Kroz
''Kroz'' is a series of Roguelike video games created by Scott Miller for IBM PC compatibles. The first episode in the series, ''Kingdom of Kroz'', was released in 1987 as Apogee Software's first game. It was also published on ''Big Blue Disk'' #20. ''Kroz'' introduced the scheme of the first episode being free and charging money for additional episodes, a technique which defined the business model for Apogee and was adopted by other MS-DOS shareware publishers. The games were discontinued in 1999. In March 2009, the whole ''Kroz'' series was released as freeware by Apogee, and the source code was released as free software under the GPL-2.0-or-later license. Gameplay The object of the game is to survive numerous levels of attacking monsters and ultimately find the priceless Magical Amulet of Kroz. The player character collects gems as they go; each time a monster touches them, they lose a gem and the monster dies. The character's main defense consists of whips which can be use ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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3D Realms
3D Realms Entertainment ApS is a video game publisher based in Aalborg, Denmark. Scott Miller founded the company in his parents' home in Garland, Texas, in 1987 as Apogee Software Productions to release his game '' Kingdom of Kroz''. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the company popularized a distribution model where each game consists of three episodes, with the first given away free as shareware and the other two available for purchase. '' Duke Nukem'' was a major franchise created by Apogee to use this model, and Apogee published Commander Keen and Wolfenstein 3D the same way. Apogee began using the brand name 3D Realms for its 3D games in 1994, and in 1996 rebranded the company itself to 3D Realms to focus on traditionally-published 3D titles. ''Duke Nukem 3D'' (1996) was released under this name to great success. 3D Realms largely ceased its publishing and development operations afterwards to focus on two extensively delayed games: ''Prey'' (2006), which was under devel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Scott Miller (entrepreneur)
Scott Miller (born 1961) is an American video game designer, programmer, and entrepreneur best known for founding Apogee Software (which later became 3D Realms) in 1987. Starting with the ''Kroz (series), Kroz'' series for MS-DOS from that year, Miller pioneered the concept of giving away the first game in a trilogy—distributed freely as shareware—with the opportunity to purchase the remaining two episodes. This method became the standard distribution method for Apogee. Competitors such as Epic MegaGames later adopted the same business model. Biography Growing up, Miller lived with his father, Boyd Miller, an engineer at NASA who worked on the Apollo program, Apollo and Project Gemini, Gemini programs. Miller began writing video games in 1975 on a Wang 2200 while living in Australia. He wrote several MS-DOS games that circulated widely on Bulletin board system, BBS file bases: ''Computer Quiz'', ''Astronomy Quiz'', ''BASIC Quiz'', ''Beyond the Titanic'', ''Supernova ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Shareware
Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. Shareware is often offered as a download from a website. Shareware differs from freeware, which is fully-featured software distributed at no cost to the user but without source code being made available; and free and open-source software, in which the source code is freely available for anyone to inspect and alter. There are many types of shareware and, while they may not require an initial up-front payment, many are intended to generate revenue in one way or another. Some limit use to personal non- commercial purposes only, with purchase of a license required for use in a business enterprise. The software itself may be time-limited, or it may remind the user that payment would be appreciated. Types of shareware Trialware Trialware ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Apogee Games
An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two extreme values. Apsides pertaining to orbits around different bodies have distinct names to differentiate themselves from other apsides. Apsides pertaining to geocentric orbits, orbits around the Earth, are at the farthest point called the ''apogee'', and at the nearest point the ''perigee'', like with orbits of satellites and the Moon around Earth. Apsides pertaining to orbits around the Sun are named ''aphelion'' for the farthest and ''perihelion'' for the nearest point in a heliocentric orbit. Earth's two apsides are the farthest point, ''aphelion'', and the nearest point, ''perihelion'', of its orbit around the host Sun. The terms ''aphelion'' and ''perihelion'' apply in the same way to the orbits of Jupiter and the other planets, the comets, and the asteroids of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1987 Video Games
Events January * January 1 – Bolivia reintroduces the Boliviano currency. * January 2 – Chadian–Libyan conflict – Battle of Fada: The Chadian army destroys a Libyan armoured brigade. * January 3 – Afghan leader Mohammad Najibullah says that Afghanistan's 1978 Communist revolution is "not reversible," and that any opposition parties will have to align with Communist goals. * January 4 – ** 1987 Maryland train collision: An Amtrak train en route from Washington, D.C. to Boston collides with Conrail engines at Chase, Maryland, United States, killing 16 people. ** Televangelist Oral Roberts announces to his viewers that unless they donate $8 million to his ministry by March 31, God will "call imhome." * January 15 – Hu Yaobang, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, is forced into retirement by political conservatives. * January 16 – León Febres Cordero, president of Ecuador, is kidnapped for 11 hours by followers of imprisoned general Frank ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Epic Games
Epic Games, Inc. is an American Video game developer, video game and software development, software developer and video game publisher, publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney (game developer), Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, Maryland. Following its first commercial video game release, ''ZZT'' (1991), the company became Epic MegaGames, Inc. in early 1992 and brought on Mark Rein (software executive), Mark Rein, who has been its vice president since. After moving the headquarters to Cary in 1999, the studio changed its name to Epic Games. Epic Games developed Unreal Engine, a commercially available game engine which also powers its internally developed video games like ''Fortnite'' and the ''Unreal (video game series), Unreal'', ''Gears of War'', and ''Infinity Blade'' series. In 2014, Unreal Engine was named the "most successful videogame engine" by ''Guinness World Rec ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bulletin Board Systems
A bulletin board system (BBS), also called a computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user performs functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users through public message boards and sometimes via direct chatting. In the early 1980s, message networks such as FidoNet were developed to provide services such as NetMail, which is similar to internet-based email. Many BBSes also offered online games in which users could compete with each other. BBSes with multiple phone lines often provided chat rooms, allowing users to interact with each other. Bulletin board systems were in many ways a precursor to the modern form of the World Wide Web, social networks, and other aspects of the Internet. Low-cost, high-performance asynchronous modems drove the use of online services and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gamasutra
''Game Developer'' (known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021) is a website created in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa TechTarget and acted as the online sister publication to the print magazine '' Game Developer'' prior to the latter's closure in 2013. Site sections ''Game Developer'' publishes daily news, features like post-game post-mortems and critical essays from developers, and user-submitted blog posts. The articles can be filtered by topic (All, Console/ PC, Social/Online, Smartphone/ Tablet, Independent, Serious) and category (Programming, Art, Audio, Design, Production, Biz (Business)/Marketing). The site has an online storefront for books on game design, RSS feeds and the website's Twitter account. The site also has a section for users to apply for contracted work and open positions at various development studios. Trade Center Resource While it does post news found on typical video game websites, ''Game Devel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Polygon (website)
''Polygon'' is an American entertainment website created by Vox Media covering video games, movies, television, and other popular culture. At its October 2012 launch as Vox Media's third property, ''Polygon'' sought to distinguish itself by focusing on the stories of the people behind video games and long-form magazine-style feature articles. The site was built over the course of ten months by eight co-founding editors which included the editors-in-chief of the gaming sites '' Joystiq'', '' Kotaku'' and '' The Escapist''. Vox Media produced a documentary series on the founding of the site. In May 2025, ''Polygon'' was sold to Valnet. History Vox Media (2012–2025) The gaming blog ''Polygon'' was launched on October 24, 2012, as Vox Media's third property. The site grew from technology blog ''The Verge'', which was launched a year earlier as an outgrowth of sports blog network ''SB Nation'' before Vox Media was formed. Vox Media's chief executive officer, Jim Bankoff, a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Softdisk
Softdisk was a computer program, software and Internet company based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Founded in 1981, its original products were disk magazines (which they termed "magazettes", for "magazine on diskette"). It was affiliated and partly owned by paper magazine ''Softalk'' at founding, but survived its demise. The company has been known by a variety of names, including ''Softdisk Magazette'', ''Softdisk Publishing'', ''Softdisk, Inc.'', ''Softdisk Internet Services'', ''Softdisk, L.L.C.'', and ''Magazines On Disk''. Softdisk is the former workplace of several of the founders of id Software. Publications Publications included ''Softdisk (disk magazine), Softdisk'' for the Apple II; ''Loadstar (magazine), Loadstar'' for the Commodore 64; ''Big Blue Disk'' (later ''On Disk Monthly'' and ''Softdisk PC''), ''The Gamer’s Edge'', and ''PC Business Disk'' for the IBM PC; ''Diskworld'' (later ''Softdisk for Mac'') and ''DTPublisher'' (specializing in desktop publishing) for t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Disk Magazine
A disk magazine, colloquially known as a diskmag or diskzine, is a magazine that is distributed in electronic form to be read using computers. These had some popularity in the 1980s and 1990s as periodicals distributed on floppy disk, hence their name. The rise of the Internet in the late 1990s caused them to be superseded almost entirely by online publications, which are sometimes still called "diskmags" despite the lack of physical disks. Defining characteristics A unique and defining characteristic about a diskmag in contrast to a typical ASCII "zine" or "t-file" (or even "g-file") is that a diskmag usually comes housed as an executable program file that will only run on a specific hardware platform. A diskmag tends to have an aesthetically appealing and custom graphical user interface (or even interfaces), background music and other features that take advantage of the hardware platform the diskmag was coded for. Diskmags have been written for many platforms, ranging f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Code Page 437
Code page 437 ( CCSID 437) is the character set of the original IBM PC (personal computer). It is also known as CP437, OEM-US, OEM 437, PC-8, or MS-DOS Latin US. The set includes all printable ASCII characters as well as some accented letters (diacritics), Greek letters, icons, and line-drawing symbols. It is sometimes referred to as the "OEM font" or "high ASCII", or as "extended ASCII" (one of many mutually incompatible ASCII extensions). This character set remains the primary set in the core of any EGA and VGA-compatible graphics card. As such, text shown when a PC reboots, before fonts can be loaded and rendered, is typically rendered using this character set. Many file formats developed at the time of the IBM PC are based on code page 437 as well. Display adapters The original IBM PC contained this font as a 9×14 pixels-per-character font stored in the ROM of the IBM Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA) and an 8×8 pixels-per-character font of the Color Graphics Adapter ( ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |