There is also an issue with progressives not finishing as they should and the same for private matches. This is because of our maintenance robots not running at this time. For this same reason when you enter a tournament and it fails to load, you wont get a refund after 5 minutes like normal, and when you enter a tournament and you then leave the page / refresh the page, the game wont get closed after 45 minutes. Another thing - game replays dont work just yet.

When you sign up on the test site, you'll get a lot of 'funds' to play with (non-withdrawable unfortunatley) and lots of dukebucks to test out the new convert dukebucks to cash feature and convert dukebucks to global giving vouchers.

Ok some of the new features:

• Better user profiles
• Improved graphics on games
• New main site currency (USD)
• Cut price of everything ($0.10 instead of £0.10 per game)
• User photo galleries
• New game type - 'Limited Entry Tournaments'
• Progressives in every non-multiplayer game
• 3 scoreboards for every game (cash games, free games, last 100 entries)
• Earn cash for referring friends
• Improved game statistics
• New affiliate system

With that said there is still much to do before the site is ready for launch. Apart from the aforementioned bugs that will be fixed, we will also be adding a few more features to our system including 'Instant Open' private matches, more social features and a few ways of making the site easier to navigate.

All suggestions and bug reports are welcomed - please feel free to either use the forums or send e-mail to support@dukesbox.com to report any issue you find / idea you think of.

Not wanting to give too much away at this early stage of development, it is a Tower Defence Game as the name suggests, but this one comes with a difference. Instead of looking down on the map where 'creeps' move round a maze or path. TreeTD has a platform view, using a physics engine 'boulders' fall from the top of a tree down branches picking up speed due to gravity.

'Boulders' will take on different attributes/abilities depending on levels to combat the various towers, to really test the strategic abilities of our players.

This is certainly one of our most ambitious games to date, we hope to get an early prototype of this game working by the weekend.

Once we have finished development with this game we aim to release a number of 'core' skill games to our growing portfolio of games and work a bit more on the site.

Roland in the Caves

One of the first games I ever played. You’re a little purple chap in a cave. You have to escape this cave. However there is massive Jurassic bird that whats to clamp on to your head which you need to avoid. After a quick google it appears you’re a frog? I disagree, froggers a frog Roland is a mental purple thing that stands on his hind legs. Anyway the main thing I remember about this game is the sheer panic when that bird came near me.

Scary stuff indeed.

Ghostbusters on the Amstrad

What we loved about this game, is that you could pick your own car and modify it the way you liked. The main appeal of the game for me was trying to be able to afford the best car/stuff. I don’t know if it was just me or not but I found the marshmellow level at the end pretty impossble. Playing it again today, I've realised the game is pretty bad.

Worth it just for this guy singing the ghostbusters theme tune at the start. I'd stop watching after that though, it goes downhill after those dizzy heights. He gives it a 0/10, a fair reflection I think.

Download can be found here

Jet Set Willy

"Miner Willy, intrepid explorer and nouveu-riche socialite, has been reaping the benefits of his fortunate discovery in Surbition. He has a yacht, a cliff-top mansion, an Italian housekeeper and a French cook, and hundreds of new found friends who REALLY know how to enjoy themselves at a party. His housekeeper, Maria, however, takes a very dim view of all the revelry, and finally after a paricularly boisterous thrash she puts her foot down. When the last of the louts disappear down the drive in his Aston Martin, all Willy can think about is crashing out in his four-poster. But Maria won't let him into his room until ALL the discarded glasses and bottles have been cleared away. Can you help Willy out of his dilemma?"

This will probably be an on running theme but something about this game disturbed me. And that something was the package art. Now looking back at it, it’s fairly obvious what it is. But as a kid of about 5ish? I thought it was some monster crawling out of the toilet, how I got that I don’t know. So it now appears the whole concept game is that ‘Willy’ got pissed with his mates then the cleaner sets him on a mission to tidy the broken glass up... I’m hooked all over again!

I wish I could say that was me playing into the casio keyboard as I watched someone else play, sadly I can't thats the game music. I challenge you to watch/listen to that for more than 2minutes. I bet you can't, unless you have something to punch near by.

Download can be found here

Sorcery

Yup, another game on the Amstrad and another game that I found pretty freaky. What can I say, getting chased by a floating pig's head that was trying to harm me was a pretty scary concept for a 5 year old. In the game you are the last free scocerer and you have to fly about trying to save your ‘scocery’ buddies and in turn save the world from the evil Necomancer ‘once and for all’.

Download can be found here

Dizzy's Ultimate Cartoon Adventure

Where has it all gone wrong, nowadays the heros in video games are probably the most thought of and developed things when designing games ‘to reach the right demographic’ yaddayadda. Let me play as an egg and I’ll be happy. ‘Dizzy's world is being harassed by the evil wizard Zaks! You play as Dizzy, the anthropomorphic egg, and you must search the land for a Leprechaun's Wig, a Cloud's Silver Lining, a Vampire Dux Feather, and Troll Brew, to make a potion to defeat Zaks with.’ I had no idea about the evil wizard Zaks!

Endurance

Quite possibly the worst game I remember with fond memories. (along with ghostbusters) Basically in this game you run a motorbike team that will race at Le Mans(I think). You pick your team name, colours, engine and other motorbike specs. Then you watch the race, when I say watch the race, I mean watch the bikes zoom past the start line. When I say zoom I mean all the other bikes, not yours. They’ll either be out the race or be chugging along in last place a second or two after everyone else.

Captain Comic

"Captain Comic, galactic hero, prepares for his impossible mission... Armed with only his courage he enters the teleport chamber” Hell yeah, that’s what all 7 year olds want to hear. What I remember about this game is watching my brothers playing it (damn being the youngest.) I also have a vague memory of just floating up the top of screen shooting at things, happy days. ‘Your mission is to recover three treasures from the planet Omsoc, which have been stolen away and hidden on the remote planet of Tambi' Just to warn you about some of the horrors you face along the way, your enemies include ‘Shy Birds’, ‘Blind Toads’, ‘Space Pollen’ and a ‘Beach Ball’, ghee this does sound fairly impossible, thank god you’re a galactic hero hey!?

Download can be found here

Commander keen

Marooned on Mars and The secret of the oracle probably remain my favourite games, the blurb to Marooned on Mars: ‘Billy Blaze, eight year-old genius, working diligently in his backyard clubhouse has created an interstellar starship from old soup cans, rubber cement and plastic tubing. While his folks are out on the town and the babysitter has fallen asleep, Billy travels into his backyard workshop, dons his brother's football helmet, and transforms into...Commander Keen - Defender of Earth!’

What doesn’t appeal to a kid in there!? The name Billy Blaze, working diligently, a backyard clubhouse, creating an interstellar starship from old soup cans, putting on a football helmet and transforming into Commander Keen Defender of Earth. Why hasn’t this been made into a Hollywood blockbuster yet!? If that doesn’t convince you that Commander Keen is the greatest game ever made, then watch this.

Halloween Harry

Halloween Harry a.k.a Alien Carnage just looked damn cool to me. ‘you play a character called Harry, equipped with a jetpack and a flamethrower. The planet is under attack by an alien force and they are turning humans into BRAINDEAD ZOMBIES! Your mission is to go through the many levels, saving hostages and kicking zombie behind! The game was Apogee's first VGA platformer. Levels feature zombies, aliens, spikes, safe points, hostages, elevators and weapon dispensers. You have to find all the hostages (the women and men covered in slime) and then enter the elevator, which marks the end of the level.’

A diabolical plot indeed, you’re right to suggest that, Harry.

Download can be found here

Day of the Tentacle

So a Purple Tentacle, one of Dr. Fred’s crazy creations drinks industrial waste, from Dr Fred’s Sludge’o’matic. For some reason this makes him an insane genius. To save the world Dr Fred send three friends Bernard, Hoagie and Laverne back in time to yesterday in order for them to turn off the sluge’o’matic. However the mad Dr uses a fake diamond insted of a real one, which blows up sending Hoagie 200 years into the past and Laverne 200 years into the future.

Note: Drinking sewage doesn’t make you a genius, it just makes you very ill.

Download can be found here

Escape From Monkey Island

The first and the best. If you ever played this game I warn you not to press play on this youtube video, the music will just want you to play the game and make you feel empty inside because, games like this are not being made anymore. If you haven’t played this game before, ‘You are Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate!’ it’s your mission in life to become a pirate, find a crew, find a boat, find monkey island, woo the governor, escape from monkey island and defeat the evil le chuck in no particular order. Any wit or lack of wit for that matter that I have is a result of this game. How appropriate you fight like a cow.

'Look behind you! A three-headed monkey!'

Download can be found here

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe

One of the many games I was given the job of pressing space bar at the right moments, or just holding space bar down if we had unlimited ammunition. It’s a combat flight simulator, but what I really liked about the game was being a B-17 and controlling all of its guns and not having to actually fly, good ole auto-pilot.

That video is all action.

Loom

Right so this game probably freaked me out the most out of any game I ever played as a child. Firstly you don’t have a face, a bit like death, secondly all your friends at the start of the game are turned into swans and leave you, you have a stick that can play musical notes to do things, and pretty much every place the game takes you is freaky, like the dragons nest and the blacksmiths guild and at the end you go head to head with some flying devil thing. The game as a whole is just all round eerie.

if you can watch the whole of this video you're a far better man than me.