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[Cubeburner]

Hey there!

When I was younger, I had a disc of 1000 games in 1 which was published by Nodtronics which apparently are defunct (at least their Australian branch). What the disc contained was many shareware/trial versions of games, and I remember there was a few games on that disc that I really enjoyed.

The game I was trying to find was a MS-DOS game that had VGA graphics and scrolling - and this is where my memory starts exhibiting bad sectors - but the game was an exploration scroller. From what I can remember, you controlled a R2-D2 looking little capsule robot on the screen, and you went around to different locations, collecting keys to open colour-coded doors and hitting switches.

It had no major backgrounds filling the screen, most of the time the screen was black, or a different fill colour in the event you fell into an ocean or whatever. If you hit a enemy or fell into a crater, then you'd get a PC Speaker "Boom" sound, and you'd be respawned where you entered the area, or your last save point (I believe). Music was literally just a quiet... amibent track (?) that had something like a clack on wood as a echo. Very spacey.

Oh, and I think there was a "Whoop" sound if you used the jet pack.

Bottom of the screen contained your money, keys and other status things. If only my memory allowed me to recall that screen layout...!

Since the game was shareware, I used to get a "Please buy this game for $20 USD to remove this notice. We will now return you to the title screen." that I used to get around by saving and loading straight away when I hit "Start Game". I can't remember the exact wording.

If only I had the disc... Sadly it was trashed as it got scratched many moons ago. Shame.

Here's what I know:
When did you play the game? In the 2000s, when I was in high school. But I know the game was designed for DOS or Windows 9x.
What computer OS did it run on? MS-DOS... Maybe Windows 9x?
What computer did it run on? Uhhh.... Anything that DOS ran on? Maybe IBM compatibles?
What were the graphics like? VGA, 16 colours I believe. Maybe more. 2D.
What was the music like? Amibent/Spacey.
Were there speech? Maybe... cannot remember. Safe to assume no.
What was the gameplay like? Platforming, Adventure. Maybe kinda like Dizzy in some regards (a big world to explore)... Side-scroller would be a safe assumption.

It's been ages since I've played and no matter how hard I try to remember the game title, my memory fails me. I've looked on various websites fruitlessly, so I hope you guys can dig a little for me and point me in the right direction. Thank you!

[Smiling Spectre]

If it is Shareware, you can almost sure that it is on cd.textfiles.org. Problem is, it's quite hard to find exactly your game without idea what it can looks like...

...Well, I tried to seek by myself, but only Robomaze 2 looks similar to your description. It's platformer, with robot and keys. Unfortunately, nothing like R2-D2, but still worth to check.

[Cubeburner]

Originally Posted by Smiling Spectre

If it is Shareware, you can almost sure that it is on cd.textfiles.org. Problem is, it's quite hard to find exactly your game without idea what it can looks like...

...Well, I tried to seek by myself, but only Robomaze 2 looks similar to your description. It's platformer, with robot and keys. Unfortunately, nothing like R2-D2, but still worth to check.

Thanks, i'll look through the discs located there. Unfortunately, the gam you mentioned is not the right one. Now that I think about it, it may have had no scrolling at all... it could have been just single screen.

It was quite the years ago... I just cannot remember the name of it. I know it had a robot, that music, you collected keys and opened doors, it had those sound effects, but it's like a needle in the haystack. If it helps, the graphics were small, like 16x16 or some dimensions like that.

If only I didn't had binned the disc.

[Smiling Spectre]

Is it this disc?

[Cubeburner]

No, unfortunately. As far as I know, it was a green box, with white text and white screenshots (as in, the colours are green, white and some black). The game disc is the same, green and white and some black.

It was designed for Windows 9x. Newer versions seem to be Windows XP onwards.

[Smiling Spectre]

Well, archive.org have handful of similar shovelware. Unfortunately, nothing from Nodtronics, but still. Check this query for example: https://archive.org/details/cdbbsarchive?and[]=1000. But I am afraid, it's not so easy then... :/

[Cubeburner]

Actually, I'm starting to question if it was Nodtronics. I actually got the collection CD via a "Book Club" subscription thing so it might not have been by them, but I swear it was. Looking at way back machine on their website, they don't feature it (even with the oldest version of their website done in horrible Flash Player).

When I popped the disc in, I had to install the launcher, and then the launcher would read the database off the CD and present it in a neat fashion.. The launcher had a green 3D textured feel to it, and the list of games and description boxes were pretty much black and lime green text. On the side, you had "Run from disc", "Save to HD", "Order Info", "Help" and Exit. The menu would make a whoosh noise over the buttons, and make a clunk when you clicked one of the themed buttons.

It was from there I found the game. However, I've just lost the name of the game, and well... it's gone to the mists of time.

It was definitely shareware though, because I remember it had other games like Ooze (or Blob?) which you had to get a blob thing back to his tub, Dynamite Joe (another game that was fun as heck to play, even with the demo limitations) and some trivia slot machines (WinTrivia Slots?). Oh, and it also had shareware Earthworm Jim on it.

I may not be able to remember the exact game, but I can remember what the disc looked like and the launcher too.

[Smiling Spectre]

Well, you can try Google then. Just in case someone scanned it.