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[Burger Meister]

Home of the Underdogs was the first site to get me into the Abandonware Scene. I remember when I first found it, I was looking for games to run on my pc (at the time was a weak ass pentium 2). HOTU had everything I was looking for, including all of the games from my childhood. This was before the ESA came around with a huge butthurt pissing the abandonware community off. I think everybody knew this site was coming to an end, the lack of updates since what, like 2006? The downtime and then finally the lack of DL/screenshots.

What I'm getting to is that HOTU is probably the greatest site I have ever visited (no offence Abandonia, you are great too!) in my whole "career" of surfing the web since I was a wee lad.

RIP HOTU, YOU WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN!

[arete]

Rest in Peace, HotU. You will be remembered... Especially as the site where I got Discworld, for one.

The magic will live on.

[Erich Zann]

Darn, I don't even WANT to count the hours I spent browsing their database five-six years ago, when I first discovered them. Astounding one, it was.

I didn't really mind the lack of updates as of late, as I doubt anyone really went around playing/seeing everything they had... I only hope they got back-ups of all the data, if only for them.

Now, I guess I can erase the bookmarks of those games I still hadn't got off them.

[Dave]

What a shame...we tried to contact them and it seems there is something under developement. Something can be saved.
Anyway game lovers from HOTU are all invited here.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Anyone who has downloaded any games or gamebooks from HOTU is asked for contact.
I'm trying to rebuild a comprehensive base of HOTU's reviews using contents from The Internet Archive's database, and of it's downloads using archives stored by various people.

HOTU is dead... all hail HOTU.

[Morrin]

I have to say, that I have never felt this sad about a website being dead.
Rest in peace HOTU, I and we will remember you forever..

But who knows, maybe the site could have another change.

[Robsie]

I never thought i would see one day the pioneer HOTU to disappear into the internet abyss like this.

Despite the lack of updates in years as the owner deserted the place not interested anymore, there was always the immense content available as she continued to generously pay for the hosting.

But after their 5000 games , manuals extras .. (and some not to be found on any other abandonware dedicaced websites) that had disappeared in server corruption some months ago, now on top of this tremendous catastrophe, all the reviews have followed the fall with the host bankrupt.

Along the years, there had been some people on their boards wanting to restore HOTU somehow in a new project, but they usually all disappeared before actually doing anything.

Oldcade was actually a real hope to see the HOTU content to be saved with the games themselves, the extra and manuals, and the reviews too, but Oldcade disappeared some months ago too.

Really sad to see HOTU ending like this.
archive.org can allow to see some of the reviews, but the content is gone sadly.

[RRS]

I understand that full restoration of Underdogs may be problematic (due to questionable legality of abandonware concept itself) but what must be preserved is the database & reviews. With all respect to abandonia & other sites, HOTU was invaluable for finding stuff you forgot because of its themes & other cataloguing features.

Doesn't she have any backup of the site offline? IIRC she worked in banking, so she should have the right mind for regular backups, right? Damn, that site was big, but don't tell me a DVD wouldn't hold at least the review portion? e.g.: I don't have the latest snapshot of my own dead site, yet I do have outdated copy on CD.

And before we start any recovery process on our own, wouldn't it be appropriate to at least contact her?

Originally Posted by The Fifth Horseman

Anyone who has downloaded any games or gamebooks from HOTU is asked for contact.
I'm trying to rebuild a comprehensive base of HOTU's reviews using contents from The Internet Archive's database, and of it's downloads using archives stored by various people.

If my humble person may be of any help... during my "modem years" I was saving everything (to read offline) so I have ~ 220 review pages... maybe some d/ls too

[rabadi]

Standing ovation for HOTU. The site was the one which introduced me to the abandonware scene, and one which in turn led me to Abandonia (I was playing Kyrandia III downloaded from HOTU, and encountered problem because of incomplete archive. After googling for some time, I found Abandonia, and got Wendymaree's help with the game).

[WilliamC23]

I think we all saw it coming, especially after the files died.