[Coco] [!! SPAM] Re: Anyone still play text adventure games?

[Steve Batson]

I tend to agree with this...If data for the game was stored in a file 
loaded into memory after the game started, and if simple encryption was 
used, the cheater would not be able to see anything. The determined hacker 
may. But, like you said, it's just a game! :)

----------------------------------------

From: "Arthur Flexser" <flexser at fiu.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 12:33 PM
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Subject: Re: [Coco] Re: Anyone still play text adventure games? 

I always regarded the last-resort ability to peek at the embedded text
strings as a helpful plus rather than a problem. It's not like solvers are
competing for prize money.

But that's just me...

Art
On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 6:16 AM, John Kent wrote:

> Hi Steve,
>
> My brother & I bought a copy of Black Sanctum too for Flex. The problem
> with a lot of the games was that people would cheat by dumping the 
binary.
> We bought the Colossal Cave adventure for the 6800 running Flex2. Because 
of
> the memory map of Flex2 and the size of the adventure game it actually
> overwrote sections of operating system so you had to reboot Flex2 after
> playing the game. The Flex9 version didn't have that problem because 
there
> was more continuous memory.
>
> My bother started to write adventure compilers. I wrote a Huffman 
(Huff?)
> coding algorithm for the text strings. That involved do a character count 
of
> all the text and generating a coding table that was unique to the 
adventure
> game. The length of the character code was inversely proportional to
> frequency of the character. English text though I think is pretty 
standard
> in the frequency of characters. We used a serial bit stream reader to 
read
> the text strings and convert them back to ASCII codes. Not only did this
> optimize the use of memory, it also made it difficult for people to 
cheat
> and look at the text strings embedded in the program. Huffman (Huff?) or
> entropy encoding is used in MPEG video streams I believe.
>
> We started off with the Scott Adams adventure interpreter but ended up 
with
> a language syntax that was almost like written English. The code was 
moved
> to the IBM PC and the working compiler got lost I think. We were told 
that
> most of the game developers at the time were writing their games in C. 
There
> was something at the time called Quill for writing adventure games. I 
think
> it might have been cassette based.
>
> John.
>
> On 25/05/2011 1:33 PM, Steve Ostrom wrote:
>
>> A group of us at work bought one of the first Cocos available in the
>> Minneapolis area. We also purchased the Black Sanctum text adventure 
when
>> that was available, and played the adventure during every lunch break 
for
>> weeks. I so fell in love with Black Sanctum that I decided to write my 
own
>> adventure. Our small work group then played my adventure and everyone
>> seemed to like it, and suggested I try to sell it. I sent it away to 
Tom
>> Mix and to Dennis Lewandowski of DSL Computer Products, and both took it 
and
>> sold it for about a year. Graphic adventures were just then beginning to 
be
>> popular, so my text adventure never really earned a lot of royalty 
money.
>> Tom Mix actually scolded me for getting rid of a few areas in the 
adventure
>> by making it fit into a 16K Coco, but I thought that would increase 
it's
>> selling market. Oh, well. I'll never make money in Marketing. The
>> adventure is called Shipwrek, and was eventually sold to T&D for one of
>> their issues.
>>
>> That relationship with Tom Mix enabled me to start some assembly
>> programming. I was playing the game Qix in the arcades, and asked Tom if 
he
>> was developing a similar game for the Coco. He said no, but would love 
to
>> have it. He asked if I could write it. I knew nothing of assembly 
language
>> programming at that time, and I learned a lot about 6809 assembly 
during
>> that exercise. Tom kept encouraging me, and I kept sending him my 
updates
>> on a weekly basis. He was telling me that the author of his Donkey Kong
>> game was pulling down huge royalties every month. Then my first child 
was
>> born and the development slowed. I finally told Tom that I couldn't 
meet
>> his deadlines. He asked if it would be OK to give my code to another
>> developer who wanted to try that same game, and I said of course. 
Needless
>> to say, about 3 months later, Tom was selling a very good version of 
Qix.
>> Somewhere, the author did credit me with having helped, but his final
>> product was so much better than mine that I had little to do with it. I 
was
>> able to make a good spinning Qix, and developed the game play and the
>> scoring. I never did finish any sound effects or sparks.
>>
>> After that attempt, I just did assembly language programming on some 
fun
>> stuff. Mark and Boisy have a BASIC program that wll back up a full 256
>> drive hard drive, and I wrote that same program in machine language, 
which
>> runs about twice as fast. That was disappointing to me, but I think the
>> speed of the drives is the limiting factor, not the programming. My ML
>> version of that program was actually written and hand assembled on 
paper
>> only while at my family's lake cabin one summer. Hand coding and hand
>> assembly is really cool if you really want to learn exactly what your 
code
>> is doing. I never did use an assembler on that code, but just dumped the 
ML
>> code into DATA statements. I still use that ML code to back up all my
>> software from one HD to another.
>>
>> -- Steve --
>>
>>
> --
> http://www.johnkent.com.au
> http://members.optusnet.com.au/jekent
>
>
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>

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