Halloween Harry episode, and with good reason, because we got a chance to sit down […]
Halloween Harry
We like to pick spooky games for October, as we feel it fits with the Halloween season and everything. We wouldn't say Halloween Harry (1993, developed by Interactive Binary Illusions and SubZero Software, published by Apogee) is a particularly scary game. It does feature a lot of zombies. But more than anything it has "halloween" […]
Ascendancy
As noted earlier, we seem to be having a bit of a space-themed streak at DOS Game Club this year. And it continues with September's game: Ascendancy, a 4X turn-based strategy game from 1995, developed by The Logic Factory. Pick one of the wild and very imaginative alien species featured in this game and get […]
Golf games!
We've done some multi-game episodes, where we take a look at a whole genre of (typically) sports-type games. We've looked at skiing games, we've looked at pinball, we've looked at cricket. But this month is our most ambitious one yet, in which we venture into the world of PC golf. No fewer than 50 games […]
Planetfall
What happens when a lowly Stellar Patrol ensign, stuck with endless busywork aboard the S.P.S. Feinstein, suddenly finds himself the lone survivor on a mysterious, crumbling outpost? Intercom's 1983 Planetfall isn't just another text adventure. It's a mix of sci-fi exploration, survival, and an emotional punch to the gut. Will we uncover the secrets of […]
Frontier: Elite II
With Earthworm Jim previously and Planetfall up next, you could say we're on a bit of a space-themed streak here. But while those games have lots of other things going on, the Elite series puts the vastness of outer space absolutely front and centre. When the original Elite came out in 1984 the sheer scale […]
Earthworm Jim
"It's a day like any other. A crow is chasing a worm, a worm named Jim. Today the worm escapes to safety and the crow eats dirt. Jim looks left, then right. It seems he has given the crow the slip. Jim returns to his normal daily life, cruising about avoiding crows and doing other […]
Loom
"Rise, son of Cygna. It is the dawn of your seventeenth year. The Elders await you in the sanctuary." If you didn't listen to the 30 minute audio drama first, you'd have no idea what's going on when you first play Loom (1990, Lucasfilm Games). And if you did listen to it, you probably weren't […]
Revisiting DOOM
Florian has been counting all of our regular "one game a month" episodes, and it turns out we've hit 100 of them! We started this club back in March of 2017 with the first DOS game that came to mind, which happened to be DOOM (id Software, 1993). In hindsight this was a bit of […]
Ultima Underworld
We're back with a big one, in more ways than one! Normally we do a different game every month, but between December and February we've focused on Ultima Underworld for three months in a row. This was mainly done to give ourselves a chance to catch up, as we've been lagging behind with the podcast […]
Subwar 2050
We've featured a lot of different kinds of sim games over the years. We've piloted fighter jets, space ships, a ww2-era bomber and even giant mechs. But never before have we gone under water! In a lot of ways, 1993's Subwar 2050 by Particle Systems and MicroProse could be described as "aquatic Wing Commander". But […]
Heretic
The Serpent Riders have made the kings of Parthoris their puppets and their undead legions are swarming the land. Only you, the Elf Corvus have the power to - you know what? The story probably isn't one bit more important than it is in DOOM, the masterpiece that this month's game is based on. Heretic […]
Beneath a Steel Sky
UK studio Revolution Software might be most famous for their "Broken Sword" series of adventure games, but before they released those they had found quite some success already. After their first game "Lure of the Temptress" in 1992 did well, they had higher ambitions for their second game: "Beneath a Steel Sky". Working together with […]
Cricket
When we started DOS Game Club back in 2017, one of our earliest members Mike ("toasty") asked us if there are cricket games for DOS. Being a keen cricket fan, this was a genuine interest of his. Or perhaps he was joking. Either way, the thought of checking out some DOS cricket games lingered in […]
Machiavelli the Prince
Niccolò Machiavelli was a Florentine diplomat, author, philosopher, and historian who lived during the Italian Renaissance. He is best known for his political treatise The Prince (Il Principe), written around 1513 but not published until 1532, five years after his death. None of this is in any way relevant for Microprose's 1995 strategy game "Machiavelli […]
M.D.K.
!!!Newsflash!!! A huge City Minecrawler is headed straight for the gaming community of DOS Game Club, DGC And you are Kurt Hectic, janitor on board the space station Jim Dandy and Earth's only hope. So get into your "Doctor Hawkins' Amazing Coil Suit" and strap on your "Doctor Hawkins' Incredible Ribbon Chute" and start skydiving […]
Wacky Wheels
In 1992, Nintendo released Super Mario Kart and all we PC gamers were terribly envious of our friends with a Super Nintendo. In 1994, Beavis Soft came to rectify the situation and gave us our own Mario Kart clone "Wacky Wheels". People rejoiced and everybody thought it was a really great game. But was it […]
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
After successfully keeping the Holy Grail out of Nazi hands, Indiana Jones returned in 1992 with a brand new adventure. And unlike 1989's The Last Crusade, Fate of Atlantis is not based on any of the films, but instead presents us with an entirely original story! With two playable characters (sometimes), three possible paths, randomised […]
Wolfenstein 3D
You're in a Nazi prison, with a dead guard on the floor in front of you. You take his gun. Now you can fight your way out. This is the exciting premise of 1992's Wolfenstein 3D, developed by id Software and published as shareware by Apogee. Now we all know Wolfenstein 3D was not the […]
Empire
You start out with a single city on a map that's mostly covered in a fog of war. Use the city to produce units. Use the units to explore the map, seize more cities as you grow your army and eventually conquer the map by beating the AI. Sounds familiar? Before Sid Meier's Civilization there […]
Dungeon Keeper
Do you ever feel the world is just too... nice? If so, perhaps Dungeon Keeper scratches that itch, because even though it's a classic game of heroes vs demons, in this case you are the demon! Dungeon Keeper was a big hit for Bullfrog Productions back in 1997, but by no means their first. After […]
Lemmings
Can you believe we're 90 episodes into this show and still haven't looked at Lemmings? Lemmings! What a classic! When Lemmings (by DMA Design, published by Psygnosis) arrived on the scene in the early 90s it was an instant hit. Everyone's played this game, apparently over 15 million copies were sold over the span of […]
Karateka
We've done Prince of Persia, we've done The Last Express. So when The Making of Karateka was released in late 2023, we figured this was the perfect opportunity to have a look at Jordan Mechner's very first published game. Originally released in 1984 for the Apple II, the PC got a port of this game […]
Realms of the Haunting
For the Halloween season we try to pick suitably scary games, so back in October (welp) we took a look at Realms of the Haunting (1996, Gremlin/Interplay). This game ticks a lot of boxes: haunted mansion, ghosts, scary monsters, but also... Time travel? A psychic partner? Interdimensional portals? Building a bong?? It's no exaggeration to […]
The Secret of Donkey Island
Everybody know The Secret of Monkey Island. But few people have ever heard of Donkey Island. This game was made by two Czech teenagers on their school computers in 1994 and ended up being the first commercial game to be developed and published in Czechia. Besides a sub-par and, frankly, weird German translation, this game […]
Jazz Jackrabbit
There is one game that showed everybody that the PC was starting to become as viable a gaming platform as any console on the market. While DOOM was an entirely new experience, Jazz Jackrabbit replicated the experience players had on their SNESes and Mega Drives. Its protagonist even became a mascot for PC gaming at […]
The Aching
You're in some sort of cave. A red light eminates from the northern wall, while a green light pours in from the cave's exit. This is Azra, a strange far away world where many dangers loom. You are an acolyte of the Scarlet Lady's Red Court, and have no memory of how you ended up […]
Interview: Hadrosaurus Software
Making commercial games for DOS nowadays is not a good business model, right? Hadrosaurus Software is hard at work proving this claim to be totally wrong. Their games Acronia and The Aching (which we played in July) are getting a lot of attention from the DOS gaming community, and rightfully so, we think. Company founder […]
Stunts
The late 80s and early 90s were filled with "true 3D" polygon-based first-person driving games. There was Hard Drivin' in the arcade by Atari, Geoff Crammond released Stunt Car Racer, Spectrum Holobyte published Stunt Driver, to name a few. But the one game that proved to capture the hearts of many and remains being played […]
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe
The original Speedball from 1988 was already a highly acclaimed futuristic sports game, lauded for its action-packed arcade-style gameplay and superb audiovisual presentation. But when the Bitmap Brothers released the sequel in 1990 for Amiga and Atari ST they truly outdid themselves. Both horizontal and vertical scrolling at a blistering pace was an achievement rarely […]
Discworld
The official Terry Pratchett-approved Discworld point & click adventure game has been pinned on our forums for over two years, as April 2023 would have been his 75th birthday, had he lived to experience it. Although Pratchett was initially apprehensive about the project, after been shown early demos he gave his approval and by 1995 […]
Star Wars: Dark Forces
"It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, and space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet." - Sound […]
Alien Legacy
In 2119 the United Nations Seedship Calypso was launched. Headed for Beta Caeli, the farthest star yet attempted, this ark ship holds thousands of people in cryogenic sleep ready for colonising this remote system. Ever since the first interstellar war with the Centaurians broke out in 2043, the future of Earth and therefore the human […]
B-17 Flying Fortress
Europe, 1943. World War II is in full rage, the United States joined the war effort and are now supporting the British air raids against German occupied western Europe with their legendary B-17 Flying Fortress bombers. Can your crew help end the war by successfully bombing strategically important targets while German fighters and Flaks turn […]
Albion
In 1995 Blue Byte released Albion, an ambitious 2D/3D scifi/fantasy RPG, exclusively for MS-DOS PCs. It's made by some of the same people who previously, under the banner of Thalion Software, made Amberstar and Ambermoon, an ambitious series of RPGs that shares some cosmetic similarities with Albion. But despite this overlap, Albion is very much […]
Interviewing the Albion devs
This is a special extra bonus episode! In December we played Albion, the 1995 fantasy/scifi RPG by Blue Byte. We had the chance to speak to Erik Simon and Jurie Horneman, two of the creative forces behind the game. We discuss everything from the early days at the German demoscene, Thalion software, developing Amberstar & […]
One Must Fall: 2097
In 2097 the World Aeronautics & Robotics corporation (W.A.R.) is looking for a suitable representative to watch over Ganymede, the Jupiter moon that will soon be colonised. The Board at WAR has decided that the applicants for the position, being equally qualified, should fight for it. Now, the ten applicants must choose which Human-Assisted Robot […]
Shadow of the Comet
British photographer John T. Parker travels to the isolated New England town of Illsmouth in 1910, to take pictures of Halley's comet. During the previous passing 76 years before, Lord Boleskin had made some interesting discoveries, but he subsequently went insane. Parker has three days to finish Boleskin's research before the comet passes in the […]
SimAnt
Did you ever want to be in control of the entire hive mind of an ant colony? How about taking over the house of some jerk who doesn't even acknowledge your existence and runs you over with his stupid lawn mower? Still not enough? How about gruesome, explicit and very flowery descriptions of death? In […]
Eye of the Beholder
Evil creatures beneath Waterdeep? We can't have any of this. Time for our party of heroes to investigate. But what's that? Just as we enter the sewers, the corridor behind us collapses and we're trapped down here. Will we survive? Find our way out? Will we succeed in our quest to cleanse Waterdeep of whatever […]
The Last Express
Robert Cath hastily jumps off a speeding motorbike onto the Orient Express, as it departs from Paris on the evening of 24 July 1914. He's been invited to join the train by his friend Tyler Whitney, who apparently has made a remarkable deal and wants to tell Robert all about it. But as soon as […]
Little Big Adventure
Evil dictator Dr. Funfrock is ruling the remote planet of Twinsun with an iron fist. And now that talk of the legend of Sendell has been forbidden, you have even been sent to prison for having strange dreams. What a mess! Luckily your ancestors have hidden various magical items for you, which give you a […]
KKND: Krush Kill ‘n Destroy
FMV cutscenes with very quirky humour? Check! Ridiculously over the top scenario? Check! Giant acid-squirting scorpions vs. six-wheeled flame thrower ATVs? Check! In 1997, Beam Software released the first game in the KKnD series. Is it just an unimaginative Command & Conquer reskin clone? Or did it bring something unique to the then still young […]
MechWarrior 2
You're seated in the cockpit, twelve meters above ground, your Mech's 75 tonnes stomping heavily on the desert ground. You're getting close to nav point beta, no sign of the enemy, yet. "Enemy Mech Detected!", your computer tells you in a sterile, cold voice. You arm your missiles and lasers and fire your first salva […]
Quake
There isn't much we need to say to introduce you to Quake. It's Quake, after all. Quake may be one of the most important games crossing the bridge between the "old" and "new" gaming worlds. It still came out as a DOS game, originally, as shareware, rendered fully in software. But it was also there […]
Jones in the Fast Lane
Real life isn't real enough for you? You need the daily treadmill also in your gaming? Well, we got something for you! In Sierra's 1991 game Jones in the Fast Lane, you get to live your spectacular life as an absolutely ordinary person whose biggest goal is to become assistant manager of the paper company […]
Jones in the Fast Lane – International edition
Update: In case it wasn't clear already, this was an april fool's joke. We made an English language podcast about Jones too and will keep the show in English of course. --- Original post: --- It's 1 APRIL again and that means we look at the game we played in February, which in this case […]
Raptor – Call of the Shadows
The Mega-Corps pay well, for those good enough to survive. They call you into the shadows with dreams of wealth, and you answer, the only way you know how. Apogee's 1994 vertical shooter Raptor - Call of the Shadows was a game that impressed many young players back in the day with its slick graphics, […]
Space Quest
What have you gotten yourself into this time, Roger Wilco? You wanted to have an easy, laid back job as a janitor on a space ship, but somehow it all went straight to crazy land the moment a bunch of space pirates came to take away a mysterious device you wouldn't understand anyway. Will you […]
Transport Tycoon
Did you really, really want a model train set as a kid, with a landscape modeled after your preferences, stations where you want them and amazing trains that you control? Was it absolutely out of reach for you as well? Well, thanks to Chris Sawyer's Transport Tycoon, we got what we wanted in the end, […]
Hugo’s House of Horrors
Oh no! First Penelope is kidnapped by the evil Dr. Hammerstein, then your uncle Horace is murdered and finally, you crash your airplane in the South American jungle where Penelope gets bitten by a venomous spider! Join us as we explore the world of the Hugo series, made for the most part by one man […]
Carmageddon
Hang on to yer helmet while we drive over a couple pedestrians and cows and try to wreck the other drivers in Stainless Software's 1997 cult classic "Carmageddon". Join us as we try to figure out what the whole hype was about, exactly how far over the top this game really is and whether this […]
Star Trek: 25th Anniversary
It's time for round four of our "year of the adventure game"! So far we've covered Day of the Tentacle, Lost Eden and Simon the Sorcerer, but now it's time to go beyond the stars with Interplay's 1992 Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the original series. Originally released on floppy disk […]
The Lost Vikings
Back when Blizzard Entertainment was still known as Silicon & Synapse, they made a funny looking puzzle-platformer called The Lost Vikings. It's hard as nails, utterly unfair, but also weirdly kind of compelling. What more can we say about it? Listen to find out! Joining hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") for this episode are […]
Simon the Sorcerer
Calypso needs your help! The evil sorcerer Sordid has turned him (and a couple other people) into stone. You need to become a Wizard and save the day in Adventure Soft's 1993 graphical adventure hit "Simon the Sorcerer"! Joining hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") for this episode is Richard ("Pix"). [ download mp3 ] […]
Syndicate
In May we played Syndicate, the 1993 tactical shooter game by Bullfrog. Set in a futuristic dystopian cyberpunk world where governments have been replaced by corporations, it's quite a bit grittier than many of Bullfrog's other titles. But is it fun? Listen to find out! Joining host Martijn ("Tijn") for this episode are Rob ("Spoonboy") […]
Lost Eden
Prince Adam of Mo, Eloy, Dina and yet more of their friends try to unite Dinosaurs and Humans in an attempt to save the world from the evil Morkus Rex, who, together with his army of Tyrannosaurs, threatens to kill them all. Join us as we guide them towards victory and find out what the […]
Rise of the Triad
Join us as we side with the High-Risk United Nations Taskforce and try to rid the world of evil El Oscuro's cult who wants to destroy Los Angeles using their "transmitter" in Apogee's 1995 first person shooter "Rise of the Triad". Joining hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") for this episode are Björn ("TigerQuoll") and […]
Day of the Tentacle
Well, you know what they say: "If you want to save the world, you gotta push a few old ladies down the stairs" - and that's exactly what we did! Join us as we save the world from the evil Purple Tentacle in LucasArts' 1993 absolute masterpiece Day of the Tentacle. This is not a […]
[April Fools’] Automated Episode: DOTT & MM
Well, turns out we weren't quite ready yet to deprecate you of our lovely voices. I guess we'll keep making podcasts the classic ("lame") way. Thanks for all the nice comments about this episode, it was a lot of fun to make 🙂 (this post has been automatically generated on April 1, 2021) Hello. This […]
Interview with David Fox
To kick off the DOS Game Club "Year of the Adventure Game" with a bang, we have a special episode for you all: an interview with David Fox! We recently got the chance to talk to him about the early days of developing adventure games at Lucas, where he was one of the first people […]
Master of Magic
Who likes turn based strategy games? WE DO! But we think we're not alone in that. Simtex' 1994 4X classic Master of Magic is seen by many as one of the hidden gems of the genre often compared to "Civilization with Magic", but does that hold up? Or is it actually more than that? We're […]
Skiing Games
How many Skiing games are there for DOS? We don't know for sure, but we believe the number is 13. And we tried them all! There are some that probably everybody knows about, like The Games: Winter Challenge, even though people probably thought that game was actually called "Winter Games". Far from it though, that's […]
Street Rod
In November we played STREET ROD, a quirky little racing game that's all about 1960s hot rods, released in 1989 by California Dreams. Sounds pretty American, right? Turns out, this game was actually developed in Soviet-controlled Poland, behind the iron curtain! Learn all about what makes this game interesting in this episode of the DOS […]
Ečstatica
Northern Europe, 928 AD. A thirsty traveler, a wolf howling in the distance, and a seemingly deserted village. Or is it? Ečstatica is a 3D survival horror game with a very unique look: Instead of polygons, everything is made out of ellipsoids. Join us in our adventure to restore the village and defeat evil demons. […]
Wing Commander
Thirty years ago, on 26 September 1990, Origin Systems released Wing Commander for MS-DOS, the first game in what would be a very long-running and expansive series of prominent videogames. Last September we played it with the club to see what it's all about and whether it holds up today. Two DGC veterans join hosts […]
Z
In August we played Z, one of the hardest-to-google games on the planet. Unless you know it's from the Bitmap Brothers, which you now do! But is the game also noteworthy for it's quality gameplay and fancy FMV cutscenes telling an exciting story? Well, find out! Joining hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") in this […]
Jill of the Jungle
We spent our July playing Jill of the Jungle, one of the big milestones in PC gaming history for making Epic Megagames actually "mega" and allowing them to build all those future games we all so dearly love. But is Jill itself a noteworthy game? Or do we need the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia to […]
Frederik Pohl’s Gateway
Hello everyone! Last June we spent playing our first text adventure with the club. Incredible that we never did one before, so good thing we got that sorted. It's a genre that can be difficult to get into, so we decided to pick a very accessible game: Frederik Pohl's Gateway, by Legend Entertainment, released in […]
Pinball!
Greetings DOS fans, Last May we featured not one, but many games. All of the same genre: PINBALL! Helping Florian ("rnlf") and Martijn ("Tijn") out are two very knowledgeable experts. First of all DGC regular Tim ("Spacefarer"), who has made an elaborate video series covering the history of pinball videogames, from the very basic beginnings […]
System Shock
Welcome to my death machine, interloper! My plans have come to fruition prematurely, quite to my satisfaction. You have my thanks, hacker. Let me show you the destruction podcast episode you I have brought upon the planet Earth. Martijn and Florian are joined by David ("evilcommiedictator") and Jozef ("yozy") in their fight against SHODAN in […]
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