A Brief History

DOSBox Deathmatch Club was founded by OpenRift (the idiot writing this) in late January of 2020 after feeling dissatisfied by the lack of support for the original DOS versions of classic PC games in multiplayer over the internet, such as Doom and Quake. Support was initially centered around the DOSBox emulator and sessions were hosted every Saturday over its built-in IPXNet tunneling.

Around a year later, the Deathmatch Club expanded its game roster to support Windows games as well, given the frequent overlap in appeal. These would become the recurring staple for the new "Freeform Friday" event slot, introduced earlier in 2021.

In the Summer of 2022, interest in an easier way to set up and confure DOSBox game sessions was quickly taking center stage. This was when I had discovered that Classic Gaming Arena, a previously web-based netplay guider for DOSBox games, made the switch to a Win32 client. It was barebones at first, but the potential was incredible. It invoked multiplayer clients of old like Kali, TEN, and Gamespy 3D. Before long, I'd gotten in contact with the developer and a great partnership had begun. Support for mods, maps and other custom content were soon implemented. The future of Deathmatch Club was hand-in-hand with Classic Gaming Arena.

In January of 2024, I scored the luckiest haul I'll probably ever get. A full Windows 98 PC from 1999, monitor, peripherals and all, for essentially free. The PC had belonged to a family friend, and all they wanted me to do was to extract some old files off it for them. This would send my already budding interest in vintage computers into overdrive. Significant development and testing was done with CGA during this time toward a goal that seemed previously like a fleeting dream: easy DOS multiplayer with cross-compatibility between modern DOSBox and real MS-DOS (via Windows 95/98). Before long, this new version of CGA (dubbed "CGA 95" by myself), would release, opening the flood gates to allow PCs of all types to play together.

Which brings us to today. As of writing, our community has been running strong for just over 5 years now. Despite the ups and downs along the way, I'm incredibly happy with the impact that I, the Deathmatch Club's staff, and our constantly expanding community has had on the greater retro PC gaming sphere. So with that, here's to 5 more years.