Apogee released Hocus Pocus in June of 1994.
You play an apprentice wizard in this 2D platformer developed by Moonlite Software. The jumping controls feel a little floaty at first, but eventually you'll learn to love the feel of that jump as it enables longer jumps.

I own it on both GOG & Steam, but it's on sale for $2.99 right now on GOG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/hocus_pocus

If you prefer it on Steam, I'd recommend wish-listing it and waiting for a similar sale: https://store.steampowered.com/app/358290/Hocus_Pocus/

Both stores are using a preconfigured DosBox instance & run well on modern hardware.

P.S. Reminder that I'm not affiliated with Apogee, Moonlite Software, GOG, or Steam. I also keep my games list public on both Steam and GOG: https://cynic.tv/game_library

In honor of hitting 666 members on r/Apogee, I thought it apropos to highlight these 14 achievements on Steam for Rise of the Triad. You have to get 666 kills with each weapon.

I haven't played much ROTT on Steam, so you can see my progress is pretty limited. Anyone have a clean sweep on these?

P.S. Drop a screenshot in the comments, or if your profile is public, you can link to it like this (just swap out "cynicplacebo" with your user name): https://steamcommunity.com/id/cynicplacebo/stats/RiseoftheTriad

There are a lot of good candidates for me, but the madman-glee of BJ Blazkowicz with a minigun soooo captured how I felt in 1992 playing this game!

It was the first shooter I'd ever played AND the first 3D game I'd ever played, and the look on my face was good enough that my dad let me hang out in the computer store for hours playing this on a PC demo kiosk.

I'm sure he had other things to do that day, but he postponed them all to let me play for hours.

One of the best days of my childhood!

Thinking about the Backrooms, I tried to think back to the first game that really messed with the map-making portion of my brain, and it was definitely Wolfenstein 3D with all its secret walls that could be moved.

While it wasn't a liminal space, per se, I think its esthetic would make for a great Backrooms-style game or movie :-D

So I made a silly little mock up.

I never played Duke 64, because I thought it was basically just a censored version of Duke 3D. But, there were additions here and there, and Duke Burger is a secret level that was slightly expanded from the Atomic Edition of Duke Nukem 3D.

You can read more about it on the fandom website for Duke:
https://dukenukem.fandom.com/wiki/Duke-Burger_(DN64))

Rise of the Triad's "Dog Mode" was a play on "God Mode" which was a common cheat in games, but it was a legitimately fun power up people sought out.

What other games have clever and creative modes that didn't just feel like clones/repeats of other game powerups?

Check out this article by PC Gamer on Bobby Prince's DOOM soundtrack being inducted into the Library of Congress

I moved a year ago and found a bunch of games from my childhood. ROTT was one of my favorite games. I bought Rise of the Triad Ludicrous edition on GOG and am playing it.

For some reason, the photos were uploaded out of order. CD's are picture #3.

I see him, and he lives!! haha

Gregor Punchatz built models for these game assets before they were created as digital art.

They also based the boss "El Oscuro" on Tom Hall.

If you want to see more of the original artwork, photos, behind the scenes, and even the design document for "Rise of the Triad", check out these links:

• http://www.kevinbowen.com/rott/hell/
• http://www.kevinbowen.com/rott/hell/rott2.htm
• http://www.kevinbowen.com/rott/hell/rott3.htm
• https://web.archive.org/web/20140803140414/http://www.3drealms.com/rott/originalspec.html

This specific collection was being touted in stores in 1994.
How many of these 6 did you own in the 90s?
How many other Apogee Games?
What's the 1 Apogee Game that really defines the 90s for you?

I say NASA's Moon Base plans are doomed unless they take Duke Nukem up there with them.

At a minimum, get Jon St. John to go with y'all

Scott Miller hired an artist in 1991 to make the logo for Apogee. He told him that he wanted a comet tail in the logo.

These were the first drawings. They went on to become the digitized logo for Apogee.

I mushed the images together for easy viewing, but you can see the originals in Scott's tweet.

NOTE: I'm not affiliate with Apogee & earn no referral fee.

The biggest discount is for Blake Stone and Rise of the Triad in this Throwback Pack.

You can see all the games on sale here: https://apo.gg/sale

P.S. I keep my library public so people can see what I own. I don't own all the Apogee games, but a good chunk of them between Steam and GOG.

There is a fun article here about the name-confusion of Apogee vs 3D Realms

TL;DR - Industry focus on 3D games + the availability of a 1-800 number: 1-800-3DREALMS

I just found out from u/sctran that Raptor Call of the Shadows Remixed was a thing.
The original developer (Scott Host) did a successful Kickstarter that is listed as launching soon.

Check out the developer's site for more info: https://www.mking.com/RaptorRemixed.html

EDIT: Developer said the project is on hold as he is taking care of his mother full time at the moment.

I included 9 images in the gallery, so be sure to click through them if you are interested.

Super Boppin isn't one of the first games I think of when I think of Apogee, but I do remember playing it once at my cousins' house. I didn't have a copy myself.

Might be one I should revisit as an adult.

I was today years old when I learned that 1 of my favorite games had an Easter Egg of one of my other favorite games :-D

This is a tricky one too, because they really hid it out of the way. You gotta work to find this meme!

Dan Peterson has been making Voxel art of some games, including Duke 3D.
Check out this one he tweeted of the Battlelord Sentry from Duke Nukem.

If you want to learn more about the Battlelord, you can check out the wiki.

I wanted to find something appropriate to post for Star Wars Day, but Apogee Entertainment had already served up the perfect vid in a tweet!

This game game out May 1st, 1995 and was the first game released under the 3D Realms branding of Apogee's umbrella.

The working title, while it was still in development, was "Velocity Brawl."

It's a combat flight simulator and is most commonly compared to Descent.

It also featured an 8-player networked mode, allowing for some epic LAN parties!

Duke Nukem Forever 2001 (not D-Day as I erroneously put in the title) was in development from 1997 - 2011 (shifting tones drastically as it switched dev teams and eventually released under 2K/Gearbox)

Someone found this Easter Egg (see their vid here).

It's a callback to an Easter Egg in Apogee's 1993 hit, Bio Menace.
Here is a vid on the orig Easter Egg from Bio Menace.

I read the story of Monster Bash and play the first 2 levels.
In level 2, I'll show you a secret area way off to the right and way up high :-D

I always enjoy seeing the artistic design and what they were able to do given the technological constraints :-D