Welcome to the WGC Mk. IV Podcasting System for use in hilarious environment conditions. High-enjoyment Windows gaming: Activated. Atmospheric cinematic shooters: Activated. Blue Screen Monitoring: Activated. Protagonist Dialog Suppression System: Engaged. Offensive Opinion Selection System: Activated. Unforeseen Consequences: Activated. Communications Interface: Online. Have a very fun day!

"They are waiting for you Gordon - in the TEST CHAMBERRRR" - if you're old enough to remember when these words were first spoken by a polygonal scientist, you also remember the hype that Half-Life created and how and why we consider this game to be a turning point in the gaming industry. Not only the game itself, but also everything that it enabled. Without Half-Life, the gaming industry would look a lot different nowadays.

Since Half-Life is not a DOS game, but was originally released for Windows, we wouldn't be able to play this game with DGC even though it was suggested on the forums many years ago. Because of that we decided to take the very serious decision to, starting now, 1 April 2026, we pivot our podcast to Windows games.

We're presenting to you Windows Game Club #001.

The DOS podcast just doesn't attract enough listeners and we've also run out of actually worthwhile games. So get ready for a new era in retro gaming discussions. The site layout will be adapted over the next weeks. We'll also delete all old DOS-related podcasts (except for games that were also released for Windows). We're sure this will find your approval.

Our hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") are joined by DGC member erys ("erysdren") and Richter ("The old PC Guy").

Download mp3 (163 mins, 187 MB)

Thanks to our producer Pix for helping to make the podcast happen, and thanks to all who make this show possible!

RELEVANT LINKS:

• Valve Archive by Erys
• Richter's YouTube channel: The old pc guy
• Forum thread suggesting for us to play Half-Life
• Half-life segmented speedrun in 20m41s
• Combine Overwiki is celebrating their 20 year anniversary in 2026
• Freeman's mind on YouTube, by Ross Scott
• Old man murray "start to crate" review system that lead to Half-Life 2 having a crate at the start of the game

In 1996, at a time when Realtime Strategy Games were more popular than ever, one game series decided to take a different approach to the genre and remove direct control over units and production. Like an actual Roman commander, in Blue Byte's Settlers II you don't tell each of your soldiers directly what to do, or what to produce. Rather, you give orders like "conquer that fortress", "attack those barracks", or "allocate more iron to the forge". And then your friend comes over with a second mouse so you can fight it out in split screen.

Join us as we discover what the word "Wuselfaktor" means and whether an indirectly controlled strategy game makes any sense at all.

Our hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") are joined by DGC members Wes ("Wesbat") and Benedikt ("Eulisker"), as well as Christopher ("Spike") from the "Return to the Roots" project.

https://www.dosgameclub.com/podcast/2026/03/ep114.mp3

[ download mp3 ] (160 mins, 184 MB)

Thanks to our producer Pix for helping to make the podcast happen, and thanks to DGC member Console for editing the audio.

Thanks to all who make this show possible, we couldn't do this without you!

RELEVANT LINKS:

• Return to the Roots is a faithful reimplementation of the game

• Our guest Christopher (Spike) made a video tutorial about training soldiers efficiently

• Settlers II review on GoodOldDays.net by DGC member Mr. Creosote

• The Settlers II.net is an online encyclopedia on "The Settlers II Gold Edition" and "Return to the Roots"

• A large collection of custom maps on Isch und Ivans Settler II page

• Siedler 2-MissionCD is an unofficial game extension by Jürgen Nagel

• Christoph Kamon's bachelor's thesis.

• Widelands is a free, open-source real-time strategy game inspired by Settlers II.

• Official Amiga-version of Settlers II released in 2025