Maximum PC/Fogware Publishing games

[RocketDude]

One day, several years ago, I browsed through the drawers of a desk on which a humble (and kinda crappy) Shuttle computer once rested. I found a disk case full of CDs, all of which were for computer games once distributed by Maximum PC (a magazine about PCs, obviously) in 2002 or so (all of these disks said "Copyright 2002" on them). Most or all of these were titles published by Fogware Publishing, and all of them ran on Win98 and ME and some ran on XP and 2000. I was bored one Summer and decided to try some of them. My opinion on them ranged from "meh" to "good."

 

Cut to today, and I tried searching on the web about these games. No luck at all. So I'm gonna namedrop some of the titles and see if anyone knows about this peculiar collection:

 

-War of the Elements (kind of an RPG-ish game, where everyone is in giant robots and everything looks like it was lifted from an 80's-90's mecha anime. I liked this the most back then because it had some sort of story and had more substance compared to the other games. Sadly, unlike the other titles here, I lost the disk for it).

-Fur Puppies (platformer about, you guessed it, puppies).

-DownStone.

-Hong Kong Mahjong (a Mahjong game where there's gambling involved. Is that an actual way to play it?).

-Star Miner (2D top-down maze shooter).

-Trax-The Robot Wars.

-Blasturon.

-Winthorp's Mansion.

-Rolling Marbles (sounds like a Marble Madness rip-off).

 

I apologize for the size of this post.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Post size is okay. We don't mind large posts as long as they are well structured and not one big massive wall of text.

 

Those games definitely sound obscure. I would imagine this magazine would often take in indie games, since a lot of computer magazines do, even games made by readers, so that they would have a bigger selection of them. I've got a lot of obscure games as well on magazine CD's.

[RocketDude]

Yeah, I guess the aim was to increase awareness or something, since these were games you probably couldn't even find in a store.

 

If only Maximum PC had an archive of them...

[Alyxx Thorne]

Yeah, there were a lot of obscure games you could order via mail, but it wasn't exactly shelfware.

[RocketDude]

Still wish I could find that War Of The Elements disk...I actually liked that game.

[BTGBullseye]

You can find most of these on Abandonware sites, and usually on torrents.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Problem is finding it. There's a game called Elements of War which makes it confusing to find the right game.

[RocketDude]

Yeah, it's why I thought that these must have been some hella obscure games because attempting to search for "War of the Elements" turned up with some WOW TCG.

 

"Blasturon" turned up nothing on YouTube.

 

Abandonware's not a bad idea, though.

[Alyxx Thorne]

http://www.abandonia.com/ is a good place to start.

[RocketDude]

Hmm, nothing there, it seems.

[Alyxx Thorne]

I found this on MobyGames: http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/hong-kong-mahjong-pro

 

Seems to maybe be the Hong Kong Mahjong game you mentioned.

 

Also found a hit for Trax Robot Wars: http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/trax-the-robot-wars

 

And here's an ebay link: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=trax+robot+wars&_sacat=0

 

Seems like Trax Robot Wars is really easy to find and really cheap as well.

 

While these links won't let you play these games, they give a lot of information about them, such as the companies behind them and which year they came out, and eBay is also a great place to find used games, often obscure ones (I bought Malice for Quake there). I couldn't get any hits on the other titles you mentioned though.

[BTGBullseye]

Are these right?

 

Fur Puppies: http://www.gamesoftusa.com/titles/pocketware/LCPOCFUPUJ

DownStone: http://www.amazon.co.uk/downstone-PC-Video-Games/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=DOWNSTONE%20Downstone&rh=n%3A300703%2Ck%3ADOWNSTONE%20Downstone&page=1

Hong Kong Mahjong: http://www.ninedragons.com/

Star Miner: http://games.softpedia.com/get/Freeware-Games/Star-Miner.shtml

Winthorpe's Mansion: http://www.gamerevolution.com/download/winthorps-mansion

Rolling Marbles: http://www.tibosoftware.com/rolling-marbles.htm

 

(couldn't find any decent sites for Blasturon, but there were quite a few possibles in my search if you're interested)

[Alyxx Thorne]

Still nothing on War of the Elements though.

[BTGBullseye]

Same... Too many games or other things with similar names.

[RocketDude]

Oh, wow, you guys did find a bunch!

 

Well, I'm not sure if I ever want to go back to these games, but hey, if anyone here happens to do a web series on obscure games, well, now they have plenty of material.

[Alyxx Thorne]

If you ever want to go back to them though, we'll always be happy to help.

[avi666]

Hey guys... I've got it

War of the elements... Huben drake Blue wing... n 3 robots. the earth wind & Lightning white female robot. Now there a problem how do i share it. I'm not able to copy paste the contents of the CD btw its jus 160MB & works Nicely.

p.s. [email protected]

[RocketDude]

Is that legal?

[BTGBullseye]

Is that legal?

If the software is no longer supported by the company that holds the copyright it is abandonware, and is legally shared in any form with anyone.

[Abardon]

Hello everyone. I registered just to say I have War of the Elements and about 20+ other Fogware games. If there is any other Fogware game you need just post it here.