[Coco] Help with The Magic of Zanth for CoCo 3

[Eddie P.]

Good to hear you've finished it. I'm going through all the games that use the speech sound cartridge myself but need to do the 2MHz mod.

(Gold Runner doesn't shut up!)

Eddie P.

Sent from my iPhone

> On 25 May 2014, at 6:02 am, "Bill Loguidice" <bill at armchairarcade.com> wrote:
> 
> I got directed to the hints I needed via Facebook. The hint worked, so the
> version of Zanth I have is good. It's just a remarkably poorly designed
> game. I guess to hide its short length, it kills you unless you make
> incredibly specific and not entirely logical moves in a very precise order,
> sort of like a classic Sierra game, but one designed by someone who
> genuinely seems to hate its players. I was looking forward to trying the
> company's other game, "Wild West," because again, taking advantage of both
> 512K and the Speech-Sound Pak are nifty tricks, but I'm wary now because of
> how poorly designed Zanth is. Pity.
> 
> -Bill
> 
> ===================================================
> Bill Loguidice, Managing Director; Armchair Arcade,
> Inc.<http://www.armchairarcade.com>
> ===================================================
> Authored Books<http://www.amazon.com/Bill-Loguidice/e/B001U7W3YS/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_1>and
> Film <http://www.armchairarcade.com/film>; About me and other ways to get
> in touch <http://about.me/billloguidice>
> ===================================================
> 
> 
> On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 5:51 PM, Bill Loguidice <bill at armchairarcade.com>wrote:
> 
>> *I'm still looking for help with the beginning of the game*, but to
>> respond to Nick for a moment... I think it comes down to either having an
>> affinity for classic synthesized speech or not. I always loved the sound of
>> it and still do. I seek out such options for my collection for every
>> platform possible. In fact, I wish it was easier to make more games -
>> particularly text adventures - talk. It just adds something very
>> era-specific to the experience that can't really be matched today. Today
>> it's no big deal to have speech in games; that speech though is "real"
>> speech, not generated on-the-fly. Certainly there were better solutions
>> even in the classic era, but the ones that sounded better were generally
>> limited to a small amount of phrases versus "unlimited" speech like you
>> hear in the Zanth game.
>> 
>> The expansion interface is clunky, agreed, but then these mass market
>> consumer systems generally weren't meant to be internally expandable. Costs
>> had to be saved somewhere. It's hard to compare an Apple II, which cost
>> well north of $1000 to a CoCo or Commodore 64 that cost well south of $500.
>> 
>> ===================================================
>> Bill Loguidice, Managing Director; Armchair Arcade, Inc.<http://www.armchairarcade.com>
>> ===================================================
>> Authored Books<http://www.amazon.com/Bill-Loguidice/e/B001U7W3YS/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_1>and
>> Film <http://www.armchairarcade.com/film>; About me and other ways to get
>> in touch <http://about.me/billloguidice>
>> ===================================================
>> 
>> 
>> On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 5:35 PM, CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <
>> coco at maltedmedia.com> wrote:
>> 
>>>> On 12/05/2014 4:10 AM, CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Anyone play this 1987 CoCo 3 game from Computerware, The Magic of Zanth,
>>>> before? I like to think I know my way around a game or two, but the scant
>>>> instructions with this text and graphics adventure and my lack of
>>>> familiarity with Anthony's world of Xanth that this is based on seems to
>>>> have doomed me to failure right at the start.
>>> 
>>> Does every game (are there many?) that used the speech part of the
>>> sound'n'speech pack sound like a cyclon?  :)
>>> 
>>> I've owned one of these packs for 20 years (bought cheap when they were
>>> being cleared) and I've never used it.
>>> 
>>> Firstly because there weren't enough games that used it (properly) and
>>> because of my refusal to attach one of those god awful multi-crap kludges
>>> on the side of my CoCo.
>>> 
>>> The Apple II had nice internal slot expansion.
>>> 
>>> The TRS-80 Model 1 had a nice tidy expansion interface under the monitor.
>>> 
>>> The CoCo has this god awful "multi-crap" dongle on the side with odd size
>>> cartridges and cables everywhere... not to mention the risj of blowing a
>>> 6809 when it's bumped!
>>> 
>>> Nick
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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