Hungarian here! Indeed this is one of the four games that was ever published by Hungarians and even one of the first from the Eastern Bloc published by Novotrade at London organised by the Hungarian Trade Comission! And yes, at that time wearing jeans were indeed a status quo, as we were the most relaxed country at that time before the iron curtain fell. Nice to see my weird country represented by this weird little game haha!
There is a terrific documentary about game development behind the iron courtain on Steam: it's called Moleman - Longplay. The studio behind the Dancing Monster is the main topic.
@@mycosysthe s is more of a sh. The accents over the vowels are meant to be a long vowel. It's hard to explain to an English speaker what a long vowel is but the án is meant to be read like "aunt" with an English accent without pronouncing the t. Oh lord. Explaining accents over the internet is hard.
Regarding point in the beginning, I would argue we went full circle. At this point literally anybody can make a game in Unity, Game Maker on Godot in their bedroom, and start selling it on itchio, or even Steam or App Store if they can scrounge up 100 bucks. And people absolutely make this kind of weird little games now as they did then.
as Jim Sterling has shown, there is an awful lot of garbage on Steam that's sold as games, but is really just a weird mess someone seemingly created in a drunken and stoned haze. So there's definitely still a lot of weird games being made by lonesome programmers
@@thesteelrodent1796 Look up video "Strangest developer you've never heard of". Or look up some games Vinny Vinesauce plays on sunday streams. You will find bunch of games that aren't even incompetently made, just completely bizarre.
Can't forget Unreal which is free to use if you don't make any money off your game. Of course there are also a lot of tutorials out there that just about anyone can learn to program and write their own game without using an engine at all. These days, I would advise anyone doing a 2D game to go that route and perhaps use RayLib or SDL.
One thing I noticed about games and software produced by Commodore, back then, was that the vast majority of them seemed to be what we would call "shovelware" in the 90's. There was always a HUGE contrast of software and game quality between the games produced by actual software companies compared to the stuff that Commodore was selling. There are only a few small exceptions to this that I can think of. And I think this video gives the answer why. They were probably farming out software development to groups who were probably trying to produce the software as fast, and as cheap, as possible, pushing it right to the bleeding edge of fast and cheap.
A little slice of Hungarian game development history, can confirm, immediately recognized the Hungarian names. No idea why would a "creature with elephant's trunk" count as typical Hungarian sense of humour though. But what do I know, I wasn't alive yet back then. :)
For a moment I thought you were going to cover Dancing Demon on the TRS-80. A weird piece of software with a tap-dancing demon made out of graphic characters. You could even enter your own tune for the demon to dance to. I believe someone converted it to the ZX81. An interesting video non-the-less.
Thank you for the traumatic flashbacks... I was 5 when this game came out, and I got it for christmas with a brand new C64... I am not sure I ever completed it more than once due to dyspraxia, but I do remember beating it and feeling proud and somewhat empty. While the game was bad when you look at much later games, I felt it was the one of the least bad of a terrible bunch of bobbins of that era of home computers. Loved the video though!
At the risk of detracting from the sponsor, box art back in the day was always so amazing, as well as the detailed manuals, maps and add-ins you'd get to imagine the world, even if the game wasn't that great.
The princess on the cover looks like she is so done with the wizard's bullshit. Like she's been listening to him incel-rant about "females" and anime for a week nonstop.
that was nuts. i expect the trunk etc came from the developers thinking "what can be moving parts to shoot off our monster." what im most surprised about is the "ending" where the monster actually turns back into a princess. I assumed up until that point that the whole "transformed princess" thing was something tacked on by the publisher to explain the nonsense in the game. Great video guys .
I’ve been aware of this game for decades but, never having owned a C64, had always assumed the cover art and story were slapped on the game retroactively to spice it up a bit. I had no idea the monster actually turned back into a princess when you finished the game. Incredible stuff.
There is a terrific documentary about game development behind the iroc courtain on Steam: it's called Moleman - Longplay. The studio behind the Dancing Monster is the main topic.
That "princess in a box" fairytale sounds familiar, I think I read a bunch of eastern European tales as a kid. The delightful dancing princess one, not so much, but the hero with magical stuff is such a staple. Also, Kwon is strong.
European fairy tales do have interesting and sometimes horrifying stories, but they rarely mention elephans in jeans. Interesting thing is that since this "game engine", the mechanics works, it would only have taken some background image, a few levels with gradually increasing difficulty and an end screen and it would have been a complete game. And maybe redesign the creature a lot.
I remember it was briefly shown for only 20 second at AVGN's Commodore 64 episode and the nerd was just too baffled over it. I didn't know it was an actual shooting game and thought it was just a joke animation from some bored programmer.
I remember going into the office of one of my grandfather's businesses back in the mid 80s and they had the tiny computer screens with green letters. He even had a travel computer that had a chess game I tried to beat for 3 years with ZERO success. I love the older games. I literally was the first kid I knew to get a Nintendo when it came out. Thank you for the content. It brings back great memories. Cheer's 🇺🇲
Haha love the jeans tangent... Indeed, jeans were 'a thing' in Hungary in the 80s, with the domestic brand Trapper being a symbol both of western glamour and of inability to attain it, having to settle for the local knockoff... as exemplified by the following folk rhyme: "Trapper farmer, drága kincs Jó ha van, de jobb ha nincs." ("Trapper jeans, a great treasure Having it is good, but not having it is better.")
Apart from a long dead climber and a fairly young looking software engineer of similar name, there's a Dékány who lead a team responsible for developing some unknown software systems and maintaining them at the Finance Directorate, University of Pécs in the mid 70s according to a pdf online, downloadable from the hungarian online library. There's a Baán who has taken part in writing a hungarian rulebook for the bridge card game at the Hungarian Bridge Players Association like 10yrs ago. He also looks to be a long time player, having what looks to be his first ever game on record in '88. Dékány could have been the developer and Baán the designer. :)
The scriptwriter hasn't got the first clue about game development or indeed how to write a coherent or engaging script. She's too busy not writing the book she's taken £17K to supposedly create.
The Twelve Dancing Princesses? I saw a version of this in the U.S. as a kid as a part of Grimm’s Fairy Tale Classics, animated by Nippon, and shown on Nickelodeon. Notably to me, the intro song was composed by Shuki Levy of Saban Entertainment. He composed half the cartoon intros of my childhood.
I had the C64 and a few games. My ex-wife didn't appreciate the fact I could cheat games by altering the codes and giving myself immortality. I'm not sure why, but that kinda ruined it all for me and thus ended my gaming career.
Ah, the Bish! David and I are friends / Ex colleagues, we worked together at Sky launching all those Sky Gamestar games, from Beehive Bedlam to loads of official licences, tetris, space invaders, the cartoon network stuff... great times... hours debating games play, sound effects, scrolling, character AI.. 😂
Great video! I hope you will continue with that content based on creepy/horror/supernatural/mystery stories in the tech & gaming world. I think it's a wonderful niche. Not much IT&gaming horror content around (especially not with the quality and humor found in your videos)
When he says "but she's probably very hungover" I though he said "but she's probably very hungry" as if she haven't eaten anything when she was in her dancing monster form.
I really like the C64 games from the first half of the 80s because they were usually quite fun to play. Or at least they were based on original ideas that made them memorable - Like Dancing Monster! Then In the second half of the 80s we mostly got arcade ports that couldn't live up to the original or shoddy games based on movie licenses. Neither fun or memorable. IMO.
There are actually more weird and wonderful early Hungarian games on the C64! Buffalo Roundup next? Or Arctic Shipwreck, Save Me Brave Knight... Face Ache or Facemaker for more nightmare fuel.
What an investigation.. The makers of the game are not that hard to search, since they are written in the title screen. The video was fun though, but the title is misleading.
I think hearing those Hungarian 'fairy tales' was MUCH MORE traumatizing than the game...but I think you have found the TRUE SOURCE of ALL childhood PTSD in the 80's
ive never understood why Communists hate Jeans, they are the clothing of the workers, especially, and honestly everyone, truly a true clothing of the people, more Socialist than any other clothes.
Octavius should be digging in and writing that book she took absolute thousands for, rather than doing supposed research and scripts for your videos Peter..
I wouldn't be surprised if all that money was blown on wine and rats. If she's not going to do it, at least apologize and give the money back. That would be the decent thing to do.
@@paulklasmann1218you need a decent moral conviction to admit to people the idea of writing a book was way too ambitious and beyond your skill set, Octavius will never do that. What remains of the money should be refunded and a full and public apology issued by her.
Had this game as a kid back in the early 80's . Young me trying to beat this game. This vid brought back fond memories. Once you figure out how the game works. It's was any easy win from there on. Also that tune got so bad, tuned the sound off.
Loved the video! Not so much that low voice narrating. You should just narrate. I mean in the end who cares I love your content, but narrating when it's not someone we know from your end, it's just jarring.
Hungarian here! Indeed this is one of the four games that was ever published by Hungarians and even one of the first from the Eastern Bloc published by Novotrade at London organised by the Hungarian Trade Comission! And yes, at that time wearing jeans were indeed a status quo, as we were the most relaxed country at that time before the iron curtain fell. Nice to see my weird country represented by this weird little game haha!
How exciting!!!!! I love Hungary so much! I wish it got more of the attention it deserves!!
There is a terrific documentary about game development behind the iron courtain on Steam: it's called Moleman - Longplay. The studio behind the Dancing Monster is the main topic.
Am i in the ballpark thinking Dénes Baán is pronounced mode like Dennis Bahanne?
Just one more thing to add. This game is just as weird to us as to anyone. We don’t get it either.
@@mycosysthe s is more of a sh. The accents over the vowels are meant to be a long vowel. It's hard to explain to an English speaker what a long vowel is but the án is meant to be read like "aunt" with an English accent without pronouncing the t. Oh lord. Explaining accents over the internet is hard.
"The Princess in the Chest" quite literally comprises the opening cutscene of the first Witcher game.
Came here myself just to say this, well spotted.
I knew this was the Striga
Its shrek
Regarding point in the beginning, I would argue we went full circle. At this point literally anybody can make a game in Unity, Game Maker on Godot in their bedroom, and start selling it on itchio, or even Steam or App Store if they can scrounge up 100 bucks. And people absolutely make this kind of weird little games now as they did then.
as Jim Sterling has shown, there is an awful lot of garbage on Steam that's sold as games, but is really just a weird mess someone seemingly created in a drunken and stoned haze. So there's definitely still a lot of weird games being made by lonesome programmers
@@thesteelrodent1796 Look up video "Strangest developer you've never heard of". Or look up some games Vinny Vinesauce plays on sunday streams. You will find bunch of games that aren't even incompetently made, just completely bizarre.
Can't forget Unreal which is free to use if you don't make any money off your game. Of course there are also a lot of tutorials out there that just about anyone can learn to program and write their own game without using an engine at all. These days, I would advise anyone doing a 2D game to go that route and perhaps use RayLib or SDL.
That box art is my most genuinely favorite thing about this game. She's just so _done_ with this shit. I can relate.
I always wondered WT actual F this game was about... never saw the manual. Thank you for solving this mystery for me.
Interesting avatar image. :>
One thing I noticed about games and software produced by Commodore, back then, was that the vast majority of them seemed to be what we would call "shovelware" in the 90's. There was always a HUGE contrast of software and game quality between the games produced by actual software companies compared to the stuff that Commodore was selling. There are only a few small exceptions to this that I can think of. And I think this video gives the answer why. They were probably farming out software development to groups who were probably trying to produce the software as fast, and as cheap, as possible, pushing it right to the bleeding edge of fast and cheap.
A little slice of Hungarian game development history, can confirm, immediately recognized the Hungarian names. No idea why would a "creature with elephant's trunk" count as typical Hungarian sense of humour though. But what do I know, I wasn't alive yet back then. :)
For a moment I thought you were going to cover Dancing Demon on the TRS-80. A weird piece of software with a tap-dancing demon made out of graphic characters. You could even enter your own tune for the demon to dance to. I believe someone converted it to the ZX81.
An interesting video non-the-less.
Many a person's introduction to TRS-80 computers as this often ran on the demo machines at Radio Shack stores.
Yeah, I wonder if Dancing Demon or Dancing Devil (a clone of Dancing Demon for the CoCo) were an influence on this game.
I was just scrolling down to see if anyone had mentioned Dancing Demon. I actually have an original copy :)
Thank you for the traumatic flashbacks... I was 5 when this game came out, and I got it for christmas with a brand new C64... I am not sure I ever completed it more than once due to dyspraxia, but I do remember beating it and feeling proud and somewhat empty. While the game was bad when you look at much later games, I felt it was the one of the least bad of a terrible bunch of bobbins of that era of home computers. Loved the video though!
You went the whole video without making any of the obvious jokes about that nose. You are a credit :)
Gotta love it when the box art is a million times better than the game itself. Also why is she topless as the monster? Let her have her dignity!
At the risk of detracting from the sponsor, box art back in the day was always so amazing, as well as the detailed manuals, maps and add-ins you'd get to imagine the world, even if the game wasn't that great.
I love it when some of my favorite creators converge :D
I was literally thinking this must have been written by Octavius before we even got the credits.
Right up their street.
It says so in the description...
I didn't look. I usually assume they did these days. Confirmed when I heard 'bobbins'.
The princess on the cover looks like she is so done with the wizard's bullshit. Like she's been listening to him incel-rant about "females" and anime for a week nonstop.
I mean, C64 couldn’t escape us.
Looks like a weird version of Randy Feltface. I am concerned.
that was nuts.
i expect the trunk etc came from the developers thinking "what can be moving parts to shoot off our monster."
what im most surprised about is the "ending" where the monster actually turns back into a princess. I assumed up until that point that the whole "transformed princess" thing was something tacked on by the publisher to explain the nonsense in the game.
Great video guys .
I’ve been aware of this game for decades but, never having owned a C64, had always assumed the cover art and story were slapped on the game retroactively to spice it up a bit. I had no idea the monster actually turned back into a princess when you finished the game.
Incredible stuff.
Man the way the keyboards were petted at the beginning was... uncomfortable haha
“Bobbins of a game.” Okay, so Octavius wrote the script. They’re a mad lad. 😅
Gosh, this video feels like it was written by someone else trying to be Nostalgia Nerd. Maybe it's just me?
You're weird
It was written by Octavius, who, having taken £25K of people's money to write her own book really should be writing for that not Peter..
The He-Man erotica killed me, so funny
As soon as you said 'Bobbins' I knew Octavius had writen the script. LOL.
Or, you know, it says so in the description
@@Tactical_Hotdog I don't bother reading the descriptions.
Our systems team at work have not only set edge as the default browser, they’ve banned other browsers and set Bing as the default search engine..
There is a terrific documentary about game development behind the iroc courtain on Steam: it's called Moleman - Longplay. The studio behind the Dancing Monster is the main topic.
Fun fact, the first short story of the Witcher is based on the Polish version of this fairy tale.
Did octavius write the script to this video??
What the bobbins makes you think that?
Perhaps because the credits say 'written by octavius king'
Did you notice the drop in quality or was it something else?
and the description....@@Aalienik
Lol oh yeah.. you can tell.
That "princess in a box" fairytale sounds familiar, I think I read a bunch of eastern European tales as a kid. The delightful dancing princess one, not so much, but the hero with magical stuff is such a staple.
Also, Kwon is strong.
European fairy tales do have interesting and sometimes horrifying stories, but they rarely mention elephans in jeans. Interesting thing is that since this "game engine", the mechanics works, it would only have taken some background image, a few levels with gradually increasing difficulty and an end screen and it would have been a complete game. And maybe redesign the creature a lot.
I remember it was briefly shown for only 20 second at AVGN's Commodore 64 episode and the nerd was just too baffled over it. I didn't know it was an actual shooting game and thought it was just a joke animation from some bored programmer.
Until today, I had no idea that Commodore had ever published any games directly.
And now, I'm starting to get a sense of why.
I have never seen a game that cries out more for a modern recreation.
I remember going into the office of one of my grandfather's businesses back in the mid 80s and they had the tiny computer screens with green letters. He even had a travel computer that had a chess game I tried to beat for 3 years with ZERO success. I love the older games. I literally was the first kid I knew to get a Nintendo when it came out. Thank you for the content. It brings back great memories. Cheer's 🇺🇲
Haha love the jeans tangent... Indeed, jeans were 'a thing' in Hungary in the 80s, with the domestic brand Trapper being a symbol both of western glamour and of inability to attain it, having to settle for the local knockoff... as exemplified by the following folk rhyme:
"Trapper farmer, drága kincs
Jó ha van, de jobb ha nincs."
("Trapper jeans, a great treasure
Having it is good, but not having it is better.")
Oh man I don’t know what I expected but when the monster finally came on screen I laughed out loud and I never do that
The speech cadence and some other things of this video sounds kinda AI-generated...
Ashens has Dancing Monster cut scenes on his live Twitch streams. It's a weird looking game, big sprites animated in that way.
In Commodores defense, we are talking about 1983, most games looked worse than this at the time
Yeah my thoughts too - this isn't so bad for '83.
Apart from a long dead climber and a fairly young looking software engineer of similar name, there's a Dékány who lead a team responsible for developing some unknown software systems and maintaining them at the Finance Directorate, University of Pécs in the mid 70s according to a pdf online, downloadable from the hungarian online library. There's a Baán who has taken part in writing a hungarian rulebook for the bridge card game at the Hungarian Bridge Players Association like 10yrs ago. He also looks to be a long time player, having what looks to be his first ever game on record in '88. Dékány could have been the developer and Baán the designer. :)
Identity of the writer and editor of this video was so obvious from "absolute bobbins" and the style of editing.
The scriptwriter hasn't got the first clue about game development or indeed how to write a coherent or engaging script.
She's too busy not writing the book she's taken £17K to supposedly create.
The Twelve Dancing Princesses? I saw a version of this in the U.S. as a kid as a part of Grimm’s Fairy Tale Classics, animated by Nippon, and shown on Nickelodeon. Notably to me, the intro song was composed by Shuki Levy of Saban Entertainment. He composed half the cartoon intros of my childhood.
Monster kind of looks like Dr Zoidberg
I think I'll go for a scuttle! Clack clack clack clack clack.
9:04 daaamn shots fired!
Don't forget about the Max Machine
We need a follow up video when you find the developers. This is both eerie and fascinating.
When did Nostalgia Nerd get all style over substance?
Why is Octavius writing scripts for Peter and not pages for her crowd funded book?
I had the C64 and a few games. My ex-wife didn't appreciate the fact I could cheat games by altering the codes and giving myself immortality. I'm not sure why, but that kinda ruined it all for me and thus ended my gaming career.
Came from bigstackD Casting he said your the best retro channel around :)
It's strange to my ears that Octavius pronounces 'dance' like 'darnse' like a southerner. Must have spent time down south.
Without a doubt the inspiration for Weebl's *"rub mah boobies."*
Maybe this is the girl David Bowie sings about in "Blue Jean".... maybe.
Ah, the Bish! David and I are friends / Ex colleagues, we worked together at Sky launching all those Sky Gamestar games, from Beehive Bedlam to loads of official licences, tetris, space invaders, the cartoon network stuff... great times... hours debating games play, sound effects, scrolling, character AI.. 😂
I wish I had this just to run in the background of my house on my Commodore 64 screen
Honestly, great idea.
Great video! I hope you will continue with that content based on creepy/horror/supernatural/mystery stories in the tech & gaming world. I think it's a wonderful niche. Not much IT&gaming horror content around (especially not with the quality and humor found in your videos)
What is that “Get out of here!” audio?
I remember doing a video on this game... it's mental isn't it 😇🕹👌
So basically, that's where the Witcher got that storyline from, a Hungarian folktale.
Did Ashens ask you to make this?
This game needs a remastermakeport right now
Lol
Great, now ive had that tune in ky head for the last hour!
Traffic annoyingly slows down and goes around you if you go among it.
A game that have you save a princess by shooting at her? I can hear the Americans roar of happiness.
I'm going through a lot but whenever this stunning channel talk about d C=64 golden age, it put a smile upon mt face 👨
Total Carnage’s Orcus cannot compete with this
7:00 "you would if you had robot ears."
I know what im dressing up as next halloween!
I wonder if the princess in the chest fairytale inspired the Shrek movies 🤔
When he says "but she's probably very hungover" I though he said "but she's probably very hungry" as if she haven't eaten anything when she was in her dancing monster form.
I had a c64 mk2 i think, and you could play the cart games on it anyway 😂
I'm not joking - I'd wear a tee shirt with monster princess on. It's bloody brilliant!
Fun fact (maybe): the word "ogre" might come from the French word for "Hungarian", which would make Shrek Hungarian.
great to see you back pete. we all missed you
Hows that barcade going that you took all our money for?
Ask Sam of Slice and Dice, she's put clear blue water between herself and Barcadia taken Barcadia staff with her..
@@thefurthestmanfromhome1148 Oh really - very interesting... please do tell us more, maybe DJ Slope can be a kickscammers episode on this guy.
Cursed 80s game, instantly interested
I really like the C64 games from the first half of the 80s because they were usually quite fun to play. Or at least they were based on original ideas that made them memorable - Like Dancing Monster! Then In the second half of the 80s we mostly got arcade ports that couldn't live up to the original or shoddy games based on movie licenses. Neither fun or memorable. IMO.
There are actually more weird and wonderful early Hungarian games on the C64! Buffalo Roundup next? Or Arctic Shipwreck, Save Me Brave Knight...
Face Ache or Facemaker for more nightmare fuel.
holycrap! this is amazing! You're the best my dude! thank you!
Subtly starting to speak more and more like Octavius haha
Definitely heard a few Bobbins just recently.
That fairy tale book in the video is Russian, though, not Hungarian... (Which would look like Latin alphabet soup with a lot of z:s and y:s...)
What an investigation.. The makers of the game are not that hard to search, since they are written in the title screen. The video was fun though, but the title is misleading.
The first story sounds a little like the Witcher's Striga
I think hearing those Hungarian 'fairy tales' was MUCH MORE traumatizing than the game...but I think you have found the TRUE SOURCE of ALL childhood PTSD in the 80's
Dude on the cover at least finished his book, right?
Nah bro. Never ending story
16:33 g'day Robbotron!
Who made "Piccolo Mouso" is better question 😂
You know, I can't lie, the game's music kind of weirdly slaps.
ive never understood why Communists hate Jeans, they are the clothing of the workers, especially, and honestly everyone, truly a true clothing of the people, more Socialist than any other clothes.
also why hasn't Disney made a movie for those two fairy tales, Id love to see them.
Octavius should be digging in and writing that book she took absolute thousands for, rather than doing supposed research and scripts for your videos Peter..
I wouldn't be surprised if all that money was blown on wine and rats. If she's not going to do it, at least apologize and give the money back. That would be the decent thing to do.
@@paulklasmann1218you need a decent moral conviction to admit to people the idea of writing a book was way too ambitious and beyond your skill set, Octavius will never do that.
What remains of the money should be refunded and a full and public apology issued by her.
They had more than 1,500 ideas, and THIS was the winner? 😂😂😂😂😂
Wiw, what an utterly bonkers game!! Think I'll stick to 'Twinky Goes Hiking' though.....
Cursed? 80's? you got my "like"
Said zed got my"dis like"
Had this game as a kid back in the early 80's . Young me trying to beat this game. This vid brought back fond memories. Once you figure out how the game works. It's was any easy win from there on. Also that tune got so bad, tuned the sound off.
A lot of these jokes sound like stuff octavius king would say, do you help with each other's scripts or is that an english thing?
*Not a Hungarian here, but I've been to Hungary, and I like classic games and miss those days. There's my utterly pointless complement, cheers lol* 💪👍
I think the story readings toward the end went on for far too long but overall, a very decent episode!
aaargh! I had this game!!! I don't remember having made it to the end though, it's so bad!!!
How wonderful!
This video is so octavius cause I knew it was their writing style once he said he man erotic story
Loved the video! Not so much that low voice narrating. You should just narrate. I mean in the end who cares I love your content, but narrating when it's not someone we know from your end, it's just jarring.
Thats randy feltdace. Well after she looses the most of her face
Something about this strongly resonates with childhood memories of Dragonball Z.