Let’s summarize!

First of course we had this subdued thing. It doesn’t state its version number, and has no main menu – it just goes through all the different driver selections, then offers to copy the game to your hard drive. I got this from The Colonel’s Bequest. King’s Quest IV (1988) has the same, but with a different caption: “3D Adventure Game Setup/Installation Program”.

Unstated version, goes through a fixed script asking which driver you want and if you want to copy the game to your hard drive at the end, exactly like the original… but in color! Found this one in Space Quest IV (disk version).

Version 3.15b looks like the SQ4D version, but actually has a proper menu like those from later on. This one is from the Leisure Suit Larry 1 SCI remake.

Version 3.31 brings the finalized style. This copy is from the Space Quest I remake.

Version 3.569 is pretty much the same, but the copyright box is taller.

Version 3.681, again not much to write home about. The copyright has been amended. I got this from Space Quest III, which is chronologically confusing to me. Version 3.690, from Freddy Pharkas, bumps it up to 1991-94… but to add to the confusion, the diskette version of Freddy Pharkas is version 3.644, with a 1991-93 copyright. To round out the confusion, the SVGA version of Leisure Suit Larry 6 has installer version 3.670, copyright 1991-93 as well. What ever!

Rounding out the official installers we have King’s Quest 7′s installer, now called inst.exe, version 3.758.

And finally, because nobody asked for it…

…there’s my from-scratch rewrite. Functionally on par, this is still missing a few features such as viewing a readme file, making a boot disk, detecting if a given driver is supported to begin with (it only shows known drivers that it can find the DRV file for, like the B/W installers, but doesn’t do the “supported by your system” tick marks), only showing options in the main menu if there’s a choice – if you only have VGA320.DRV, it shouldn’t show “Graphics”. The minimal menu should only show “Mouse”, “Memory”, “Make boot disk”, “Accept”, and “Cancel”, and actually installing the game to HDD (at least, the same way Sierra’s does). But other than that, it’s basically a drop-in replacement.

That version number will reach 1.000 soon enough, mark my words.

From day one, the title screen for The Dating Pool has been rendered, with one short intermission. Looking back at my development archives, I felt I should show the unseen. So in the inimitable words of Verka Serduchka… Let’s begin!

The original title screen was a closeup of the main character’s little black book, in what was then planned to be her bedroom. Between the default textures and the book’s cover being edited in post, I honestly can’t remember why I replaced it… but it’s not exactly evocative of a “dating pool”, or any kind of pool, really.

Ah, the original demo release’s title screen. This is actually slightly newer than it should be at this point, with the wine and glass added, but who’s keeping track? Maybe me at best, but I hardly did. Anyway, I’m not gonna hunt down a copy without the wine only to post this version a little later.

At one point I figured the 3D renders could serve as the basis for pixel art redraws. I put hours into this image, only to not use it at all. Honestly, I can’t quite remember why I gave up on that idea. But before the demo was in a playable state, I’d reverted to the render and added the wine. Perhaps it was just to not increase the workload even more, or maybe it was because it didn’t actually help solve some issues with global palettes that I’d hoped it would. Oh well, what’s a few wasted hours when you have this much free time to waste to begin with?

And that brings us to the title screen as it is now. The Itch demo has a slightly earlier version of this screen that’s a bit shinier in silly places, but otherwise it’s the same.

(2018 note: the above paragraph was later outdated by an updated demo release.)

I wonder if should put some animation in this. The old screen had the flickering candles… Anyone?

And I’m just sitting here, wondering “what day job?”

Ah, Sierra. You gotta love the beautiful background art in their VGA games. From the cartoony…

…to the outright pretty…

…you have to admit someone was credit to team.

But then there’s games where they seemingly dropped the ball (in my opinion) for whatever style-related reason…

…or simply didn’t do much “background art” at all…

And that makes me feel…

Well, okay, I guess, about using edited Gmod screenshots from Letrune in “The Dating Pool”, turning this…

…into this:

Yes folks, that’s right. It’s a brand-new point-and-click adventure romp!

If you think that looks at all like the classic Sierra interface, you’d be right! This not only looks like a classic Sierra game, it actually runs on the same engine! None of that cheap-ass Adventure Game Studio bullshit here, folks, this is the real deal!

And just in time for New Years Eve, here’s a public preview release: http://helmet.kafuka.org/sci/catdate

Go ahead and try it. If you have any suggestions for the full version, including things you’d change in the part shown in this demo, don’t hesitate – my askbox is open.

(Protip: get DOSBox.)

Update: crash fixed in certain scene, thanks to @iliketurnips for notifying me.

<Kawa> goddamn sunday drivers
<tomc> was that derpy monster driving it?
<Kawa> …yes let’s say that’s indeed what happened.

Crazy how Mark Crowe did that.