ROSS'S GAME DUNGEON: ARMED & DELIRIOUS

[freemanphd]

I loved this episode. I think it may be my favorite out of all of your videos.

[GordonFreeman]

Just wanna ask if anyone knows, but is there ANY reason on a multidisk game to spread the game content randomly across five disks, rather than sequentially? It almost seems like they wanted to do a modern RAID array, but couldn't because RAID works by having ALL phyisical drives accessible at once... as well as RAID not existing back then.

[Presence]

Just wanna ask if anyone knows, but is there ANY reason on a multidisk game to spread the game content randomly across five disks, rather than sequentially? It almost seems like they wanted to do a modern RAID array, but couldn't because RAID works by having ALL phyisical drives accessible at once... as well as RAID not existing back then.

 

1. To conceal the optimal order of movement and make the game feel less linear.

2. To arrange the files for space efficiency such that one doesn't have to ship an extra disk.

3. The discs WERE intended to be in sequence, but changes during production now make the game call on assets in a new way. Whoever is making the disks either can't fix the problem or lacks the foresight to predict one.

4. The game is so insanely convoluted there's no point in trying to sort the data. (probable case here)

[danielsangeo]

The "jazz?" at the beginning of the game while Granny is in the house has been stuck in my head for decades since playing this game the first time. Come on, man! Shake me now! Baby, baby!

 

This game was like a fever dream from my childhood. I'm glad Ross covered it.

[Ross Scott]

I have a question for you Ross. You touched on it briefly, but you didn't really explain your personal history with this game. When did you first discover this game and how? What was your initial reaction? What stuck with you initially about it that made you want to come back to it?

 

On a slightly related note, do you see yourself as a sort of video gaming historian? You're bringing to light these really interesting, and often times extreme, examples of oddities from the gaming world that very few people have seen and are usually at risk of being lost to the sands of time. It seems to go in line with your frustration towards dead games because not only are the games no longer playable from a fun factor, but they're also no longer observable from a historical one.

I bought this in a budget bin at Software Etc. It seemed like it had a lot of content and could be interesting. I don't remember my initial reaction aside from it being somewhat intriguing.

 

As for what stuck with me, just look at this game. What motivated me to make a Game Dungeon was that it's barely been mentioned whereas some other weird ones are known across the internet and back. Plus this has a lot of production value. I didn't mention it much, but they really added a lot of little animated details all over the place, almost nothing felt like stock material. It's impressive what they crammed in with the technology at the time. I originally tried to beat this before about 6 years ago with a walkthrough, but gave up once I got to the rabbit's house and realized I had a long ways to go. I had no idea about the 512 combo puzzle until making this episode.

 

And no, I don't think of myself as a gaming historian, my research levels can be woefully inadequate sometimes, I just enjoy games with almost no bias as to how old they are as long as I like elements about them. I like being able to show off oddities in games that cause disbelief though or spicing up the presentation. Clint of Lazy Game Reviews is what I would consider the real deal as far as a game historian.

 

I loved this episode. I think it may be my favorite out of all of your videos.

I think it's the minority of people who will really enjoy this one, but I like being able to have the occasional weirdness peaks like this.

 

The "jazz?" at the beginning of the game while Granny is in the house has been stuck in my head for decades since playing this game the first time. Come on, man! Shake me now! Baby, baby!

 

This game was like a fever dream from my childhood. I'm glad Ross covered it.

I wasn't able to crack their encryption of the game files. I had to get the music by recording it directly in the game, then hitting the load screen as fast as I could to pause the game and prevent the sound effects from playing.

[Gigelinho]

Great episode, but uh-oh:

 

Game Dungeon is going to become more sparse for a little while

 

How much more sparse could Game Dungeon get, it's already been almost two months since the last episode. (Actually three and a half months, if you don't count the follow-up episode)

[BTGBullseye]

How much more sparse could Game Dungeon get, it's already been almost two months since the last episode. (Actually three and a half months, if you don't count the follow-up episode)

Great, now you jinxed it... Now we're going to have another year-long wait like we did with Freeman's Mind.

[Artlav]

I wasn't able to crack their encryption of the game files.

Huh. I wanted to take a try, but the game is not on the pirate bay or any abandonware sites i know of.

 

Anyone knows where i can find a copy?

[Blightmare]

And here I was thinking I was the only person who knew about this game lol. Even made a topic for it in the obscure games forum years ago that no one posted in.

 

That being said, wow I do not remember it being this weird. I was also like 6 when I played it so I didn't get very far and probably repressed a lot of it.

[ScumCoder]

I loved this episode. I think it may be my favorite out of all of your videos.

I think it's the minority of people who will really enjoy this one

 

Well, I, for one, can't say that I loved this episode.

On the contrary. I think I will even go as far as to say that I was disgusted.

 

The worst thing is that it's obvious just how much work Ross dumped into this. The jokes are clever, the sound editing is perfect, the research is thorough.

But the game itself just feels... filthy. I haven't played it, but just watching this video was enough for me to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?start=28&v=ItuySdlONXM.

 

Also, the fact that it was developed by a Jewish studio is not helping me to keep my inner antisemite down.

[Artlav]

So, i got the game and figured out how to decode the sound files.

 

The question is - do anyone actually want the soundtrack, or was it some idle wondering?

Bonus question - what would be the legality of posting it?

[Forgot_My_Account]

So, i got the game and figured out how to decode the sound files.

 

The question is - do anyone actually want the soundtrack, or was it some idle wondering?

Bonus question - what would be the legality of posting it?

 

It's safely in abandonware territory. Soundtracks for video games and movies isn't a big thing in Israel, so even if it weren't abandonware - they likely wouldn't have cared about it much.

[DanDeath]

So, i got the game and figured out how to decode the sound files.

 

The question is - do anyone actually want the soundtrack, or was it some idle wondering?

 

Little bit of both, but yes, I'd like the soundtrack please and thank you.

[Artlav]

Ok, it's going on smoothly so far, even though the file formats are a bit demented as well...

 

It would be about 700 Mb of sound files. Any ideas on where should i put them?

Dropbox, i guess?

[ThatDarnOwl]

Just wanna ask if anyone knows, but is there ANY reason on a multidisk game to spread the game content randomly across five disks, rather than sequentially? It almost seems like they wanted to do a modern RAID array, but couldn't because RAID works by having ALL phyisical drives accessible at once... as well as RAID not existing back then.

 

It's usually not random. As Ross said in the video they put the content on the disk in such a way to try and minimize disk swaps.

 

Another factor is usually compression. IE: One FMV from this area can't fit on the disk so you have to shuffle things around. You can see it with a bunch of FMV games from this era like Ripper.

[Artlav]

Another question: To mp3 or not to mp3?

It's 900 Mb of WAVs, against 165 Mb of MP3s.

[ThatDarnOwl]

Another question: To mp3 or not to mp3?

It's 900 Mb of WAVs, against 165 Mb of MP3s.

 

It depends on how much compression you want. Typically people will prefer WAVs especially if they have expensive sound setups that benefit from it.

 

bare in mind the OST is likely already compressed, adding more compression ontop of that will make it sound noticeably worse.

[Artlav]

Ok, raw WAVs it is.

 

Uploaded to Dropbox, 558 Mb zipped:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/38kamff3b5rrllw/armed_and_delirious_sounds.zip?dl=0

 

Enjoy!

 

bare in mind the OST is likely already compressed

I dunno, the data came as PCM samples.

The game feels old enough (and odd enough) to not be aware of sound compression.

[ThatDarnOwl]

The game feels old enough (and odd enough) to not be aware of sound compression.

 

I guarantee the developers were aware of sound compression. Especially given it had FMVs.

[DanDeath]

Ok, raw WAVs it is.

 

Uploaded to Dropbox, 558 Mb zipped:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/38kamff3b5rrllw/armed_and_delirious_sounds.zip?dl=0

 

Enjoy!

 

Thanks! I sorted through all the files to get the music only, I think I got most of them (some ambience may be included):

https://mega.nz/#!8XIVRIRb!1LvWjDYfeZzufbsMVv4uO360lYqgkfc4q9AMLqsnheo

 

The original wav files read as 350kbps at first, but it turns out the bitrate is much lower on most songs. I converted it to flac (probably should have done ogg or mp3) so it won't be as big.