Graphics and ADOM
Carter Taps Linn
On Tue, 11 Feb 1997 07:49:35 -0800, Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com>
wrote:
>That reminds me of "CASTLE2," a cute little text-mode graphics game for the
>PC. It was kind of a combination between a Roguelike (your position on the
>screen was important) and a text adventure (you typed in your commands,
>other than moving around). The object was to collect treasure, and there
>was a lot. Anyone else remember this one?
Cripes. I remember a friend of mine having castle on his realllly old
PC. This had to...1989, and it was an ancient game by then. 1986-88,
somewhere in there. It wasn't the original version, I figured.
This is Castle1 I'm talking about. Never seen a two. Where a little
ascii man picked up ASCII stuff, but commands (not movement) was
controlled with text input.
This game needed work though. Nice segue to a new style of game (that
shoulda been), but very very rough.
Taps
----------------------
By god, Tom. I can't win this bloody game if I can't hold ALL the
treasure at once! Huh?
Sheldon Simms
In article <3301431a...@news.internetland.net>,
mit...@internetland.net wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Feb 1997 07:49:35 -0800, Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com>
> wrote:
> >That reminds me of "CASTLE2," a cute little text-mode graphics game for the
> >PC. It was kind of a combination between a Roguelike (your position on the
> >screen was important) and a text adventure (you typed in your commands,
> >other than moving around). The object was to collect treasure, and there
> >was a lot. Anyone else remember this one?
>
> Cripes. I remember a friend of mine having castle on his realllly old
> PC. This had to...1989, and it was an ancient game by then. 1986-88,
> somewhere in there. It wasn't the original version, I figured.
>
> This is Castle1 I'm talking about. Never seen a two. Where a little
> ascii man picked up ASCII stuff, but commands (not movement) was
> controlled with text input.
>
> This game needed work though. Nice segue to a new style of game (that
> shoulda been), but very very rough.
OK, if we're going way back, I had a game when I first got my Apple IIe
in 1984 that was based on The Lord of The Rings. It was text-based and
somewhat roguelike. You had to search around for the one ring, if I
remember correctly. It's been so long I don't remember much more than
that. Does anyone know what game this was?
-Sheldon
--
W. Sheldon Simms III | 2000 is *still* the 20th century
she...@atlcom.net |
Alex Pomeranz
: OK, if we're going way back, I had a game when I first got my Apple IIe
: in 1984 that was based on The Lord of The Rings. It was text-based and
: somewhat roguelike. You had to search around for the one ring, if I
: remember correctly. It's been so long I don't remember much more than
: that. Does anyone know what game this was?
Q: What was "Ringquest"?
Bing bing! I spent HOURS playing that game. I'd still play it
occasionally if I had an apple. :) That was a great game.
If I remember correctly, once you found the ring, you could go onto a
second level. Am I remembering that correctly?
"The werewolf shreads your cloak of invisibility!" :)
Alex
Sheldon Simms
In article <5dt78i$7fj$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu>, ez05...@boris.ucdavis.edu
(Alex Pomeranz) wrote:
Yes! I remember that message! Well, thanks for the name.
Alex Pomeranz
: > : OK, if we're going way back, I had a game when I first got my Apple IIe
: > : in 1984 that was based on The Lord of The Rings. It was text-based and
: > : somewhat roguelike. You had to search around for the one ring, if I
: > : remember correctly. It's been so long I don't remember much more than
: > : that. Does anyone know what game this was?
: >
: > Q: What was "Ringquest"?
: >
: > Bing bing! I spent HOURS playing that game. I'd still play it
: > occasionally if I had an apple. :) That was a great game.
: >
: > If I remember correctly, once you found the ring, you could go onto a
: > second level. Am I remembering that correctly?
: >
: > "The werewolf shreads your cloak of invisibility!" :)
:
: Yes! I remember that message! Well, thanks for the name.
Haha... That was good for a laugh. :) Now you've made me want to go out
and buy an old apple II just so I can play that game. Anybody want to do
an IBM port? :)
Alex
grundman
Wow.
Okay guys, if you want to go WAAY back (whats the average age here
anyway?), does anyone remember some of the truely 'first' computer rpgs?
The first I can ever remember was BAM, acronym for Beneath Apple Manor,
played on the first apple home pcs available. It was written in basic,
and you waited about 45-90 seconds between turns for the computer to
think and react to your input (still miss the old days guys?), yet it
was random and incredibly fun. I was in High School then, . . . sigh.
The other game I remember (this was right before Roberta Williams The
Wizard and the Princess and the very first Infocom text based games were
released) was this really cool game called 'Morlocks Tower'.
The strange thing is, I cannot find ANYONE that remembers this game.
thanks for the memories . . . :)
G
--
NOTICE: Remember to remove asterisks and 'spamtr*p' from email
address when replying.
Clark Kent: 'Gee Lois, that's swell!'
Lois Lane: 'Er, Clark, people don't really say 'swell' any more, kay?'
Clark Kent: 'Gee, I always thought that it was kinda natural . . .'
Andrew Plotkin
grundman (Allspammers@mustdie!.com) wrote:
> Wow.
> Okay guys, if you want to go WAAY back (whats the average age here
> anyway?)
Which here? r.g.rl.misc or r.a.i-f?
> does anyone remember some of the truely 'first' computer rpgs?
> The first I can ever remember was BAM, acronym for Beneath Apple Manor,
> played on the first apple home pcs available. It was written in basic,
> and you waited about 45-90 seconds between turns for the computer to
> think and react to your input (still miss the old days guys?), yet it
> was random and incredibly fun. I was in High School then, . . . sigh.
Oh, wow, indeed. Beneath Apple Manor. Now I want to play thgat again (to
remind me of how bad it must have been, most likely.)
That was written for the ever-popular lo-res graphics, right?
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
john thomas flanagan
grundman (Allspammers@mustdie!.com) wrote:
: Wow.
: Okay guys, if you want to go WAAY back (whats the average age here
The first one I ever played was called Oldorf's Castle. It was written
in basic (and reading through the source taught me a lot about
programming- I was in 4th grade at the time). It used Apple's HIRES
graphics mode, and you could watch as the lines and dots get plotted on
the screen, since it was so slow. You wandered around a maze collecting
treasure and solving puzzles, by using the ability to change between
different classes that could do different things. As a Strongman you
could move things, as a Cleric you could read, as a Swordsman you could
kill things (once you found the sword), and so on.
After that, I got Wizardry: Proving Grounds for the Mad Overlord, which I
thought was absolutely awesome. I played through it again using an Apple
emulator just a few months ago, and was stunned at how primitive it seems
now.
--
John Flanagan
flan...@uiuc.edu
Alex Pomeranz
71631...@lpm2-27.atlcom.net> <5ebo3d$c...@bolivia.earthlink.net>
Distribution:
: The other game I remember (this was right before Roberta Williams The
: Wizard and the Princess and the very first Infocom text based games were
: released) was this really cool game called 'Morlocks Tower'.
: The strange thing is, I cannot find ANYONE that remembers this game.
I played a game that had a name something like that. You were a person,
and you could move 0-9 squares (which you typed with the keypad) at a
time. Is this the same game you're thinking of?
Alex
Erik Hetzner
In article <5ecdmh$c...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, flan...@students.uiuc.edu
(john thomas flanagan) wrote:
> The first one I ever played was called Oldorf's Castle. It was written
> in basic (and reading through the source taught me a lot about
> programming- I was in 4th grade at the time). It used Apple's HIRES
Back in fourth grade, I remember playing with Zork. I suppose I got an
early start in Interactive Fiction. :) That and MULE. It's funny, actually
-- I don't care much at all for most modern games -- these are the only
ones I truly like: Interactive Fiction, and a certain nostalgia for MULE.
:) Ah well.
--
Erik Hetzner <e...@uclink4.berkeley.edu>
Matthew Daly
In article <5ecdmh$c...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> flan...@students.uiuc.edu (john thomas flanagan) writes:
>
>After that, I got Wizardry: Proving Grounds for the Mad Overlord, which I
>thought was absolutely awesome. I played through it again using an Apple
>emulator just a few months ago, and was stunned at how primitive it seems
>now.
Really? I am more stunned about how W1 has more game-playing time
than any of its more recent successors. I wish I could find it for
sale in this day and age running on my Penty.
-Matthew
--
Matthew Daly I feel that if a person has problems communicating
mwd...@kodak.com the very least he can do is to shut up - Tom Lehrer
My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer, of course.
Robert A. Pelak
In article <5ed5p3$8p4$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu>,
If I remember correctly, Morlock's Tower was the second game in a
series by Epyx (maybe). Temple of Aphai was first.
Robert
Alex Pomeranz
: >I played a game that had a name something like that. You were a person,
: >and you could move 0-9 squares (which you typed with the keypad) at a
: >time. Is this the same game you're thinking of?
: If I remember correctly, Morlock's Tower was the second game in a
: series by Epyx (maybe). Temple of Aphai was first.
Aha! I was thinking of something that was out before Temple of Aphai. I
spent many many hours playing Temple of Aphai. Don't know if I ever
played Morlock's Tower, though. Actually, come to think of it, I think I
did. One of my friends got the whole trilogy.
Those games weren't really roguelike, though.
Anybody play Age of Adventure? I still like that game, primative as it
is.
Alex
they got purple; purple's a fruit
And behold, Robert A. Pelak <pe...@sage.msc.cornell.edu> did spake, speaking:
> In article <5ed5p3$8p4$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu>,
> Alex Pomeranz <ez05...@boris.ucdavis.edu> wrote:
> >71631...@lpm2-27.atlcom.net> <5ebo3d$c...@bolivia.earthlink.net>
> >Distribution:
> >
> >: The other game I remember (this was right before Roberta Williams The
> >: Wizard and the Princess and the very first Infocom text based games were
> >: released) was this really cool game called 'Morlocks Tower'.
> >: The strange thing is, I cannot find ANYONE that remembers this game.
> >
> >and you could move 0-9 squares (which you typed with the keypad) at a
> >time. Is this the same game you're thinking of?
> >
>
> If I remember correctly, Morlock's Tower was the second game in a
> series by Epyx (maybe). Temple of Aphai was first.
There was also "Ali Baba" by Stuart something-or-other, the fellow who
designed Adventure Construction Set, which was the most amazing program I
had ever seen at the time of its release. Many a happy hour was spent
writing "Lord Draith Must Die" until I exhausted the program's limit of
rooms or objects or whatever it was I did. Ali Baba was a direct prototype
of ACS and I miss both programs dearly.
--
spa...@error.net, chief engineer (toot toot!) Spatula Labs, error.net/~spatula
"Pez is cheap; smiles are priceless." - C. L. McCoy
mstie#43790
Justen Meltz
It was a dark and stormy night, when Matthew Daly typed:
> IIRC, it was the third. At least, it was always listed third after
> Temple of Apshai and Datestones of Rhyn (spelling of the second one
> is tenative).
Oh, I remember Temple of Asphai. This was a pretty decent game, IIRC.
How about the c64 game Alternate Reality? Pretty good graphical
rogue-like. A single char, generated somewhat at random... Pretty
detailed too. I think it took place in the future, on some
backward planet (ie still swords and magic, etc). Fun, but the
copy protection kept knocking the drive head on my fdd out of
alignment. Ah, the good old days.
> For people who don't know these games, imagine the original Castle
> Wolfenstein except with the PC as a pixel instead of a stick-man, and
> you've got the basic idea of the interface.
I thought Temple of Asphai had a stickman type character... What
platform did you play it on? Castle Wolfenstein was great too,
although I can't remember the interface at all.
Would anybody classify Hunt the Wumpus (Ti994a) as sort-of
roguelike? I don't remember much about it, except a single
char wandered around a single screen (?) dungeon trying
to shoot the wumpus with a bow (?). Jeez, that was years ago.
Justn (I could be mistaken about anything above. Shrug).
Matthew Daly
In article <5edgtc$5...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu> pe...@sage.msc.cornell.edu (Robert A. Pelak) writes:
>In article <5ed5p3$8p4$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu>,
>Alex Pomeranz <ez05...@boris.ucdavis.edu> wrote:
>>71631...@lpm2-27.atlcom.net> <5ebo3d$c...@bolivia.earthlink.net>
>>Distribution:
>>
>>: The other game I remember (this was right before Roberta Williams The
>>: Wizard and the Princess and the very first Infocom text based games were
>>: released) was this really cool game called 'Morlocks Tower'.
>>: The strange thing is, I cannot find ANYONE that remembers this game.
>>
>>I played a game that had a name something like that. You were a person,
>>and you could move 0-9 squares (which you typed with the keypad) at a
>>time. Is this the same game you're thinking of?
>
>If I remember correctly, Morlock's Tower was the second game in a
>series by Epyx (maybe). Temple of Aphai was first.
IIRC, it was the third. At least, it was always listed third after
Temple of Apshai and Datestones of Rhyn (spelling of the second one
is tenative).
I never got past more than a couple rooms in Apshai, but Morlock's Tower
was quite winnable by contrast. Never saw DoR except in ads.
Your memory fits Morlock's Tower and the other games of the ilk. The
game contained a fixed map of a six-story building with about a dozen
items strewn around, some more useful than others. I remember liking
the fact that your Stamina level was an important factor, and you'd
have trouble fighting if you moved around at top speed carrying heavy
treasures.
For people who don't know these games, imagine the original Castle
Wolfenstein except with the PC as a pixel instead of a stick-man, and
you've got the basic idea of the interface.
-Matthew
Kenneth Albanowski
In article <5ebo3d$c...@bolivia.earthlink.net>,
grundman <grun...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> The other game I remember (this was right before Roberta Williams The
>Wizard and the Princess and the very first Infocom text based games were
>released) was this really cool game called 'Morlocks Tower'.
>The strange thing is, I cannot find ANYONE that remembers this game.
Yeah, I know that feeling. Anyone remember Rocky's Boots? How about Robot
Odyssey? (I have yet to see anything that does as good a job of teaching
electronics as RO. I sincerely hope that Software Toolworks has the source
code lying around somewhere.)
Oh, that reminds me of one I never got to play... Has anyone ever heard of
something like "The Search For The Most Amazing Thing In The Universe"? This
was back in the middle days of the PC, I think (back when you could still
buy LOGO.) I never got to play the damnable thing, as it just wouldn't run
on my computer. I assume it wasn't just a takeoff on _Time Bandits_, but I
wasn't able to find out. To this day, I still wonder occasionally what "The
Most Amazing Thing In The Universe" was. Perhaps getting the game running
was part of the search. ;-)
--
Kenneth Albanowski (kja...@kjahds.com)
Mr M P Searle
In article <5efndk$ap...@hpbs1500.boi.hp.com>,
>> Temple of Apshai and Datestones of Rhyn (spelling of the second one
>> is tenative).
>
>How about the c64 game Alternate Reality? Pretty good graphical
>rogue-like. A single char, generated somewhat at random... Pretty
>detailed too. I think it took place in the future, on some
>backward planet (ie still swords and magic, etc). Fun, but the
>copy protection kept knocking the drive head on my fdd out of
>alignment. Ah, the good old days.
>
>> Wolfenstein except with the PC as a pixel instead of a stick-man, and
>> you've got the basic idea of the interface.
>
>platform did you play it on? Castle Wolfenstein was great too,
>although I can't remember the interface at all.
>
>Would anybody classify Hunt the Wumpus (Ti994a) as sort-of
>roguelike? I don't remember much about it, except a single
>char wandered around a single screen (?) dungeon trying
>to shoot the wumpus with a bow (?). Jeez, that was years ago.
I played that, also on a Ti994a. I wouldn't really call it a roguelike
though. (wow, there's more than one person that got one of those
doorst^H^H^H^H^H^Hcomputers!)
>
>Justn (I could be mistaken about anything above. Shrug).
>
--
Michael Searle - cs...@csv.warwick.ac.uk
Sheldon Simms
> Oh, that reminds me of one I never got to play... Has anyone ever heard of
> something like "The Search For The Most Amazing Thing In The Universe"? This
> was back in the middle days of the PC, I think (back when you could still
> buy LOGO.) I never got to play the damnable thing, as it just wouldn't run
> on my computer. I assume it wasn't just a takeoff on _Time Bandits_, but I
> wasn't able to find out. To this day, I still wonder occasionally what "The
> Most Amazing Thing In The Universe" was. Perhaps getting the game running
> was part of the search. ;-)
Yes I had that game for my Apple II. In fact I still have both the game
and the Apple. It was not roguelike in the least, more like a Sierra
game, although not quite like that either. I can't remember what the
"most amazing thing" was, but you had to travel around this alien
planet finding junk that would eventually help you find the most
amazing thing.
Adam J. Thornton
In article <slrn5glbuq....@underground.error.net>,
they got purple; purple's a fruit <spa...@underground.error.net> wrote:
>There was also "Ali Baba" by Stuart something-or-other, the fellow who
>designed Adventure Construction Set, which was the most amazing program I
>had ever seen at the time of its release. Many a happy hour was spent
>writing "Lord Draith Must Die" until I exhausted the program's limit of
>rooms or objects or whatever it was I did. Ali Baba was a direct prototype
>of ACS and I miss both programs dearly.
Stuart Smith.
Yeah. ACS was really, really high in terms of the sheer ass-kicking factor
of programs for 6502-based machines. Me, I had the Apple version, but the
C64 version was pretty cool too.
Adam
--
"I'd buy me a used car lot, and | ad...@princeton.edu | As B/4 | Save the choad!
I'd never sell any of 'em, just | "Skippy, you little fool, you are off on an-
drive me a different car every day | other of your senseless and retrograde
depending on how I feel.":Tom Waits| little journeys.": Thomas Pynchon | 64,928
athol-brose
In article <5eg4aq$j...@kjahds.com>,
Kenneth Albanowski <kja...@kjahds.com> wrote:
>Yeah, I know that feeling. Anyone remember Rocky's Boots? How about Robot
>Odyssey? (I have yet to see anything that does as good a job of teaching
>electronics as RO. I sincerely hope that Software Toolworks has the source
>code lying around somewhere.)
I remember these! The library had them on the Apple //, and when they came
out for the Color Computer, I just had to get the 64K upgrade, disk drive
and OS/9 so I could run it :)
They were a lot of fun, if extremely frustrating sometimes.
--
athol-brose -- cinn...@one.net -- http://w3.one.net/~cinnamon/
Eli the Bearded
Mr M P Searle <cs...@csv.warwick.ac.uk> wrote:
> jme...@boi.hp.com (Justen Meltz) writes:
>>Would anybody classify Hunt the Wumpus (Ti994a) as sort-of
>>roguelike? I don't remember much about it, except a single
Hunt the Wumpus would not really be rogue-like. It is still availble
as wump(6) on Unix systems, and there is at least one web version.
<URL:http://www.bu.edu/htbin/wcl/>
>I played that, also on a Ti994a. I wouldn't really call it a roguelike
>though. (wow, there's more than one person that got one of those
>doorst^H^H^H^H^H^Hcomputers!)
I dunno, while maybe there wasn't much software for it, it was the
first 16bit mass market home computer, IIRC. TI designed it with
(mostly) overkill in mind, which didn't help the price. As designed
-- but with some optional hardware -- it could support four joysticks,
two cassettes, three 5 1/4" DS/DD drives, four RS232 devices, two
parallel port devices, and speech synthesis. It's weak points were
poor graphics and poor memory expansion options. A 16 bit computer
with 48k of RAM was not terribly useful. (Actually the 4a didn't
have 16 bit addressing, but the successor 99/8 [which was never
sold] did.)
Followups redirected.
Elijah
------
misses "Parsec"
Joe and Bonnie Aultman
>Would anybody classify Hunt the Wumpus (Ti994a) as sort-of
>roguelike? I don't remember much about it, except a single
>to shoot the wumpus with a bow (?). Jeez, that was years ago.
This game is still on many, many of the machines out there now.
For example, the Linux machine my ISP uses for my shell account.
Here is a directory listing of /usr/games:
arithmetic atc backgammon battlestar bcd bog caesar canfield cfscores
cribbage factor fish fortune fortunes hangman hunt lib mille monop
morse number paranoia pom ppt primes rain robots sail snake snscore
teachgammon trek wargames worm worms wump
Besides "wump," some others of interest might be "paranoia," which
was discussed very recently, and "robots," which has been copied
very, very well for the Z-machine. "atc" is also fun, but has
nothing to do with I-F.
That is all,
Joe
Michael Bahr
In article <5ecfva$q...@kodak.rdcs.Kodak.COM> Matthew Daly,
da...@PPD.Kodak.COM writes:
>Subject: Re: Old "Roguelike-like" games (was Re: Graphics and ADOM)
...well the first handheld TI calculator a highschool friend baught was
over 2000!
on rogue: i'm still reccomending it whenever an old pc is braught back to
life - and if you want to be fancy, try the still available (on the MAC
at least) super rogue called MORIA
the game really missed is the simplistic POPCORN gamepack for the CoCo -
strange that this simple game captured more of my attention than all the
new super games today :)
Kenneth Albanowski
In article <5ei12e$a...@news.one.net>,
athol-brose <cinn...@shell.one.net> wrote:
>In article <5eg4aq$j...@kjahds.com>,
>Kenneth Albanowski <kja...@kjahds.com> wrote:
>>Yeah, I know that feeling. Anyone remember Rocky's Boots? How about Robot
>>Odyssey? (I have yet to see anything that does as good a job of teaching
>>electronics as RO. I sincerely hope that Software Toolworks has the source
>>code lying around somewhere.)
>
>I remember these! The library had them on the Apple //, and when they came
>out for the Color Computer, I just had to get the 64K upgrade, disk drive
>and OS/9 so I could run it :)
>
>They were a lot of fun, if extremely frustrating sometimes.
Yes, precisely. I never got past the library level (four?) of RO. Let's
see... I remember shutting off the force-field in the engineering section,
and I may have got the two robots to cooperate in getting the disk past the
other force-field. But I never got as far as remote operating a robot
through the ductwork or setting up two robots to act simultaneously to get
through the invisible maze (one robot needed to go through a "model" maze
and communicate the walls to the robot going through the invisible maze so
it wouldn't hit the walls and trigger the zappers.) The manual mentioned
that the fifth (was there a sixth?) level was even more complicated, but I
never saw it.
Remember folks, if you think that sounds complicated, it was much worse, I
assure you. These weren't Infocom-style "figure out the trick to the puzzle
and get the prize", but rooms and robots with physics (of a limited sort),
and electrical (well, a cross between electrical and electronic) circuitry
that you had to _solder_ together to program the robots to do stuff. We're
talking flip-flops, logic gates, batteries, and extremely primitive radios
for communication. The result was better then some digital circuit
simulation tools I've seen. The wiring didn't have delay characteristics,
but the gates sure did, and top all that off with a lab that let you blow 8
(16?) pin chips with custom circuity if you were filling up your robots with
a rats-nest of wiring and gates.
A few modern Sierra and Maxis titles are starting to come close (The
Incredible Machine and its ilk, in particular) but I've yet to see anything
match the complexity of RO.
Rocky's Boots was based on the same engine, and most of the same principles,
but didn't have robots. You just wandered around wiring up solutions to
puzzles in a very well designed tutorial environment.
There was a third game, Gertrude Goose (?), I think it was. That didn't have
any electronics at all, but was more a generic teaching thing, I think
including shapes, colors, English, etc. I believe both Rocky's Boots and the
Goose one were being used in schools.
It's a pity they never kept the software up-to-date. I've got some disks for
RO sitting right here, but the game never ran properly on any post-XT
computers, and my disks have probably succumbed to bit-rot by now, anyhow.
This stuff was _good_, very, very good, both in a game sense and an
educational sense. (Of course, I may well be biased. After explaining RO to
someone I got told that it would only be attractive to computer geeks.
Perhaps true, though I have to wonder about the causality.) Whenever I see
someone going on about educational software, these classics are my standards
of comparsion. None of them involved rote drills or memorization, they made
good use of the computer resources, and actually tought something in a way
that could not be done reasonably without a computer.
--
Kenneth Albanowski (kja...@kjahds.com)
Andrew Plotkin
Kenneth Albanowski (kja...@kjahds.com) wrote:
> >>Yeah, I know that feeling. Anyone remember Rocky's Boots? How about Robot
> >>Odyssey? (I have yet to see anything that does as good a job of teaching
> >>electronics as RO. I sincerely hope that Software Toolworks has the source
> >>code lying around somewhere.)
> >
> >I remember these! The library had them on the Apple //, and when they came
> >out for the Color Computer, I just had to get the 64K upgrade, disk drive
> >and OS/9 so I could run it :)
> >
> >They were a lot of fun, if extremely frustrating sometimes.
> Yes, precisely. I never got past the library level (four?) of RO. Let's
> see... I remember shutting off the force-field in the engineering section,
> and I may have got the two robots to cooperate in getting the disk past the
> other force-field. But I never got as far as remote operating a robot
> through the ductwork or setting up two robots to act simultaneously to get
> through the invisible maze (one robot needed to go through a "model" maze
> and communicate the walls to the robot going through the invisible maze so
> it wouldn't hit the walls and trigger the zappers.) The manual mentioned
> that the fifth (was there a sixth?) level was even more complicated, but I
> never saw it.
Oooh, hrm. I did get through the whole game. (Twice, in fact -- I went
back to it a year or so after I finished.)
I don't remember the order, though. I always thought the invisible maze
was the hardest part.
The last puzzle involved you setting up all four robots to push buttons
in a given sequence. Earlier was the subway train and the big disk
drive... ("Picadilly Circuit", and "On a clear disk you can seek forever.")
> Remember folks, if you think that sounds complicated, it was much worse, I
> assure you. These weren't Infocom-style "figure out the trick to the puzzle
> and get the prize", but rooms and robots with physics (of a limited sort),
> and electrical (well, a cross between electrical and electronic) circuitry
> that you had to _solder_ together to program the robots to do stuff. We're
> talking flip-flops, logic gates, batteries, and extremely primitive radios
> for communication.
The outputs of these devices controlled the robot's motors and
gripper-claw. The inputs were the bumpers (wall-contact detectors), and
various object detectors (both directional and contact.)
Recidivist Apple II geeks might note that there are disk images of Robot
Odyssey at
ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/educational/robot_odyssey/
Of course, downloading them would be piracy.
Ash
In article <5efndk$ap...@hpbs1500.boi.hp.com>, jme...@boi.hp.com says...
>
> I thought Temple of Asphai had a stickman type character... What
> platform did you play it on? Castle Wolfenstein was great too,
> although I can't remember the interface at all.
Depends on the platform. The ColecoVision version (remember that?) was
quite good graphics-wise. The character was well animated and walked
around and everything!
>
> Would anybody classify Hunt the Wumpus (Ti994a) as sort-of
> roguelike? I don't remember much about it, except a single
> char wandered around a single screen (?) dungeon trying
> to shoot the wumpus with a bow (?). Jeez, that was years ago.
>
Nope. I'd call this the first 3-D shoot-em up, ala Doom! ;) There's a
Web-based version out there somewhere BTW.
Now if you want to talk about one of the earliest Rogue-like adventure
games, you can't overlook "Adventure" for the Atari 2600! You weren't
even a stick figure in this one, just a little square, remember? There's
a DOS translation of this out there somewhere and you can always play it
(and Apshai) on emulators.
--
A.P. Hilliard
<u...@geocities.com>
HELLO WORLD!
Sheldon Simms
In article <MPG.d7c2a83b...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
u...@geocities.com (Ash) wrote:
> Now if you want to talk about one of the earliest Rogue-like adventure
> games, you can't overlook "Adventure" for the Atari 2600! You weren't
> even a stick figure in this one, just a little square, remember?
Speaking of this, the thing I like the most about it was all the
things that we would now call easter eggs I guess. I don't remember
everything I'm sure, but I remember something about putting the chalice
and maybe one or more of the keys on the boundary line and being able
to cross over and read credits.
Well whatever it was I spent a lot of time trying different things.
Jeff Lodoen
>>
>> I thought Temple of Asphai had a stickman type character... What
>> platform did you play it on? Castle Wolfenstein was great too,
>> although I can't remember the interface at all.
>
>Depends on the platform. The ColecoVision version (remember that?) was
>quite good graphics-wise. The character was well animated and walked
>around and everything!
Gateway To Apshai, a simplified arcade version.
athol-brose
In article <5er804$o...@news.bconnex.net>,
Michael Bahr <mb...@bconnex.net> wrote:
>the game really missed is the simplistic POPCORN gamepack for the CoCo -
>strange that this simple game captured more of my attention than all the
>new super games today :)
For me it was "Doubleback". I played that game for hours and hours and
days and days...
Every so often I think about writing a new version of it, but I think so
much of it was dependent on the flimsy little CoCo joystick... don't know
if it would be as enjoyable played with my Sidewinder, or *shudder* the
mouse...
Den of Iniquity
On Tue, 25 Feb 1997, Sheldon Simms wrote:
>In article <MPG.d7c2a83b...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>u...@geocities.com (Ash) wrote:
>
>> Now if you want to talk about one of the earliest Rogue-like adventure
>> games, you can't overlook "Adventure" for the Atari 2600! You weren't
>> even a stick figure in this one, just a little square, remember?
>
>Speaking of this, the thing I like the most about it was all the
>things that we would now call easter eggs I guess. I don't remember
>everything I'm sure, but I remember something about putting the chalice
>and maybe one or more of the keys on the boundary line and being able
>to cross over and read credits.
Oh hurray! I was going to bring 'Adventure' up; that old Atari VCS game
was one of my favourites of its time. IRC (yes, I leave out the 'if'
deliberately) that the 'Easter Egg' in question was a single pixel stuck
in the invisible maze in the black castle, in the wall of a tiny section
which could not be reached without the bridge. It matched the background
colour (and was therefore invisible in most places) and caused the
boundaries to match its colour - ie invisible - at which point you could
cross and read the credits. But I don't remember any other secrets, except
for the obvious mucking about you could do with bridge and magnet and the
bizarre spacial arrangements of the rooms. And getting eaten by a dragon
and subsequently carried off by the magpie.
Quite surreal in parts.
--
Den
Erik Max Francis
Sheldon Simms wrote:
> Speaking of this, the thing I like the most about it was all the
> things that we would now call easter eggs I guess. I don't remember
> everything I'm sure, but I remember something about putting the chalice
> and maybe one or more of the keys on the boundary line and being able
> to cross over and read credits.
>
> Well whatever it was I spent a lot of time trying different things.
Yes. In the black castle's catacombs there is a room which is sealed off
from the rest of the maze. With the bridge you can get into it, and in it
you'll find the "black dot," which is a semi-invisible object one pixel in
size. If you bring it to the wall to the extreme right of the long hallway
outside of the yellow castle, with a few other objects (so everything
blinks) and the wall turns invisible, and you can walk through it. On the
other side is a secret room created by the author with credits.
--
Erik Max Francis, &tSftDotIotE / email: m...@alcyone.com
Alcyone Systems / web: http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, California, United States / icbm: 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W
\
"I am become death, / destroyer of worlds."
/ J. Robert Oppenheimer (quoting legend)
David J. Grabiner
In article <5er804$o...@news.bconnex.net>, Michael Bahr writes:
> In article <5ecfva$q...@kodak.rdcs.Kodak.COM> Matthew Daly,
> da...@PPD.Kodak.COM writes:
>> Subject: Re: Old "Roguelike-like" games (was Re: Graphics and ADOM)
> ...well the first handheld TI calculator a highschool friend baught was
> over 2000!
> on rogue: i'm still reccomending it whenever an old pc is braught back to
> life - and if you want to be fancy, try the still available (on the MAC
> at least) super rogue called MORIA
Moria is available for many platforms; see my homepage for more details,
or get the game from
ftp://ftp.cis.ksu.edu/pub/Games/Moria
More information is available on rec.games.roguelike.moria.
--
David Grabiner, grab...@msri.org, http://baseball.berkeley.edu/~grabiner
I speak of MSRI and by MSRI but not for MSRI.
Shop at the Mobius Strip Mall: Always on the same side of the street!
Klein Glassworks, Torus Coffee and Donuts, Projective Airlines, etc.
David Assaf, IV
On Tue, 25 Feb 1997, Den of Iniquity wrote:
> Oh hurray! I was going to bring 'Adventure' up; that old Atari VCS game
> was one of my favourites of its time. IRC (yes, I leave out the 'if'
> deliberately) that the 'Easter Egg' in question was a single pixel stuck
> in the invisible maze in the black castle, in the wall of a tiny section
> which could not be reached without the bridge. It matched the background
> colour (and was therefore invisible in most places) and caused the
> boundaries to match its colour - ie invisible - at which point you could
> cross and read the credits.
Double hurray! It was Adventure on the Atari 2600 and a ZBASIC Dungeons
and Dragons game on my old Zenith Z-100 circa 1984 that got me hooked on
the roguelike games genre. I heard of Adventure's "Easter Egg" as the
"Magic Dot," and you got to see the name of Adventure's creator, Warren
Robinett (sp?), flash on the screen vertically when you carried the Magic
Dot through the right wall of the horizontal corridor below the orange (or
was it yellow?) starting castle.
The DnD game used color ANSI graphics and was pretty complex, featuring
increasingly difficult levels of a dungeon, hidden treasure vaults (c.f.
Nethack and ADOM), dragon lances which you could collect to battle dragons
(like Nethack's Vorpal Blade vs. Jabberwocks, these were insta-kill
weapons vs. those hapless dracs), and also featured "Mystic Gray Cubes"
(sp?) which could randomly teleport you up to 50 levels up or down
(precursor to Nethack's level teleporters!). As far as I remember, there
was no goal to the game, unfortunately....
David Assaf, IV
http://math.vanderbilt.edu/~assda
Mary K. Kuhner
On Tue, 25 Feb 1997, Den of Iniquity wrote:
> Oh hurray! I was going to bring 'Adventure' up; that old Atari VCS game
> was one of my favourites of its time. IRC (yes, I leave out the 'if'
> deliberately) that the 'Easter Egg' in question was a single pixel stuck
> in the invisible maze in the black castle, in the wall of a tiny section
> which could not be reached without the bridge. It matched the background
> colour (and was therefore invisible in most places) and caused the
> boundaries to match its colour - ie invisible - at which point you could
> cross and read the credits.
The magical thing about this game was that, crude though it was
graphically, the monsters had *behavior*. The three dragons chased the
PC in noticably different ways. It took a long time for more
"sophisticated" games to regain this concept....
My brother, sister and I played Adventure half to death; best thing my
brother ever got for the Atari. We named all the dragons, the bat, the
castles, etc.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
John Tempest
Ash <u...@geocities.com> wrote in article
<MPG.d7c2a83b...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>...
<big snip>
> Now if you want to talk about one of the earliest Rogue-like adventure
> games, you can't overlook "Adventure" for the Atari 2600! You weren't
> a DOS translation of this out there somewhere and you can always play it
> (and Apshai) on emulators.
If we're talking about "just a little square", how about "The Prisoner"
(based on the cult Patrick McGoohan series), which was mainly
puzzle-solving. This was originally released on Apple ][. I ported it onto
our 8-bit Z80 machines with ascii & block graphics VDUs. It was as popular
as the Crowther and Woods adventure in our office (at lunch-breaks, of
course!).
John T.
Kenneth Albanowski
In article <erkyrathE...@netcom.com>,
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>Oooh, hrm. I did get through the whole game. (Twice, in fact -- I went
>back to it a year or so after I finished.)
>
>I don't remember the order, though. I always thought the invisible maze
>was the hardest part.
>
>The last puzzle involved you setting up all four robots to push buttons
>in a given sequence. Earlier was the subway train and the big disk
>drive... ("Picadilly Circuit", and "On a clear disk you can seek forever.")
Subway was second level, the disk drive I never got to. Fifth or sixth, I
think.
>The outputs of these devices controlled the robot's motors and
>gripper-claw. The inputs were the bumpers (wall-contact detectors), and
>various object detectors (both directional and contact.)
Yeah, you could sense when you were on top of something, and then pick it
up. The radios were really mean, though. You could only send out a single
bit of information, and every radio, including the one transmitting, picked
up the results. I never got around to building a UART.
>Recidivist Apple II geeks might note that there are disk images of Robot
>Odyssey at
>ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/educational/robot_odyssey/
>
>Of course, downloading them would be piracy.
Sigh. One of the things I hate most about the computer gaming industry is
the way that old games tend to fall through the cracks. Software just
doesn't seem to have the same staying power as books (both due to failure of
the media and failure of mechanisms to understand the media.) Does the
Library Of Congress collect games? I half-way think they should. The other
side of the coin is that I would probably have a better chance at getting an
Apple II version running on my PC then the PC version itself. Compatibility
is an odd thing.
Anyhow, for every Activision (Infocom) or LucasArts that preserves the old
games, there must be thousands that have not, with at least a few actually
valuable ones being lost.
One of these days, I really should try and see whether anyone at Software
Toolworks still remembers Robot Odyssey.
--
Kenneth Albanowski (kja...@kjahds.com)
Adam J. Thornton
Summary:
Expires:
References: <5ed5p3$8p4$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu> <5efndk$ap...@hpbs1500.boi.hp.com> <MPG.d7c2a83b...@netnews.worldnet.att.net> <01bc2452$4b334260$0100007f@dan486>
Sender:
Followup-To:
Distribution:
Organization: Princeton University
Keywords:
Cc:
In article <01bc2452$4b334260$0100007f@dan486>,
John Tempest <John_T...@msn.com> wrote:
>If we're talking about "just a little square", how about "The Prisoner"
>(based on the cult Patrick McGoohan series), which was mainly
>puzzle-solving. This was originally released on Apple ][. I ported it onto
>our 8-bit Z80 machines with ascii & block graphics VDUs. It was as popular
>as the Crowther and Woods adventure in our office (at lunch-breaks, of
>course!).
Then maybe you can tell me what the point, other than never revealing my
number, *was*?
That's one weird-ass game.
Erik Halvorsen
"David Assaf, IV" <as...@artemis.cas.vanderbilt.edu> wrote:
>On Tue, 25 Feb 1997, Den of Iniquity wrote:
>> Oh hurray! I was going to bring 'Adventure' up; that old Atari VCS game
>> was one of my favourites of its time. IRC (yes, I leave out the 'if'
>> deliberately) that the 'Easter Egg' in question was a single pixel stuck
>> in the invisible maze in the black castle, in the wall of a tiny section
>> which could not be reached without the bridge. It matched the background
>> colour (and was therefore invisible in most places) and caused the
>> boundaries to match its colour - ie invisible - at which point you could
>> cross and read the credits.
>Double hurray! It was Adventure on the Atari 2600 and a ZBASIC Dungeons
>and Dragons game on my old Zenith Z-100 circa 1984 that got me hooked on
>the roguelike games genre. I heard of Adventure's "Easter Egg" as the
>"Magic Dot," and you got to see the name of Adventure's creator, Warren
>Robinett (sp?), flash on the screen vertically when you carried the Magic
>Dot through the right wall of the horizontal corridor below the orange (or
>was it yellow?) starting castle.
>The DnD game used color ANSI graphics and was pretty complex, featuring
>increasingly difficult levels of a dungeon, hidden treasure vaults (c.f.
>Nethack and ADOM), dragon lances which you could collect to battle dragons
>(like Nethack's Vorpal Blade vs. Jabberwocks, these were insta-kill
>weapons vs. those hapless dracs), and also featured "Mystic Gray Cubes"
>(sp?) which could randomly teleport you up to 50 levels up or down
>(precursor to Nethack's level teleporters!). As far as I remember, there
>was no goal to the game, unfortunately....
I believe this was Telengard..
Anyone remember a game where you were represented by a little dot on
the screen, and was going from one castle to another across a screen,
it was pretty safe on the line between them, some sorta road. but if
you went away from that line you were adventuring into the unknown
fighting against monsters, you could find castles to explore etc.
Erik
Adam Atkinson
> Anyone remember a game where you were represented by a little dot on
> the screen, and was going from one castle to another across a screen,
> it was pretty safe on the line between them, some sorta road. but if
> you went away from that line you were adventuring into the unknown
> fighting against monsters, you could find castles to explore etc.
Sounds like "The valley" which appeared in "Computing Today"
a good many years ago. I remember typing it all in on my Dragon
32 in... oh... 1982?
-
Adam Atkinson (etl...@etlxdmx.ericsson.se)
Man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion
Philth
>Anyone remember a game where you were represented by a little dot on
>the screen, and was going from one castle to another across a screen,
>it was pretty safe on the line between them, some sorta road. but if
>you went away from that line you were adventuring into the unknown
>fighting against monsters, you could find castles to explore etc.
>
>
>Erik
Was this on an Atari 2600? You also needed a special cart that plugged
into a tape player as well? It gave 'high res' gfx to the Atari2600? If so,
yes, but I don't remember the name of the game. I remember there were
3 levels to it .. The first overworld, then one cave, abd then finally the end
dragon (i think) .. You could buy all sorts of potions .. And raid castles.
Other special games that I remember that used this cart were a Galiga
clone which looked identicle to the arcade machine (This was the 'high res'
limit .. Normal 2600 games were half that.) .. Another game was Labrynth3d
where it used a normal dungeon crawl interface to go through mazes and you
had a time limit with walls that shot stuff at you, and you had to time your
movements correctly. I had about 7 of these games but those are the only
ones I remember .. But for the 2600 it made them look like old NES games.
Does anyone know WHY the entire 2600/console gaming industry died off
so abruptly? There was a 5 year or so void in there .. It wasn't from PC's as
far as I could see .. We had a C64 and I played games on that, but none really
stood up to the 2600 till the Ultimas came out. :)
Ash
In article <331b1...@news.inxpress.net>, [not...@inxpress.net]
(Philth) says...
> In article <5fe8l0$9...@news1.sol.no>, erih...@sn.no (Erik Halvorsen) wrote:
>
> >Anyone remember a game where you were represented by a little dot on
> >the screen, and was going from one castle to another across a screen,
> >it was pretty safe on the line between them, some sorta road. but if
> >you went away from that line you were adventuring into the unknown
> >fighting against monsters, you could find castles to explore etc.
> >
> >
> >Erik
for the PC?
>
> Was this on an Atari 2600? You also needed a special cart that plugged
> into a tape player as well? It gave 'high res' gfx to the Atari2600? If so,
> yes, but I don't remember the name of the game. I remember there were
> 3 levels to it .. The first overworld, then one cave, abd then finally the end
> dragon (i think) .. You could buy all sorts of potions .. And raid castles.
Whoah there, count yourself lucky that an official representative of
rec.games.video.classic (home of Atari 2600-ophiles, et al) happens to
peruse this newsgroup. The game I think you're referring to is
DragonStomper which was for the Arcadia (later Starpath) Supercharger, a
funny device that plugged into your Atari 2600 cart port while an audio
cord plugged into a tape player. The games came on audio cassette tape.
I don't think it's the game the first guy was referring to. Dragon
Stomper was more like Ultima. Many consider it the only true RPG ever
made for the Atari 2600.
>
> Other special games that I remember that used this cart were a Galiga
> clone which looked identicle to the arcade machine (This was the 'high res'
> limit .. Normal 2600 games were half that.) .. Another game was Labrynth3d
> where it used a normal dungeon crawl interface to go through mazes and you
> had a time limit with walls that shot stuff at you, and you had to time your
> movements correctly. I had about 7 of these games but those are the only
> ones I remember .. But for the 2600 it made them look like old NES games.
The "Galaga" clone you refer to would be Communist Mutants From Space
while the 3D maze game would probably be...Escape from the Mind Master?
Ring a bell? 7? an impressive collection as there were only about 12
ever released. Would you believe someone recently pressed all of the
Supercharger games onto a CD along with several never-released games?
They're unfortunately sold out. :(
>
> Does anyone know WHY the entire 2600/console gaming industry died off
> so abruptly? There was a 5 year or so void in there .. It wasn't from PC's as
> far as I could see .. We had a C64 and I played games on that, but none really
> stood up to the 2600 till the Ultimas came out. :)
>
>
Wow. Big question there. "The Crash" is how it's usually referred to.
See rec.games.video.classic for many discussions on this. Basically,
it's blamed on a glut of bad games along with poor management on the part
of Atari, who were essentially the last US-based leader of the video
games industry.
My apologies to all the IF folks for getting so off topic.
Erik Halvorsen
Adam Atkinson <etl...@etlxdmx.ericsson.se> wrote:
>> Anyone remember a game where you were represented by a little dot on
>> the screen, and was going from one castle to another across a screen,
>> it was pretty safe on the line between them, some sorta road. but if
>> you went away from that line you were adventuring into the unknown
>> fighting against monsters, you could find castles to explore etc.
>Sounds like "The valley" which appeared in "Computing Today"
>a good many years ago. I remember typing it all in on my Dragon
>32 in... oh... 1982?
Yes, you might be right.. 20k's worth of basic, I had it for the C64.
Early in the 1980's, my very first adventure...
I'm trying to dig up some of ye olde adventure games, know a good
site?
Thanks
Erik
Adam Atkinson
Well, what about "Cells and Serpents", which also appeared as a
moderate amount of BASIC in Computing Today or something
similar?
Even less demanding than "The valley" :-)
Torsten Edelmann
P> Does anyone know WHY the entire 2600/console gaming industry died off
P> so abruptly?
To quote Douglas Adams (wow - before I re-edited this mail there stood "Douglas
Adoms" B-): "Because out of the blue all the twelve year olds in the world
decided they had enough of blinking and beeping machines and would rather do
something else with their time."
Sayonara...
Yamoto-S; killed by Mr. Asidonhopo, shopkeeper (because he
hit him while being stunned by a gnomish wizard)
--
Visit the "other" roguelike games page: http://www.rhein-main.de/~ptower/
I'm over the ocean
Torsten Edelmann (so...@tower.rhein-main.de) NEVER wrote:
: P> Does anyone know WHY the entire 2600/console gaming industry died off
: P> so abruptly?
Actually, it *was* the advent of PCs that is largely theorized to have
been the death of the home video game industry act one.
--
toon http://www.amherst.edu/~adcarnev
"I crank up lyrical flows, spit, spats, what's that? The pattern records,
don't touch the DATs. Yo." -- Dr. Octagon, "3000"
Erik Max Francis
Mary K. Kuhner wrote:
> My brother, sister and I played Adventure half to death; best thing my
> brother ever got for the Atari.
Yes. I used to play it every day with my friend that had an Atari 2600.
> We named all the dragons, the bat, the
> castles, etc.
Actually, they already have names:
This is no easy task, as the Evil Magician has created three Dragons
to hinder you in your quest for the Golden Chalice. There is Yorgie,
the Yellow Dragon, who is just plain mean; there is Grundle, the Green
Dragon, who is mean and ferocious; and there is Rhindle, the Red
Dragon, who is the most ferocious of all. Rhindle is also the fastest
Dragon and is the most difficult to outmaneuver.
The bat has no name in the documentation other than the Black Bat, but he
tends to get called "you bastard."
Matthew T. Russotto
In article <5f5h68$r...@cnn.Princeton.EDU>,
Adam J. Thornton <ad...@flagstaff.princeton.edu> wrote:
}Summary:
}Expires:
}References: <5ed5p3$8p4$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu> <5efndk$ap...@hpbs1500.boi.hp.com> <MPG.d7c2a83b...@netnews.worldnet.att.net> <01bc2452$4b334260$0100007f@dan486>
}Sender:
}Followup-To:
}Distribution:
}Organization: Princeton University
}Keywords:
}Cc:
}
}In article <01bc2452$4b334260$0100007f@dan486>,
}John Tempest <John_T...@msn.com> wrote:
}>If we're talking about "just a little square", how about "The Prisoner"
}>(based on the cult Patrick McGoohan series), which was mainly
}>puzzle-solving. This was originally released on Apple ][. I ported it onto
}>our 8-bit Z80 machines with ascii & block graphics VDUs. It was as popular
}>as the Crowther and Woods adventure in our office (at lunch-breaks, of
}>course!).
}
}Then maybe you can tell me what the point, other than never revealing my
}number, *was*?
You had to get a certain number of points and then beat #1 by telling
him he's a computer. And in doing so, you had to use a specific
phrasing including the "[" character, not normally typeable on the
keyboard. Fortunately it was displayed on the screen, letting you use
the editing keys.
How could you find this out? Well, I have my doubts as to whether it
could be done without cheating. I cheated. This would be consistent
with the show -- you can't win playing by their rules.
Someone did a review of the game, either here or in the apple ][
emulation group, where they noted that it would break out with a
syntax error at one point. The reviewer swore that had to be a
deliberate bug, and also made similar observations about cheating.
}That's one weird-ass game.
From one weird-ass show. I mean, the guy drives to London from a
village located on an island near Morocco, among other things.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Dan Shiovitz
In article <5fo33t$d...@wanda.vf.pond.com>,
Matthew T. Russotto <russ...@wanda.vf.pond.com> wrote:
>In article <5f5h68$r...@cnn.Princeton.EDU>,
>Adam J. Thornton <ad...@flagstaff.princeton.edu> wrote:
>}John Tempest <John_T...@msn.com> wrote:
>}>If we're talking about "just a little square", how about "The Prisoner"
>}>(based on the cult Patrick McGoohan series), which was mainly
>}>puzzle-solving. This was originally released on Apple ][. I ported it onto
>Someone did a review of the game, either here or in the apple ][
>emulation group, where they noted that it would break out with a
>syntax error at one point. The reviewer swore that had to be a
>deliberate bug, and also made similar observations about cheating.
Andrew Plotkin. I could repost it, if he liked. (or it's probably in
dejanews).
>Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
--
dan shiovitz scy...@u.washington.edu sh...@cs.washington.edu
slightly lost author/programmer in a world of more creative or more
sensible people ... remember to speak up for freedom because no one else
will do it for you: use it or lose it ... carpe diem -- be proactive.
my web site: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~scythe/home.html some ok stuff.
chi...@fred.aurora.edu
Man, i have been looking for that game for YEARS!!!
I always though The Prisoner would make a gret piece of IF.
Ah well, someday...
Chidder
Andrew Plotkin
Matthew T. Russotto (russ...@wanda.vf.pond.com) wrote:
> }>If we're talking about "just a little square", how about "The Prisoner"
> }>(based on the cult Patrick McGoohan series), which was mainly
> }>puzzle-solving. This was originally released on Apple ][. I ported it onto
> }>as the Crowther and Woods adventure in our office (at lunch-breaks, of
> }>course!).
> }
> }Then maybe you can tell me what the point, other than never revealing my
> }number, *was*?
That was the *main* point. That and fucking with your head.
> You had to get a certain number of points and then beat #1 by telling
> him he's a computer. And in doing so, you had to use a specific
> phrasing including the "[" character, not normally typeable on the
> keyboard. Fortunately it was displayed on the screen, letting you use
> the editing keys.
> How could you find this out? Well, I have my doubts as to whether it
> could be done without cheating. I cheated. This would be consistent
> with the show -- you can't win playing by their rules.
Agreed.
> Someone did a review of the game, either here or in the apple ][
> emulation group, where they noted that it would break out with a
> syntax error at one point. The reviewer swore that had to be a
> deliberate bug, and also made similar observations about cheating.
That was me, but you're confusing two different bits in the game.
At one point (in the middle of a 'psychological test') it apparently
breaks into Applesoft Basic with a syntax error, line X. It's not really
broken; it's just faking the prompt. If you type "LIST X", you lose. (X
is of course the number you're not supposed to reveal.)
The *actual* bug doesn't abort the program; it silently prevents you from
solving one puzzle. This doesn't prevent you from winning, because there
are other ways to get points, but it does block the sequence that's the
fastest way to get points. The bug is a simple typo -- essentially, "if
activepuzzle = 3" is changed to "if activepuzzle = 2", or something like
that.
> }That's one weird-ass game.
> From one weird-ass show. I mean, the guy drives to London from a
> village located on an island near Morocco, among other things.
You don't *know* it's Morocco. That could have been just another lie.
In college, we used to run Prisoner-fests -- all 17 episodes in a row.
J. Robinson Wheeler
In Article <erkyrathE...@netcom.com>, erky...@netcom.com (Andrew
Plotkin) wrote:
>Matthew T. Russotto (russ...@wanda.vf.pond.com) wrote:
>> }>If we're talking about "just a little square", how about "The Prisoner"
>> }>(based on the cult Patrick McGoohan series), which was mainly
>> }>puzzle-solving. This was originally released on Apple ][.
>> }
>> him he's a computer.
I never had a copy of the game, but I used to be utterly fascinated by
the advertisements for it that ran in the old magazines like SOFTALK:
it showed a faceless man smashing his fist out through a pane of glass,
or a mirror, or the monitor screen of your computer, or something like
that. It always made me want to play it, although I think I probably
would have expected (erroneously) that there would be graphics that
matched the startling imagery of the ad.
I was pretty young then, and only vaguely was aware that it was based
on a TV series.
>In college, we used to run Prisoner-fests -- all 17 episodes in a row.
>
>--Z
... And then, years later in college, I watched all 17 episodes in a
row!
Rob Wheeler
whe...@moontower.com
Adam J. Thornton
Matthew T. Russotto
In article <erkyrathE...@netcom.com>,
}> village located on an island near Morocco, among other things.
}
}You don't *know* it's Morocco. That could have been just another lie.
Except that he wasn't TOLD that -- he deduced it from physical
information during his "escape". Furthermore, he was dropped onto it
-- he saw it from the air. I suppose there could have been more than
one Village, the one in Morocco being an exact copy made just to
confuse him...