Looking for a lost game, GayBlade

emptyfortress

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Hi folks,

long story short: some people who have been doing research for a coming exhibition in Berlin about LGBT in gaming have discovered a 1992 (or 1993, it's not really clear yet) parody fantasy RPG for Mac and DOS called GayBlade. Unfortunately, not much has been found about it yet: the developer doesn't have a copy and lost the source code, nobody has come up with the game files, the only traces we have so far are articles in the press and scans of a few pages of the manual. You can read all about here: https://lgbtqgamearchive.com/games/games-by-decade/1990s/gayblade/ I think all the available info is on there.

A (possible) clue is that it began life as Dragon Blade, but as I understand it the publisher deal for it fell through and the dev redesigned it and it became GayBlade. Maybe that rings a bell?

Anyway, I've been asking around software preservation forums and RPG sites and this looks just like the place to ask :) So, if you have any information, or even maybe a copy of the game (that would be a miracle!), you'd make a lot of people happy. GayBlade looks like an interesting piece of both CRPG and LGBT history. If you have any idea on where to ask too, I'm all ears :)

Also, make sure you have safe search on if you search for gay blade, some of the result might be, uh, surprising (or not, depending on your imagination).

Cheers!
 
Joined
Jul 30, 2018
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Never heard about that title before and can't help you. Dunno if it deserves a place in history, maybe it sucked? I mean, if it was good, it probably wouldn't become forgotten.
I understand that for an exhibition an actual game would be more interesting than just articles about it, but if even it's developer lost it… Finding it would be near impossible.

In any case here's a bump so perhaps someone who knows more about it notices this. You might also check if someone at rpgcodex site has more info.
 
Joined
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Never heard about that title before and can't help you. Dunno if it deserves a place in history, maybe it sucked? I mean, if it was good, it probably wouldn't become forgotten.

In any case here's a bump so perhaps someone who knows more about it notices this. You might also check if someone at rpgcodex site has more info.

Ah, but we'd have to play it first to decide if it sucks or not :) I can see many reasons for it becoming forgotten: I'm not sure how widely distributed it was, it probably looked a bit dated to a 1992 CRPG gamer, and the subject matter may have turned people away.

Anyway, thanks for the bump! I'm mustering courage to make an account on the codex and post there because to be honest that place scares me a bit.

Of course I'll update this thread if I find something.
 
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I'm mustering courage to make an account on the codex and post there because to be honest that place scares me a bit.

Just picture all of them in their underwear (because they probably are).

And I might know a person who knows a person who knows a person. I'll do some asking around.
 
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Expect a horde of amateur trolls there, just ignore their ramblings unless they provide some useful input - maybe someone there does have it or can point in the right direction.
In this case, or any other case where it's about forgottenware, I think registering on codex is worth the risk.
 
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