[Coco] OT: COMPUTE's Guide to Adventure Games book

Fri Apr 17 12:34:53 EDT 2015

As another note to writing text Adventures, a very good example is in "80 Microcomputing". The adventure is "Almazar" by Winston Llamas.

 The unique thing about Almazar is that it uses database files for room descriptions, treasures and monsters. These are separate files on disk, therefore allowing you to put more into the actual game engine and not blow your memory on data arrays. You use just a few 'generic' arrays to load the the data from disk for display.

I think "Almazar" was ported to the Coco (original was Model III) by someone and is in the one of the various coco archives. I also did a port but I have no idea where it may be. I think the one in the archives is for OS9 (not sure) and I'm also not sure if it's the same program, I've just seen the name in moving archive files around.

Almazar is in the "1983 Special Anniversary Edition of 80 Microcomputing". It can be found:
https://ia600709.us.archive.org/10/items/80-microcomputing-magazine-1983-SE/80Microcomputing_SE83.pdf

page 288

Bill Pierce
"Today is a good day... I woke up" - Ritchie Havens

My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia
http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Pierce via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
To: coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Cc: Bill Pierce <ooogalapasooo at aol.com>
Sent: Fri, Apr 17, 2015 10:16 am
Subject: Re: [Coco] OT: COMPUTE's Guide to Adventure Games book

Salvador, I used the "Tower of Mystery" engine from the Compute! book and
enhanced that with stuff from the Tim Hartnell book and had a pretty workable
adventure engine in BASIC. I just never did anything with it. I had one
adventure I was working on and ran out of memory on my 16k Coco 2. I think about
that time, I got my 64k Coco 2, then I bought a MIDI keyboard and Lyra by Lester
Hands and from then on, most of my Cocoing was related to sound & MIDI.

Bill Pierce
"Today is a good day... I woke up" - Ritchie Havens

My Music
from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 &
3
https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for
CocoPedia
http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
E-Mail:
ooogalapasooo at aol.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Salvador Garcia
<ssalvadorgarcia at netscape.net>
To: coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Fri, Apr
17, 2015 9:42 am
Subject: Re: [Coco] OT: COMPUTE's Guide to Adventure Games
book

Thanks Bill, I will have a look at that book. This looks like a good
follow up
to the COMPUTE book. Salvador

-----Original Message-----
From:
Bill Pierce
via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
To: coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Cc:
Bill Pierce
<ooogalapasooo at aol.com>
Sent: Fri, Apr 17, 2015 7:49 am
Subject: Re:
[Coco] OT:
COMPUTE's Guide to Adventure Games book

Salvador, a better book for
"learning"
to write adventures is (which I also
have)

Creating Adventure Games
on Your
Computer by Tim
Hartnell
http://www.atariarchives.org/adventure/

The
reason the
other book was
brought up was because it contained "Tower of Mystery"
which is
an excellent
starting adventure engine.

This book gives play-by-play
of various
game
sections

And yes... games have come a long way, but adventure
is still
alive.
A good example (and my favorite) is "Tomb Raider" featuring
Laura Croft.
I have
all of these.

Bill Pierce
"Today is a good day... I
woke up" -
Ritchie
Havens

My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer
2
&
3
https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
Co-Contributor,
Co-Editor
for
CocoPedia
http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
E-Mail:
ooogalapasooo at aol.com

-----Original Message-----
From:
Salvador
Garcia
<ssalvadorgarcia at netscape.net>
To: coco
<coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Fri,
Apr
17, 2015 8:25 am
Subject: [Coco] OT:
COMPUTE's Guide to Adventure
Games
book

Hi all,   

First of all,
thanks to whoever posted
the
reference to
this book. I located it, downloaded
and read it. I just want
to
share my
thoughts about it. The first 7 chapters are
basically descriptions
of
adventure
games that were available at the time the
book was written. While
some
of these
are a compelling read I was hoping that
the author would discuss
the
design and
development of these more.  

Chapter 8 provides
help
and hints
on how to solve a game. Chapter 9 is
where everything begins to
pick
up. The
author discusses the theory of operation
of an adventure game.
Chapter
10 really
gets cooking as the author presents a
breakdown of an
adventure game,
describing
each component and providing pseudo
code. Chapter 11
presents a
listing of a
simple (author's description) text
adventure game. The
listing is
provided in
such a way that depending on which
computer is available,
the reader
types in a
specific listing.  

Finally chapter 12
looks toward
the future.
This chapter was interesting in its
own right as the
author ponders
on the
possibility of having hi definition
images. He mentions
the resources
needed for
such an endeavor and does not see
it possible for a
home computer to
have such
power. Also, the video disc is
mentioned as a
possible means to
enhance game
play.  

It was a
good read and
enjoyed the nature
of the games
presented.    Now my turn to get
philosophical.
All the games
presented in the
book had to do with solving
something. While
there was the
possibility of battle
and sword fights I can't
help comparing them
with the
games available today
which present a much higher
degree of graphic
gore and
violence. In Google I
typed in xbox games and the
first items on the
list it
generated were Grand
Theft Auto, Destiny and Call of
Duty. It seems to
me that
when the adventure
games described in the book were
available were
simpler times
where there was no
need for gore and violence to
make a game
appealing.  

Best
regards, Salvador  

--

Coco
mailing
list
Coco at maltedmedia.com
https://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco

--

Coco
mailing
list
Coco at maltedmedia.com
https://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco

--

Coco
mailing
list
Coco at maltedmedia.com
https://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco

-- 
Coco mailing
list
Coco at maltedmedia.com
https://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco