Bomb Jack, Dahku and Kralizec Tetris for free

Cool! Thanks for making the games freely available!

Great games, great guys!

Applause! Big applauses!

Dang, I bought those games, created dsk images from them and didn't have time to play them yet.
And now they are already declared free...
I could have saved myself some euro's

While obviously great news for those who didn't have thse games yet, I was a bit surprised to read this. Why make a pay-game when it'll become freeware a year later? While the current MSX-scene is not highly commercial and strict, it still is not a good signal. Next time ppl might say: "nah, I'll wait half a year orso, and it'll be free". Anyhoo, it's the choice of the creators (and distributors I hope)..

(2ct)

I didn't buy those games but I agree that they have been declared freeware quite fast.

Well, I am happy

21890 points on first-time tetris tho ^_^

1: After testing those promos, I didn't like Dahku much. Bomb Jack however is a very nice port, and I hesistated buying it. I ended up not buying it, since I'm not an active MSX gamesplayer; I'd just play the arcade version in MAME instead.
2: no
3: Depends. Honestly, asking money for a port (or a translation, eg. Delta Soft) you don't own the rights of is, to say the least, disrespectful to the original owner.

1. After testing them, were they bad games and did not deserve to be bought?

Their games are very decent and polished! Definitely worth buying (if you're into buying that is). I otoh am not really a gamer, I like to make games, but I rarely play games. So count me out for any typical poll. Still I think these games have a certain value which would be enough to declare it a pay-game.
A game worth playing is a game worth paying..

2. Was it a problem of bad advertising? (were these games hard to get?)

Afaik these games could be bought from Bitwise on fairs, I'd say that makes the game obtainable for us Dutchies, dunno how things are arranged in other countries. Naturally I can't remember being bombed with Kralizec advertisements 'n stuff, so maybe advertising could be better? otoh, such a ting could be seen as spam perhaps. It's a bit hard to estimate. The real question is -I think- not so much whether Kralizec games are good, cheap, overpriced or whatever, but whether the modern MSX'er wants to pay for new MSX software anyway. Ppl seem to be paying good money for old games on ebay (konami games, microcabins, falcoms etc.), but those are collectables and have a certain historical -and emotional- value. Recent games have been made by sceners, with which I don't mean they're bad (I think some of the scene MSX1 games are *better* than what we saw from companies in the 80's), but because they're "from the scene", there's this subjective feeling around it that it should be freeware in the first place! I think this last point is quite important. Come think of it: our MSX'es don't really need upgrades (like PC's), MRC is free, other fora are free, (most) emulators are free, there's a lot of free stuff in the MRC database, MSXDev games are free, MRC challenge games are -ofcoz- free, many ppl will regard their 1000 disks with JP warez-games as free, so in short: our MSX-life is pretty free all-in. Even small scene-things that sold in the 90's (musicdisks, demos) are more or less free these days. In the old days you at least needed a disk and a label, and perhaps a box. Now we have internet, and most ppl will be content with a .DSK of it. When so many things are free, it's an act of courage to *sell* something, and it's noble to *buy* something, but isn't buying simply dying, because many ppl work for free these days?

3. If you actually (after having tested them) think they do deserve to spend some euros on them, will you buy next productions?

no, see 1

Saeba, these are my answers to your questions:

1. Bomb Jack is an excellent MSX2 port from the arcade but I don't like the original game itself. Something like Abu Simbel Profanation for MSX2, that version is excellent but I don't like very much the original game (and this one was sold only online, without package). And about Dahku, after playing the promo, it did not convinced me. But I would pay anything for cartridge versions of The Cure, Kralizec Tetris, Operation Wolf Extended and the upcoming Manbow 2.
2. No.
3. If I like their new productions of course I will buy them!

Yes, Kralizec Tetris was already for free. It is included in the Pazos' MultiROM cartridge too. Even if it is the best tetris ever made for MSX, it should have more extras to get it for sale, IMO. But I guess they thought the same and finished it just for fun.

Don't worry, Samor, you had 2 years to buy BJ, so it would be stupid to buy it after it was declared freeware.

As I see for your reactions, it is not a matter of price, which is good, since I considerate them as really cheap.

About the translations, yes, it is wiser to deliver just the patch. But most of people don't have the originals (which are copyprotected most of times), and having copied DSKs don't help. Commonly people have different revisions of games, bad dumps, cracked versions, etc. So it could be a problem, in this case. In 90s nobody complained about selling translations together with the game. But of course, now it seems different.

Well, I do know more the Spanish translations (Pacho Software, Teo & Frans Lopez del Castillo, Manuel Pazos...). I don't remember if all these ones came as patch disk, but I don't think so. In fact, I just remember 1 patch from Pacho Soft, it was for Dragon Slayer VI. Patches back then were dangerous if you had a HD (assuming A: was the diskdrive always).

I forgot it... those translated games were normally more than 1 disk and they were not cheap back then, so I suppose it was better for Oasis to sell just 1 disk.

I think thats a great move!
I bought DK and BJ 5 month ago but.... well, another time I will have more luck

Thanks Kralizek!