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

Fri Apr 17 10:15:27 EDT 2015

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  

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