This is the first interesting use of the now-public-domain character that I've seen so far*. The actual first ones I saw were relatively lazy "cartoons turned twisted" horror efforts, as seems to be the norm these days.

*I honestly didn't expect to ever be saying that, having been around to see how they got yet another copyright extension 20 years ago. It's also kind of freaky how that feels like it's passed in the blink of an eye! :shock:

Incidentally, I hope that this momentous event will draw further attention to the fact that the 1933 Mickey short, The Mad Doctor [External Link], was already in the public domain due to them burying it after an outcry at it being too scary (it spoofed the horror films of the era quite well) and thus having forgotten to renew the copyright when they had the chance. It's my favourite of the ancient Mickey shorts (and it still holds up great because it's fantastical and isn't representing a world that no longer exists), and I'm a big fan of mad-scientists as a villain archetype, so I'd love to see something good done with this one, too. :grin:

Quoting: pleasereadthemanualThey do, but it doesn't impact usage of the public domain character as much as popular opinion might have led you to believe. Center for the Study of the Public Domain has a great write-up on Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse, the copyrights and the trademarks and what you can do with him: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/mickey/ [External Link]

Fair warning that this is only interesting to a vanishingly small audience.

I am part of that vanishingly-small audience, so thanks for this! :grin: Will get stuck into reading it soon.

Quoting: F.UltraAs a fun side note Mickey was never big over here and instead Donald was the big Disney character (and we have a Donald special on Christmas Eve every year).

I was always fond of the expanded Disney Duck universe, myself. But, I'll mark myself out as an 80s/90s kid here by noting that Darkwing Duck was and still is my absolute favourite of those. :grin:

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Quoting: TruckStopSantaClausGotta ask
Has anyone Tried playing this on Steam Deck, it being on Flathub should make it super easy (as long as there isn't any issues with controller support)

Quoting: PenglingI haven't tried it yet, but I'll give it a look later. :smile: Hopefully it's not as much of a nuisance as running the original v1.20/v1.23 release of Jazz 2 on the Deck - I didn't have a good experience with that.

Well, that got cut short - searching for it in Discover on the Steam Deck brings up no results. :sad:

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Quoting: tuubiYou're right. I wrote Ghosts 'n' Goblins but was actually thinking of another game I don't quite remember the name of...

At the very least, it probably wasn't Night Walk [External Link], haha! :grin:

Quoting: tuubiBut I guess I made my point anyway.

And added to my games-to-revisit list. :tongue:

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What games are you waiting and hoping will move from Unsupported to Verified one day?

Konami's Anniversary Collection Arcade Classics [External Link]. It's the only Unsupported title I've got - I bought a key in a Fanatical sale for a couple of pounds without thinking to check compatibility first, since I'm so used to Proton usually being a just-works affair for the types of games that I play (and, importantly, for other Konami retro collections that I also own). :tongue:

Though some workarounds exist [External Link], they're very hoop-jumpy (one will only work in desktop-mode, and another requires access to a Windows install), so it's still for all intents and purposes broken.

It's a pity because, being a collection of retro arcade titles, it'd be well-suited for handheld play. The cause is known, at least, so hopefully this one's only a matter of time!

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Quoting: M@GOidBut if you consider how bad most western platformers were, the bar wasn't too high tough.

Quoting: tuubiWhat are you talking about? Some decent to great western platformers (and series) I remember enjoying on my Amiga 500 in the early nineties are Zool, Superfrog, James Pond, Fire and Ice, Leander, Toki, Gods, Chuck Rock, Rick Dangerous, Shadow of the Beast, Ghosts 'n' Goblins, The Addams Family, Disney's Aladdin & Lion King... I must be forgetting a whole load. But you get the idea.

Some real classics in here! :grin: (Though I would note that Ghosts 'n' Goblins was a conversion of a Japanese game. :wink:) And, a little later on the console side, there was the Crash Bandicoot trilogy (US), Croc (UK), and the Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong Land trilogies (UK), just to name a handful of top Western-made platformers from back then. EDIT: And Heart of Darkness (French, spiritual sequel to Another World), as well! :grin:

Granted, there were stinkers like Awesome Possum and Bubsy (both US-made, off of the back of the same craze that gave us Jazz Jackrabbit) and so on, but then again, there were plenty of bad Japanese-made platformers in that era too - they're just not as well-remembered. :tongue:

Quoting: TruckStopSantaClausGotta ask
Has anyone Tried playing this on Steam Deck, it being on Flathub should make it super easy (as long as there isn't any issues with controller support)

I haven't tried it yet, but I'll give it a look later. :smile: Hopefully it's not as much of a nuisance as running the original v1.20/v1.23 release of Jazz 2 on the Deck - I didn't have a good experience with that.

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Quoting: hardpenguinIf I got a dollar for every time I saw an ROG Ally ad in super-mainstream places online...

The musical Christmas ad, using the song "It Had To Be You", was particularly dreadful, if you had the misfortune of seeing that. :tongue:

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyOne pleasant non-parallel is that the attempts are showing few signs of success and Valve is unlikely to fold the way the Linux-based-netbook makers did.

That's very true, and I hope that continues. Also, I hope that we get some real competition as well...

Quoting: StoneColdSpiderAnd even if you hate it..... Competition should mean better Steam Decks in the future........

... As Spider notes, it'll be a very good thing for us to have. :smile:

Though personally I'm not sure if these netbook-wipeout-style efforts count as true competitors yet, since they seem to be coming from a place of trying to stifle the market rather than grow it.

I was in the netbooks community back in the day, and the way things went was downright ugly - not just from how manufacturers were strongarmed into killing the product-category, but also in how shills were sent out to undermine communities from the inside. I really hope that history doesn't repeat itself.

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Sorry MSI, not for me! This'll almost certainly just be another generic Windows box with a poor user experience, and the parallels to how money was thrown at killing Linux netbooks are obvious and growing.

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I've known of this one since it first appeared on the scene, but after waiting a long time for it to mature, I still haven't dived in yet - hopefully for the next revisit! :smile:

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Quoting: Erithe Geoffawards

That is SUCH a great name for The Godawful Awards! :grin: Love it!

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