Commander Keen was put on Steam by id Software.

Several months ago, I exchanged some messages with author Rob Swigart, creator (well, writer, others made the code and graphics) of the 1986 computer novel Portal (later published as a book with the title "Portal: A Dataspace Retrieval"). While he doesn't have the sources or the DOS version (I didn't quite gather from the messages if he still has the much superior Amiga version available, he mentioned that he have had it - though I know that the DOS version is available on some abandonware sites), he did claim, in his own words: and (But I imagine Valve might have a thing or two to say about re-releasing a piece of game-like computer software with the work's original title.)

http://www.robswigart.com/

Do you think I or somebody else should make contact with Rob. Given that Activision is here, perhaps GOG could bring the two together in some kind of agreement. I don't know anything about the game, though, and if the DOS version isn't that great, perhaps it's better to let it RIP in abandonland?

And if Valve makes a fuss, f them. The word "Portal" was around LONG before Valve made it popular. :P Plus the full title is "Portal: A Dataspace Retrieval".

You were interested in Big Red Adventure, right? Some good news!

I just heard back from Paolo Costabel via Kung Fu Factory, and he said, "[Ludomedia, featuring some ex-Dynabyte employees] developed The Big Red Adventure and Tequila and Boom Boom before closing in 1997. The rights for these two titles belong to me, therefore I'll be happy to see them rereleased on GOG."

Passed the word onto GOG, it's up to them now. :) I am worried my lack of research will cause problems again, because I'm not sure if there are English translations of these games or not. What I've seen has been Italian.

Anyways, personally I'd like to see a Nippon Safes + BRA bundle, since apparently BRA was the sequel to Nippon. Unfortunately, Paolo doesn't know what happened to the Nippon's rights, but he gave me a lead in Marco Caprelli.

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Cool news from MumboJumbo about SiN!

"We are already looking into this and are in talks with GOG.com as we speak. It is support such as this that helps us make that decision!"

It is support such as this that helps us make that decision!
It is support such as this that helps us make that decision!
It is support such as this that helps us make that decision!
It is support such as this that helps us make that decision!

Surely this is true of other companies, also. :) Do not forget.

The DOS version is not awful (as far as I'm concerned), just that the Amiga version looks a lot nicer (I have only "read" the DOS version, so I cannot compare them beyond looking at screenshots on mobygames). As far as I've understood, the full title was simply "Portal", but the book (released a couple years later) got the subtitle added on.

On the other hand, it isn't so much a game as a slightly interactive novel (you essentially move between different screens and pick options until you hit the one that triggers more of the story to become available, which you then have to move to a specific screen to read - repeat until the end).

If you would be so inclined, I would appreciate if you helped out.

Its great to see so much work going on in identifying the rights holders for these games.
Just remember to factor in any potential 3rd party IP though (for example someone mentioned Micro Machines. Getting that on GOG would mean negotiating with the holder of the rights to the game AND the holder of the rights to the toys (and possibly also with whoever has the current license for making games based on the toys, whoever that might be)
Also consider games that are already available through other digital platforms (Command & Conquer for example is available through the EA Origin service and they are unlikely to let GOG have it for that reason)

In terms of games worth chasing up the rights to, another game I would really like to see on GOG (and may have mentioned in the past) is the excellent game Sentinel Worlds: Future Magic. Wikipedia says the publisher was Electronic Arts so hopefully that would mean confirming the actual rights holder should be fairly simple.

Also, to the guy who mentioned Neuromancer, there's a video game based on one of my favorite books of all time and I didn't know about it... Definitely something I want to see on GOG (assuming that any negotiations that would need to happen with William Gibson can be sorted out)

BRA would be awesome.

Shall I email Appleby, or are you going to handle that yourself?

Also, thanks for the email site! That could come in handy in the future. :) Has anybody emailed Karsten? (I can do it if nobody has.)

Cool! I'm hoping we can figure out who has the rights to Nippon Safes, and make it a bundle deal.

I haven't. But mainly because I have reason to believe that he doesn't have the rights either.
But there's no harm in asking and I could be wrong after all. :-)

http://www.dgray.com/hwpage.htm as I'm guessing you saw. If you really would like to me to make contact, I can try, but those graphics kinda make me go "ugh". The games are only $10, so maybe GOG could talk him down to 5.99.
Do you really feel like these games have a place here?

Yeah, well SCPM mentioned these games so I thought there might be some interest besides myself in them. The wishlist has the first at 81 votes. I read a recent interview with David Gray [url=]http://www.retrodrome.net/index.php/articles/80-interviews/75-joshwoodzy[/url] where he says that the Hugo games were one of the few shareware adventure games and I think that is why a lot of people like myself who grew up playing shareware games on pc because of the cheaper price remember this title so fondly because it was our only option. However, when you compare it to the output of Sierra it doesn't really hold up as well as their quest series.

Nice! Maybe it could be bundled with Willy Beamish instead? Perhaps 5.99 for the two EcoQuest games, 5.99 for the two Dr. Brain games (or is it three?), and 5.99 for Pepper + Willy. :)
- I would be all over this.

Commander Keen was put on Steam by id Software.
- okay that makes sense now. I guess it is going to be awhile before we have them on board.

Same here. I received a VERY nice and long message from the guy who maintains the German Thalion fan site today.

Very cool! I assume it's different from the one Alex Holland is maintaining? *checks* okay, yeah, this a UK one: http://thalion.exotica.org.uk/

Btw, got this email back from Alex:

"
Having talked to the Thalion developers many times over the years. They seem happy that their games are freely available (albeit not 100% legitimately) for fans through various websites.

Non of them has ever said they wanted to try to resell their original games. Not even when the various App Stores for mobile platforms appeared (unlike many games companies which are reselling their games in this space).

But then again they don't own their games.

While I am very curious to know who owns the rights today, if we did find them and they agreed to license their binaries to GOG, non of the profit would find it's way back to the Thalion developers.

Plus it is very likely that they would pursue those like myself who are currently publishing the binaries without a license.

I don't see it as a win for any gamer.

P.S. The DOS versions of Thalion games are pretty poor. Dragonflight has many bugs in it. Amberstar is better but far worse in quality than the Amiga or Atari versions
"

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but as GOG fans of course we find it frustrating.

Yes, good point. My main hope for "3rd Party IP" is GOG getting the D&D license for SSI's Gold Box games.

I'm not always able to factor this in as I'm just going off what Abandonia says, and unless it has a tag like "Dungeons and Dragons series" or it's obvious in the title like "Lord of the Rings", I won't necessarily know for sure whether there are those extra complications or not. But ultimately GOG can figure it out for sure.

Sill nothing back from either Bernd Beyreuther (Project Nomads) or Van Collins (Siege of Avalon) on my LinkedIn requests. I may try to find another person who was involved with Siege of Avalon. In the meantime, if anyone else want to try to reach Bernd through Bigpoint or via Twitter, please do. I know that Piranjade has called Bigpoint and te_lanus has tried Twitter, but as with other efforts here, the more people trying the better.

I have an acquaintance that works at Bigpoint. Will try to tap him tomorrow.

In the meantime: Would you guys be interested in using a database to compile the data you collect? It seems to me that the thread structure here makes it very hard to judge what has already been done on which projects/games.

That would be fantastic, thank you!

As much as I loathe wikis, that may be the best solution here, with so many folks adding and amending. Each game/publisher/series could have its own page then.

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One more LinkedIn request sent, this one to Sande Chen, who was a writer on Siege of Avalon. She is interviewed in the ezine on the SoA open source site, and lists the game in her resume. I have slightly more hope for this linkage, since she and I have people in common and are only 3 degrees apart.