Gaming Looking for an old Win 3.11 advent calendar

[lordelan]

Well, it's not much to go on, but maybe we can still find it? I may be doing some internet searches soon. Wish me luck!

Very kind, thank u very much!

 

[HarveyHouston]

Hmm, do any of these ring a bell?

This is a video of one that was released in 1990. It's crudely made, but it has a snowman, Christmas Tree, and manger scene. From your description, this doesn't sound like it, but it's interesting.


This one is a set of candles that light up for each week of Advent; typing in "advent.exe windows 3 download" in DuckDuckGo pulled this up. It doesn't seem like it either, and the link is broken, anyway.
https://en.freedownloadmanager.org/Windows-PC/Advent-Calendar.html

There's a strange program on Internet Archive called "SantaZia", released 1996. It's supposed to be an advent calendar and game. I have my doubts, but it seems interesting.
https://archive.org/details/SANTAZIA

 

[lordelan]

This is a video of one that was released in 1990. It's crudely made, but it has a snowman, Christmas Tree, and manger scene. From your description, this doesn't sound like it, but it's interesting.

I already stumpled upon this one a few times. Seems to be one of the more famous/known ones although it's worse compared to the one I'm looking for in every aspect (which again makes me wonder why mine isn't that famous as it seems).

This one is a set of candles that light up for each week of Advent; typing in "advent.exe windows 3 download" in DuckDuckGo pulled this up. It doesn't seem like it either, and the link is broken, anyway.
https://en.freedownloadmanager.org/Windows-PC/Advent-Calendar.html

What the ... what's up with that bear?!
But no, it did not have any 3D models (including pre-rendered ones) in it. Was a plain 2D sprite driven application but at the same time looking way better than from that YT video above.

There's a strange program on Internet Archive called "SantaZia", released 1996. It's supposed to be an advent calendar and game. I have my doubts, but it seems interesting.
https://archive.org/details/SANTAZIA

Mother of god.

At least you brought up two games that I didn't find yet so it seems there's still potential for digging. It has to be somewhere out there!
Again: Thank you very much! =)

 

[Kwyjor]

First thing I thought of was https://www.google.com/search?q=site:cd.textfiles.com+"advent"+calendar . One of those, maybe?

 

[lordelan]

First thing I thought of was https://www.google.com/search?q=site:cd.textfiles.com+"advent"+calendar . One of those, maybe?

I will dig into them as soon as I find time. Thanks!

 

[lordelan]

First thing I thought of was https://www.google.com/search?q=site:cd.textfiles.com+"advent"+calendar . One of those, maybe?

Unfortunately it was not among them.
Also I spent another hour at Google image search and archive.org without success (I do this every now and then).
Damn, it must be somewhere out there.

 

[HarveyHouston]

Man, it would be nice to have that advent calendar by now... Sorry, buddy. Hopefully, you have a pretty good alternative.

 

[lordelan]

Man, it would be nice to have that advent calendar by now... Sorry, buddy. Hopefully, you have a pretty good alternative.

It's the first christmas where my wife 'n me got our own f*cking christmas tree so I'm pretty fine this year, at least in real life.
Thanks though. I'm sure, I'll find it one day. And if I do, I'll fire up DosBox with Win 3.11 and enjoy the sh*t out of it! =)

 

[Clutz450]

Have you tried contacting eXo and his team over at eXoDOS? They have painstakingly gone through and tested every dos and Windows 3.x game so maybe they have seen your calendar and remember it. Or you can download their pack and you can slowly browse through every game yourself and see if you can find it that way. Here is a link to there discord https://discord.gg/37FYaUZ The people there are very nice. And here is a link to his site where you can get information on where to download his packs. https://www.retro-exo.com/ Good luck. I hope you find it.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

I've actually already checked ExoDOS v5, as well as Win3x0 just to be sure. Nothing really related to what the OP is looking for, unfortunately.

But then I doubt it'd be considered a "Game" in the first place, anyways, given it's a calendar

 

[HarveyHouston]

It's the first christmas where my wife 'n me got our own f*cking christmas tree so I'm pretty fine this year, at least in real life.
Thanks though. I'm sure, I'll find it one day. And if I do, I'll fire up DosBox with Win 3.11 and enjoy the sh*t out of it! =)

Well, at least you get to decorate your colorful words with Christmas stars. I truly am sorry about not being able to find it - believe me, I've still been looking. TBH, it seems I recall some advent program for Windows 3.x that was similar to what you described, but I don't exactly remember. It was a while back, and my family and I have since lost the floppies and hard disks that such software would have been on.

 

[lordelan]

Thanks to all u guys for the tips (that I will follow), good wishes and work you've put into this. It really means a lot!
Stay healthy and have a freakin' nice christmas time!

 

[KitsumiTheFox]

I know you already checked WinWorldPC, but is it https://winworldpc.com/product/xmas-for-windows/80?

 

[lordelan]

I know you already checked WinWorldPC, but is it https://winworldpc.com/product/xmas-for-windows/80?

Unfortunately not. This is just a small bundle of minigames, wallpapers, icons and so on that I stumbled upon multiple times while looking for my advent calendar.

 

[Redhorse]

they used to give games like this away free like this at computer shows years ago, 20-30 years ago I used to go to them for the stacks of freeware and shareware games.
Some were tech demos for programmers looking for work, others were come-ons for larger games for sale, etc...

 

[HarveyHouston]

they used to give games like this away free like this at computer shows years ago, 20-30 years ago I used to go to them for the stacks of freeware and shareware games.
Some were tech demos for programmers looking for work, others were come-ons for larger games for sale, etc...

Yeah, I remember all kinds of software we got on floppy disks (wow, floppies! Do people even use them, anymore?) and CD-ROMs, some of it was software for Windows. Photo organizers, music players, art editing tools... some of it was pretty cool, but most of it was crap and already had better alternatives.

 

[Dracari]

have you thought to reaching out to Pixelmusement? or even LGR? given they have covered so much Shareware content esp durring the christmas time, (esp pixel and his ongoing Shovelware diggers series)

 

[lordelan]

have you thought to reaching out to Pixelmusement? or even LGR? given they have covered so much Shareware content esp durring the christmas time, (esp pixel and his ongoing Shovelware diggers series)

Good point, thanks.

Edit: Unfortunately no luck with Pixelmusement. He (?) doesn't know anything about any calendars.

 

[WG481]

Hi guys,
I hope you can help me out.
Back in the days of Windows 3.1(1) we used to have a cool advent calendar program on our family PC and I can't figure out what it was called.
Unfortunately I don't know much about it.
There was a spaceman flying around and in one of the doors there was a b/w image for the user to apply colors to it.
The calendar itself was a snowy house with the numbers being on the doors and windows iirc.
Also it could be the case that it was a promotional game of intel or a specific printer brand. Not sure about that one as well (I mean that was like more than 20 years ago).
Would be awesome if you can help me find that one!

Edit: I think it was this spaceman image:

but without the background and it was not animated or something ... just that sprite moving across the screen

This is a job for Nick Robinson.

 

[lordelan]

Another christmas has passed by and I still haven't found it. I even checked my backup archive that I burnt to DVDs from 2005 (probably 10 years after the advent calendar release date) but once again my hopes have been shattered.
I can't believe that a game, that was better than the commonly known "Advent.exe" game for which countless YouTube videos exist, just disappeared from earth and didn't make it "into the internet".