For those of you who are old timers and did the dial up BBS scene like I did back in the day you likely used stuff by this man. I just found out tonight that Mark “Sparky” Herring died last summer in a rather unfortunate way. He invented the QWK packet format amongst other things. He helped me out a lot with online bbs stuff back in my #ApogeeDays as he was a fan of the company.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/07/serial-swatter-who-caused-death-gets-five-years-in-prison/?mibextid=Zxz2cZ

Another fun pic from my @RiseofTheTriad memories. This was a mini reunion in Jul 2003 at Outback in Mesquite TX. #ApogeeDays

L-R: Joe Selinske, myself, Marianna Vayntraub, Mark Dochtermann, Jim Dosé.

Shit, I just realized this pic will be 20 years old in a few weeks.

One of my fav old random office pics from my #ApogeeDays that I took.

#RiseOfTheTriad development with (L-R): Mark Dochtermann, Jim Dose, Nolan Martin, & William "Da Hur" Scarboro. This was the main ROTT dev room. William in same spot he was in in the famed baseball bat pic.

OK, I forgot I had this! It's part of the capture session for my own character in Rise of the Triad.

Some of the old VHS tapes are lost, so most of mine is missing, but I found this bit of chair prep.

Also forgot the @Dopefish was purple (referencing the CGA version). #ApogeeDays

27yrs ago (29 Dec 1995), a public beta of Xenophage was released. Was the only fighting game & "public beta" released by Apogee back then. Nowadays that would be called something like "early access".😆

Here's Jason Reed sitting on Mt. Xenophage holding a retail box. #ApogeeDays

28 years ago today (21 Dec 1994) Rise of The Triad v1.0 Shareware was released. Of all the games produced in my #ApogeeDays, ROTT was by far my favorite. I wrote a little for the 20th anniversary, recalling many stories about the game and its development.

https://joesiegler.blog/2014/12/happy-20th-rise-of-the-triad/

This is Dennis Scarff - a guy I used to work with back during my #ApogeeDays. Saw the pic and remembered a funny story. We went to a Dallas Stars game, & he was convinced he could hijack the blimp they flew around inside the arena with $5 in parts from Radio Shack. We kept trying to talk him into going to another game and doing it. Never did, though. #RIPDennis

30yrs ago (14 Dec 1992) was my first day working at Apogee Software. I held that gig until 22 May 2009. Never wanted to leave. Met so many people, made so many friends, played so many games in my nearly 17 yrs there. Rise of the Triad was a particular highlight of my #ApogeeDays

25 years ago "Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown" was released (8 Dec 1997). This is my only copy, so I wasn't opening it to get a shot of the disc.😆

Was a PS1 port of Duke Nukem 3D, but had six new levels not on the original. I did play this a little in the office game room back then. #ApogeeDays

Getting awfully close to #30 for these two games released back during my #ApogeeDays Duke Nukem II & Blake Stone were both released on the same day - 3 Dec 1993.

I'll never forget demoing Blake Stone for Apogee back at Codex that year. Got to stand next to Jay Wilbur & Doom. I was shall they say overshadowed by the original Doom there. ;)

Duke Nukem II was where I originated the voice of Duke Nukem, although that was my only entry in the series. All hail Jon St. John. #ImBack

Once again Dopefish guards over one of my cats who is napping under the Christmas tree. #ApogeeDays

"It is all up to youuuuuuuu...."

The last game released with the Apogee name for a long time came out 26 years ago today (19 Nov 1996). That's Stargunner.

A few years back, I wrote a piece about the music in the game that's fun, check that out: https://joesiegler.blog/2015/09/stargunner-music/ #ApogeeDays

Anyone remember file_id.diz files in Apogee games in the 90's? We used that as an early DRM method - was my idea to do that.

I thought we could stick a file_id.diz in the full game directory, so if someone zipped it up and uploaded it, the BBS would then added the description that it was an illegal upload, and presumably be seen and removed. The full game would not run at all if you removed/altered the file_id.diz file, either. #Apogee #ApogeeDays

More detail here: https://joesiegler.blog/2020/11/my-story-of-apogee-3dr/

@XenoPhage I know that feeling. Also, do I know you? Xenophage is a name that gets my attention. #ApogeeDays