The lost games (projects that got finished, then vanished)

[DJ Omnimaga]

In programming communities, we saw a lot of things happen to projects, going from being cancelled for various reasons, as well as suffering data losses or both before completion. However, I was wondering if any else of you have ever seen projects actually get finished, but still never see the day (or only do so temporarily)? Such as:

-Projects that gets finished entirely, but are lost in data losses and then never recreated
-Projects that gets finished, but never actually get released to the public for whatever reasons
-Finished projects that gets released to the public, but eventually becomes unavailable anywhere

In my case, I can only think of the following:

-Donjon: Finished in November 2001, but lost in massive data loss a few months later before it ever made it to public.

-Illusiat 4: Finished in January 2002, but knew the same fate as Donjon, along with Illusiat 1, 2, 3 and 2002. Illusiat 1, 2, 3 and 2002, however, do not count, because the first 3 were later re-created from scratch and 2002 never got to reach completion.

-Illusiat 11: Kin Master Quest: Finished in 2006, released one year afterward on Omni and Ticalc.org, but after Omni demise in 2008, followed by my ticalc profile takedown request afterward, my backup of Illusiat 11: Kin Master Quest appeared to be missing. All my other files were fine, though.

-Massacre (pseudo-3D BASIC FPS): Finished in mid-2002, lost in 2004 computer hard drive format and 2002 calc game floppy disk found to be damaged.

-Ultra Snake: Finished in mid-2002, lost a few days after in data loss similar to the Illusiat 1-2-3-4-2002/Donjon one. Afterward, I said Goodbye to MirageOS until Gemini came out...

-And of course anything that was only released on Casio-Scene and Earthforge-based Casio sites (maybe someone can specify any game there if they know any?)

-Drug Wars: Although that one do not really count, but still comes closes to the Illusiat 11 KMQ fate was Drug Wars in 2001. After the TI CD recall, that game was removed from Ticalc.org archives then it became next to impossible to find. To my knowledge, only one single site, GoldFiles, still hosts it anymore, and they got two versionsEDIT: It appears Goldfiles no longer exist . Omni was gonna host it in 2010 before the closing of the RPG section to new uploads, but for some reasons it was either not included in the final upload batch or the staff took it down afterward.

What about you? Did that also ever happen to any of your notable projects?

[Spyro543]

The TI-Basic game Trace I was making had about 20 levels (and i was about to re-release). When I installed a new OS on the TI-Nspire side of my calc, everything on the 84+ side disapearred, so that....yeah.

Also about a year ago, I was making an RPG for computer that was almost complete (ink&venom: if you see this post, it's Raz's Big Escape) with a lot of levels, worlds, and lasers (), but I was developing it on a 6-year-old laptop that suddenly crashed. Bye bye huge project. I did back it up, but soon after my flash drive corrupted itself.....so yeah.

[annoyingcalc]

Hm dj isnt your ticalc profile going to come back in april 2013?if so wont it have the ones lost yhat were on ticalc? posted from an android device

[Yeong]

Well, there's a PLENTY of my games that were lost actually because of me losing calc few years ago. 3 or my RPGs were lost and one text-based adventure game as well.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Hm dj isnt your ticalc profile going to come back in april 2013?if so wont it have the ones lost yhat were on ticalc? posted from an android device

All those games are on Omnimaga, except Illusiat 11 KMQ. Illusiat 11 KMQ was on the old Omni website, though: http://z9.invisionfree.com/omnimaga/index.php?showtopic=1639

Also my profile coming back is of course unless a certain group of people from various places don't go on a new anti-Omni rampage (or Omni-controlling) again like what happened in 2006-07 and 2010-11 , but even then I might still at least put the big games back in

[Deep Thought]

Before I got a link cable I had so many of these.

Things like Leopardy, which was a Jeopardy!-type game. I made at least three versions of it, all of which I lost in one way or another.

But that's nothing. My oldest program (at least according to ticalc.org) is WWIII, a pretty bad menu-based RPG. What the ticalc.org page doesn't show is that I had four working versions of it before I made the version released on there. Each of them was exactly 20,010 bytes large (must have been some extreme case of OCD there ), and each one was deleted to make room for other programs. And that's not all—the game had three sequels (PREZ, WWIV, and NUKE). The first two had two incarnations and the last had one, but they all shared the same fate. I deleted them. (By the way, both versions of PREZ were also 20,010 bytes large and the others were 22,010. My oldest Snake game was 5,010 bytes, Leopardy was 11,010, then 12,010, then 14,010 bytes, an old platformer was 8,010 bytes. See pattern.)

As for projects that I would actually have been proud to keep around today, I had a pure-BASIC Tetris game and some other experimental stuff. I lost those when I dropped my calc in my first attempt to transfer programs off my calc

All in all, I must have lost something like 200 KB of finished projects so far.

EDIT: Just reread the topic title in the wrong way I lose.

[DJ Omnimaga]

I wish that ticalc showed both the original posting date and the last updated date for each file, because currently it's misleading. When an old time community member comes back from a 15 years-long hiatus only to update his old readme for new contact info, you no longer know how old the file actually is, unless he wrote the original date in the readme or try the game (assuming the year is included in it).

[annoyingcalc]

Agreed, I have had the same experience

[Eiyeron]

May I just add The Game? We all lose it, right? •troll off•

I recently lost many prototypes, like cellular automata, roger tests, or 3-player game, for science, you monsters! (Don't fiddle the prizm "Please SD card insert" screen, the nor flash won't like you)

[DJ Omnimaga]

That sucks. I remember my PRIZM froze while running your Snake game (it doesn't work at all ) but upon rebooting, my RAM was still intact. I assume the SD card menu clears the RAM right?

[Eiyeron]

Yup! Full reset...

[Yeong]

Well, I think I could name my lost games

1. Stik RPG: It was xlib RPG with 1v1 battle system, with about 12 different magics. It was quite short, but now it's gone
2. StarCraft RPG: It was another xlib RPG of mine, which was up to 2v3 battle system. Well, I thought I backed it up, but I didn't and my teacher full cleared my calc.
3. School Escape I~VI: It was basically "trolling" game that makes your character die on ONE wrong choice.

[Eiyeron]

School escape is still at planète Casio, because 2011 contest

[Yeong]

I was talking about TI version
I actually made those right after I learned about getKey.

[DJ Omnimaga]

School Escape seems quite nasty lol. On the other hand, at least it doesn't clear the calc RAM if you lose.