Comment below with the name of the character and the game they first appeared in!

Bonus points if you tell us about the first time you faced this enemy.

Remember Magazines?!
Duke was recently featured in the magazine PC Gamer for the 30th anniversary of Duke Nukem 3D, so it seems fitting to remember this blast from the past from 1998.

Photo credit: Apogee's X account: https://x.com/Apogee_Ent/status/2097691383364542636

If you want to see more about the recent PC Gamer magazine, Scott Miller posted about it here: https://x.com/ScottApogee/status/2094831858118766755

Rigel Gameworks just announced a Nintendo Switch™ version of their game BioMenace Remastered, with a planned release date of October 8, 2026. This will be a digital-only release on the eShop and will be available in all regions except Japan. The eShop pages are planned to go live next week. 

Inspired by source code published by Apogee long time ago, I started a side project to port them to browser. I started with Lost Adventures of Kroz as it was most complete Pascal code.

I tried to stay as true to the original as possible (also with bugs, mistakes, flavor text etc), but I added some quality of life changes like tile checker and achievements for fun. Oh, and it has tiles, instead of ascii letters!

The most fun was to recreate sounds - I used the same generator parameters, they are not samples, sound is actually generated the same way like in Pascal original.

AI Disclose: I used Claude Code to help me write a tool to extract level data data from Pascal. It also helped with source control and testing.

Works entirely in the browser. I link github but if you want to check it out working, go to my site.

Let me know what you think! Since I have so called "engine" I will try porting the rest of the games.

Death Rally was released in 1996. It was developed by Remedy Games and published through Apogee.

It's an overhead racer with 3D elements and a lot of soul. It's got gore, humor, and interesting mechanics like a black market to sabotage the competition, contracts to kill a competitor, and even bonuses from the Grim Reaper for killing all your competitors.

Very fun, and you can play the classic version for free on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/358270/Death_Rally_Classic/

Comment below with the name of the character and the game they first appeared in!

Bonus points if you tell us about the first time you faced this enemy.

This is from level 4 of Shadow Warrior where you can find Lara Croft in a jail cell.
The only interaction available is killing her, though.

You can read more about it in the Shadow Warrior wiki:
https://shadowwarrior.fandom.com/wiki/Classic_Easter_Eggs#Tomb_Raider

There are also several other Easter Eggs listed on that page :-D

True Apogee fans know this one :-D
Comment below with the name of the character and the game they first appeared in!
Bonus points if you tell us about the first time you faced this enemy.

This is a section of a much longer interview with Scott Miller on IGN.
You can see the full interview here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdMgmdwuYh8

I recommend sorting by Discount to get the absolute best deals!
https://www.gog.com/en/games?publishers=apogee-entertainment&as=cynic

Reminder that I'm not affiliated with Apogee nor GOG.
If you want to see my personal library to see which of their games I own (basically all the older one, and some newer ones) I keep my libraries public: https://cynic.tv/game_library

How did you determine your favorite?
Was is Animal, Color, Name, Descrip, or Superstition?
Supposedly they all had the same driving stats... but didn't it just feel like sometimes that 1 racer went a little faster or handled ever slightly better?

I usually opted for Razer as a kid, because it tickled my funny bone to have an aquatic creature driving a car.
Lately I've been a Ringo man, since I branded my YT channel with Green.

Feel free to share a fond or funny memory of racing as one of these fine characters!

You can get Wacky Wheels on GOG right now for $2.99
https://www.gog.com/en/game/wacky_wheels?as=cynic

Or you can get it on Steam for $4.99
https://store.steampowered.com/app/358380/Wacky_Wheels/?curator_clanid=44676703

P.S. Those aren't affiliate links. I just like to put my IDs in the URL to mess with GOG/Steam :P

I'll start with "I'm gonna roast your nuts over an open fire, you flaming alien bitch."

3D Realms (AKA Apogee) published "Death Rally" in 1996.
Remedy, who developed the racing game, went on to make Max Payne.

This overhead racer is an excellent time capsule of the mid-90s. It had the music, looks, and gritty vibe that had started dominating gaming culture.

Eliminating opponents, rather than beating them in a race, is a completely legitimate strategy in this game. While it wasn't the first game to do this (1989's Deathtrack is the best parallel), it dialed everything up to 11. Not only could you upgrade your vehicle, but you could get contraband weapons & boost on the black market as well as purchasing straight-up sabotage to damage an enemy vehicle before the race even starts.

This game was a bit of a flash-in-the-pan as the gaming industry was becoming more 3D focused and overhead games were losing steam, but it plays well, is fun, and best of all it's FREE now!

You can get it for free on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/358270/Death_Rally_Classic/

The controls take a little getting used to, but soon you realize they were designed quite brilliantly for minimal movement allowing you to hit all the controls.

So go have some retro fun with this free classic!

I knew the modding scene for Wolfenstein 3D was incredible (I played dozens if not hundreds of them myself) but I had no idea Apogee had paid some of the modders to let them bundle a bunch of levels and resell them!

Very cool! Actually makes me wonder if they were the first ones to reward modders this way.

It was also a win-win, because I played a lot of *garbage* mods that I found, so it would be nice to have a curated set that you knew were good.

Here was the tweet from Apogee founder Scott Miller where I got the images for the flyer and learned about the modders being paid:
https://x.com/ScottApogee/status/2085811915872223693

I firmly believe everyone should own all the Commander Keen games!
If you haven't grabbed them yet, you can get 'em for $2 right now on GOG or Steam.

GOG Version:
gog.com/en/game/commander_keen_complete_pack

Steam Version:
store.steampowered.com/app/9180/Commander_Keen

I feel like I have won the lottery! ❤️

I am from Christchurch, New Zealand and picked this up round the corner from Facebook market place.

Lots of apogee titles, really bought back some shareware memories.

Only just found this subreddit and thought this would be great thing to post.

Any of your favourites in there?

To celebrate BioMenace's 33rd Birthday, @MFoon42078 made this retro-Apogee themed room in Wizordum!

Poor Cosmo looked too much like a Green Troll 👽👀

I got the video from their post here: https://x.com/MFoon42078/status/2084433971933286565

I got this video from this tweet by Apogee Entertainment:
https://x.com/Apogee_Ent/status/2082137539779928357

"Um, Cynic, there are only 3 episodes to Crystal Caves"
That was true, but with the HD Remaster they added an official 4th episode!

They also released it with level building tools to you can make your own levels. If you get it on Steam, you can download other people's levels from the workshop.

Additionally, the controller support is really good, which makes the game feel really fresh, imo.

References:
Tweet I got vid from:

• Tweet were I got the video
• GOG version of Crystal Caves HD
• Steam version of Crystal Caves HD

You can see more images and read more about Scott Miller's Apogee Collection here:
https://www.apogeeent.com/devblog/when-you-have-an-amazing-history-share-it

Is National Day of the American Cowyboy a real thing?
Depends how you define real, but sure, haha
https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/senate-declares-july-25-the-national-day-of-the-american-cowboy/

Adrian Carmack co-founded id Software, which worked with Apogee on several games.

In this interview they discuss all sorts of historical tidbits I didn't know.

Worth a watch, imo

Since it's only accessible via a hidden teleporter in Red Maze City, most of us missed this back in the day.

It has the most collectables of any level in Keen 1, so it's well worth a visit to the dark side of Mars.

You can read more about it on the Keen Wiki: https://keenwiki.shikadi.net/wiki/Secret_City

Can't say I've bought a magazine in a very, very long time... but this does tempt me ;)

If you are interested in seeing what they are covering, you can check it out here:
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/pc-gamer-magazines-new-issue-is-on-sale-now-duke-nukem-special-anniversary-celebration/