It's been a little over thirty years since the debut of Mega Man 1 & 3 on DOS, and both titles are undergoing something of a renaissance. With Owlboy creator Simon S. Andersen's amazing "remake" mock-up making the rounds and The Gaming Historian's in-depth history on the subject, these delightfully crummy games have found new appreciation.
So to keep the ball rolling here, I'm happy to present you with this: Stephen Rozner's original Mega Man DOS design documents. The thirteen pages within include Rozner's handwritten notes, sketches and level design concepts. Unfortunately, Rozner threw a lot of other pieces away over the years. But at least we can study and admire this!
The documents come to us courtesy of the Gaming Historian himself, Norman Caruso. Some of these pieces were featured in Norm's "The Story of Mega Man on DOS", which brought us a wealth of previously unheard history. I highly recommend giving it a watch. You might just find yourself viewing these games in a different light.
Enjoy and thank you, Norm, for the generous donation!
Is the link meant to be for just the first page?
ReplyDeleteI'm getting an error when I try to download the files. It doesn't look like there's any more than the two you posted, and the link only leads to a single image.
ReplyDeleteHuh. Would'ja look at that. That one page details some of the block attribute settings that, while programmed into the game, were never actually used in any of the levels. He even originally intended for there to be a difference between low-gravity and underwater!
ReplyDeleteGotta say, Steve Rozner had some great plans for this game. I guess the 360 KB memory restriction kept things from becoming too elaborate.
(Maybe that was a good thing, considering how maze-like the levels of its sequel are…)
I watched a youtube video of the DOS MM. It looked horrible (I may have skimmed it too in parts) and was kind of LOL at the very beginning, as shown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYK6_5kalh8
ReplyDeleteHey! That's my math notebook!
ReplyDeleteYucky! Simson S's version is so much better.
ReplyDeleteCool find! Maybe one day we can find the files of "Rockman X Interactive" in full.
ReplyDelete