Post by TheCracksOverhead on Jun 27, 2020 20:09:37 GMT
Hello again - it's been a while. I finally managed to get around to writing an article about this game. Hopefully it will give it a little more attention.
Hello again - it's been a while. I finally managed to get around to writing an article about this game. Hopefully it will give it a little more attention.
Post by TheCracksOverhead on Nov 7, 2020 5:37:51 GMT
Sorry for the bump - no new updates on anything since my last post, but I was wondering if anyone reading this could give me links to any old websites, now-defunct or not, that were for sure known to have Shockwave games on them? I will eventually do a deep dive into the Wayback Machine for all of them to see if any of them hosted the game at one point in time. It's extremely doubtful that it was ever on a site other than Throbbing, but I'm willing to look when I have the time. I've already checked shockwave.com, not there.
Yes, those are websites that I have been to before during my search. These are where I found some screenshots of the game that are listed in the Wiki article.
Post by TheCracksOverhead on Feb 11, 2021 3:27:18 GMT
Small update:
I've tried contacting the Internet Archive to see if they could do an advanced search within the Wayback Machine to see if they could find any captured links to files that have the same names as the ones that are missing. Unfortunately, they said that they don't "have an index for the names of files that may be archived via the Wayback Machine" so if it was ever hosted on any site other than Throbbing, it's probably impossible to find out what site it would be.
I have also tried contacting the user "Arelay" from the DSLReports thread via email to see if he still has the computer he played the game on. It's possible that the two files could be buried in browser cache somewhere. No response back yet though.
The only other thing I can think of is maybe trying to contact someone who was on the Havok team back in the day to see if they have a copy of the game archived somewhere.
It was showcased on their website under "Demos from Users" so somebody from Havok may have played it at some point. (Click here to see what I mean - Just head to the "Demos from Users" link on the left.)
I don't really know where to begin with trying to find the right people though.
I also looked around inside the one file that we do have (ohead.dcr) and found a texture explaining the rules of the game: "Navigate the Bird & Cart through the Maze using the cursor keys to steer. Look for his secret door and break through." There were a few other bits of stuff in the file as well, but that was the most interesting find.
That's about it really. With the way this is looking I honestly really don't think there's any chance that this will ever be found.
I don't see how the average person was able to find this page back in the day though since I can't find a link to it from the rest of the site.
There's still a problem though.. If this website actually hosted the files for this game too, then the Wayback Machine didn't save them from this site either! See, the site uses iframes for loading different parts of the site. When you click the link to launch the game, it opens a popup page. This popup page very well could have just been a page with an iframe that would load the game from Throbbing, but it's impossible to tell if that was the case since the popup page was never archived. There were also two images on the game info page that weren't archived: "maze-title.gif" and "screenshot.jpg".
There is hope though! The Oysterhead website was designed by a company called Zoltron. After digging into their website on the Wayback Machine a little, I've discovered that they used to have 6 Shockwave games on their website back in the day. Who created these 6 games you might ask? None other than Roger Jones! I have no clue whether they were created specifically for Zoltron or not, but they actually still exist on their website if you know the link to them.
I have already sent an email to Zoltron, asking to get in touch with the person who runs the website itself to see if they still have any files relating to the game at all. Hopefully they'll be able to find it!
I don't have the knowledge or skills to be able to do such a thing, and I doubt that anyone would want to try to remake something such as this (especially since we have no idea what the game was like level design-wise).
I don't see how the average person was able to find this page back in the day though since I can't find a link to it from the rest of the site.
There's still a problem though.. If this website actually hosted the files for this game too, then the Wayback Machine didn't save them from this site either! See, the site uses iframes for loading different parts of the site. When you click the link to launch the game, it opens a popup page. This popup page very well could have just been a page with an iframe that would load the game from Throbbing, but it's impossible to tell if that was the case since the popup page was never archived. There were also two images on the game info page that weren't archived: "maze-title.gif" and "screenshot.jpg".
There is hope though! The Oysterhead website was designed by a company called Zoltron. After digging into their website on the Wayback Machine a little, I've discovered that they used to have 6 Shockwave games on their website back in the day. Who created these 6 games you might ask? None other than Roger Jones! I have no clue whether they were created specifically for Zoltron or not, but they actually still exist on their website if you know the link to them.
I have already sent an email to Zoltron, asking to get in touch with the person who runs the website itself to see if they still have any files relating to the game at all. Hopefully they'll be able to find it!
I don't have the knowledge or skills to be able to do such a thing, and I doubt that anyone would want to try to remake something such as this (especially since we have no idea what the game was like level design-wise).
It's my first time posting here so I hope this is in the right section.
When I was little, my dad and I used to surf the web playing browser games.
One day, we came across this strange game, and we played it only maybe once or twice, and that was it. I don't remember much of it, just that you controlled a cart, and I think you could break one of the walls in the maze to reveal a room that "Mr. Oysterhead" was hiding in. It seems that the game is themed after the musical supergroup "Oysterhead". I don't know anything about them, nor do I have enough knowledge about Shockwave/Director to attempt to get the game running (tomysshadow will probably be the expert here), but I can at least post all the information I have about the game.
Oysterhead Maze is a 3D Shockwave game that came out sometime in 2001. It uses the Shockwave Havok Xtra.
Here is a link to the earliest archived version of the game page that actually contains any content:
All you're going to see is a black page though since Chrome and Firefox have dropped support for Shockwave (IE still works).
NOTE: I don't know what it's like now, but a while back I visited the live version of the Throbbing website when I was first looking into this, and it contained something along the lines of ads/redirects/popups, so be cautious if you're wanting to go there.
Why is it lost? Well, even though the main game file still exists (ohead.dcr), the game never loads, and I think it's because there's another file it's looking for that was somehow never archived. It's called "head_only.W3D", and I assume it's required for the game to run.
that the Wayback Machine picked up on the file, but the two captures just lead to some kind of redirect that's probably from long after the original site went down (whenever that was).
Here are the only screenshots of the game I could find online:
Yes, that's it! Can you upload it somewhere? And where on earth did you find it?
look, idk if is gonna work this file, but i tried to download the dead link from My cURLDownloader i picked the link i download it head_only.W3D (2.58 KB)
Post by TheCracksOverhead on Mar 9, 2021 18:48:52 GMT
Small update: I never did hear back from Zoltron. I even messaged them on Facebook, and while they did read my messages, they did not respond. I don't know what the point is in setting up your account to allow people to message you if you're not going to respond to them... Anyway, I have also messaged Roger on Facebook to see if I could get more details from him. If that doesn't lead anywhere, then the only thing left is to try and contact one of the band members to see if I can get any information on who ran their website back in 2001. After that, I'll be out of leads, and I'll probably just give up searching for it at that point.
Post by TheCracksOverhead on May 6, 2021 22:12:29 GMT
Yet another unexciting update: - Still no response from Roger. He hasn't read my message to him on Facebook. (Unless you can unread a message, which I think is a thing.)
- I emailed Brad Sands, who seems to be the main person to contact in regards to Les Claypool, who is one of Oysterhead's members. I'm hoping that Brad can ask Claypool if he or the other band members know who ran the original Oysterhead website. Hopefully whoever that person is will still have a backup copy of the site and the game files. That email was sent a week ago but I haven't received a reply yet.
- I have also messaged someone on Facebook who is hopefully the correct "Chris Knoff". He was credited as the person who did the 3D Art for the game. His account doesn't seem active anymore so I'll be surprised if I get a reply back. I tried emailing his original PacBell email, but it doesn't work anymore.
Does anyone know how to find a website's ownership history? If I could get the name of the person who was in charge of Oysterhead.com from February 2001 to March 2014, and maybe even their contact info, then I might just be able to find this thing.