🚀 go-pugleaf

>The first computer game I owned...

    That's a toughy.  Maybe Test Drive?  I needed titles that would run with 
SimCGA, and warezd Montezuma's Revenge, and demo/freeware stuff that was 
mostly scrolling shooters similar to Defender in gameplay.  There were some 
surprisingly good and addictive fully graphical games.  Actually owning a 
computer game implied the huge initial hardware investment though, which did 
not happen till well after I'd left home.

rms 

On Mon, 17 Apr 2017 16:50:19 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Nonetheless, as I sit in front of my computer on this warm Spring day,
>thirty and more years later, memories of my explorations of the Great
>Underground Empire return to me, carried again by the green breezes of
>the season. Some might say that's because Zork was my first, but I
>think it's because it was one of the best.

My gaming started with the Atari 2600 but when I moved to a Commodore
64 I started playing text adventures. Most of those from Infocom. The
only two text adventures I ever actually finished was Planetfall and
Stationfall. I still have the glow-in-the-dark purple rock that came
with Wishbringer. It still works. :-P

Fun fact. If you liked Infocom games back in the day, the best system
to own was the Commodore 128. More Infocom games worked on that system
then any other.

On Mon, 17 Apr 2017 18:11:25 -0600, "rms"
<rsqui...@MOOyossmanMOO.net> wrote:

>    That's a toughy.  Maybe Test Drive? 

That is a toughy. There is no way I am going to remember exactly what
my first owned game was but it was probably the game that came with
the Atari 2600 which was Combat.

On Mon, 17 Apr 2017 20:16:38 -0400, Mike S. <Mik...@nowhere.com>
wrote:

>On Mon, 17 Apr 2017 16:50:19 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
><spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>My gaming started with the Atari 2600 but when I moved to a Commodore
>64 I started playing text adventures. Most of those from Infocom. The
>only two text adventures I ever actually finished was Planetfall and
>Stationfall. I still have the glow-in-the-dark purple rock that came
>with Wishbringer. It still works. :-P

I still have my Zorkmid, but unfortunately all the rest of my Infocom
goodies have been lost over the years. Those boxes were great, but
very bulky. I /loved/ the cardboard peril-sensitive "sunglasses" that
came with Hitchhikers Guide ;-)

>Fun fact. If you liked Infocom games back in the day, the best system
>to own was the Commodore 128. More Infocom games worked on that system
>then any other.

That's not actually true.

Not all games were available on every platform; e.g. the four graphics
(V6) games were only available for Macintosh, Amiga, Apple II (with
128k RAM) and IBM. These were probably the seven best-supported
platforms:

  IBM:        all 35 IF games (plus Fooblitzky & Cornerstone)
  Macintosh:  all 35 IF games (plus Quarterstaff)
  Apple II:   all 35 IF games (plus Fooblitzky) (v6 games need 128k
RAM)
  Amiga:      34 IF games (all except Border Zone)
  C128:       31 IF games (all V3-5)
  Atari ST:   30 IF games (all V3-5 except, probably, Sherlock)
  C64:        27 IF games (all V3 and Nord & Bert, Border Zone,
Sherlock)

The only C-64 specific product was "Mini-Zork I", a cut-down version
of Zork released on cassette as a cover disk on a British computer
magazine.

At least, so says the Internet ;-)

Of course, these days the best system for them is the PC. The Frotz
interpreter runs all the classic games and you can use emulators to
run the all the rest (like the sadly forgotten "Quarterstaff", which
was Macintosh only).

"Zork" aside, of all the Infocom games I probably enjoyed "Journey"
and "Crescent Hawk's Revenge" the most. "Journey" really wasn't much
of a game - it was more of an interactive novel - but it was a
charming fantasy story and had impressive graphics for the time.
"Crescent Hawk's Revenge" was a big departure for the company, being
more of an action-RPG, utilising the Battletech license.

On Tue, 18 Apr 2017 09:59:43 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>That's not actually true.

>Not all games were available on every platform; e.g. the four graphics
>(V6) games were only available for Macintosh, Amiga, Apple II (with
>128k RAM) and IBM. These were probably the seven best-supported
>platforms:

I guess I am remembering this incorrectly! I swear though I remember
reading this somewhere back in the day. Oh well. My apologies!

I googled this myself and the only thing I learned is that Infocom was
one of the few companies that supported the C 128 in its native mode.
Maybe this is what I am remembering.

As for my Infocom goodies, that glowing rock is the only thing I still
have.. despite the fact that I owned many many Infocom titles.

On 2017-04-17, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The first computer game I owned - barring whatever came on the
> "Getting Started" diskettes for my Apple IIc - was Zork I. It wasn't
> the first video game I played - that was probably Pong - or even the
> first computer game - my memory is hazy in this regard, but I think it
> was Ultima I - but Zork is where I officially count my start as a
> computer gamer. Not dependent on an endless stream of quarters or the
> use of somebody else's hardware, I could play Zork whenever I wanted
> and at my own pace.

Embarrasingly, I never played Zork, but I did put a lot of time into
the parody game: "Pork 2 - The Gizzard of Showbiz", a spin off of
"Zork 2: The Wizard of Frobozz".

I spent a long time struggling uphill with the interface because it had
a "Lewd mode" and, in 1989, this 11 year old boy would seek out any
sources of titilation he could get access to. I make no apology for that.

My memories of it are very thin but I can picture a scene by a
cliffside with some motorbike gangs that may have been where I got
stuck.

-- 
-Toby
Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.

On 2017-04-17, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The first computer game I owned - barring whatever came on the
> "Getting Started" diskettes for my Apple IIc - was Zork I. It wasn't

Atari ST: Azarian (1987)
Top down Asteroids type game.

PC: Civilization (1991)
Installed it inside Win3.1 on my mum's office PC.
Was blown away to see it running in DOS on a friend's PC and the
animation was 4x faster.

-- 
-Toby
Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.

On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 13:09:12 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com>
wrote:

>On 2017-04-17, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The first computer game I owned - barring whatever came on the
>> "Getting Started" diskettes for my Apple IIc - was Zork I. It wasn't
>> the first video game I played - that was probably Pong - or even the
>> first computer game - my memory is hazy in this regard, but I think it
>> was Ultima I - but Zork is where I officially count my start as a
>> computer gamer. Not dependent on an endless stream of quarters or the
>> use of somebody else's hardware, I could play Zork whenever I wanted
>> and at my own pace.
>
>Embarrasingly, I never played Zork, but I did put a lot of time into
>the parody game: "Pork 2 - The Gizzard of Showbiz", a spin off of
>"Zork 2: The Wizard of Frobozz".
>
>I spent a long time struggling uphill with the interface because it had
>a "Lewd mode" and, in 1989, this 11 year old boy would seek out any
>sources of titilation he could get access to. I make no apology for that.

Heh.  There is a fun sub-culture to explore in these retro
adult-themed games.  I remember some home made graphical adventure
game for the Atari ST from around that same timeframe (late 80s) that
had a Zork-like command line.  You went to all this trouble,guessing
commands and solving weird puzzles, just in order to chase down a girl
so that you can have sex with her, then after you finally do, the game
reveals the girl was.... well, not a girl.  lol.  

Loading up Atari ST and Amiga emulators is a good way to find these
hilarious low-fidelity smut games.  I think the graphical limitations
of the era were what brought out the humor creativity.

>My memories of it are very thin but I can picture a scene by a
>cliffside with some motorbike gangs that may have been where I got
>stuck.

You can play it (as well as the Zork games) on classic reload:

https://classicreload.com/pork-2-the-gizzard-of-showbiz.html

On 2017-04-19, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 13:09:12 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com>
> wrote:
>
>>On 2017-04-17, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> The first computer game I owned - barring whatever came on the
>>> "Getting Started" diskettes for my Apple IIc - was Zork I. It wasn't
>>> the first video game I played - that was probably Pong - or even the
>>> first computer game - my memory is hazy in this regard, but I think it
>>> was Ultima I - but Zork is where I officially count my start as a
>>> computer gamer. Not dependent on an endless stream of quarters or the
>>> use of somebody else's hardware, I could play Zork whenever I wanted
>>> and at my own pace.
>>
>>Embarrasingly, I never played Zork, but I did put a lot of time into
>>the parody game: "Pork 2 - The Gizzard of Showbiz", a spin off of
>>"Zork 2: The Wizard of Frobozz".
>>
>>I spent a long time struggling uphill with the interface because it had
>>a "Lewd mode" and, in 1989, this 11 year old boy would seek out any
>>sources of titilation he could get access to. I make no apology for that.
>
> Heh.  There is a fun sub-culture to explore in these retro
> adult-themed games.  I remember some home made graphical adventure
> game for the Atari ST from around that same timeframe (late 80s) that
> had a Zork-like command line.  You went to all this trouble,guessing
> commands and solving weird puzzles, just in order to chase down a girl
> so that you can have sex with her, then after you finally do, the game
> reveals the girl was.... well, not a girl.  lol.  
>
> Loading up Atari ST and Amiga emulators is a good way to find these
> hilarious low-fidelity smut games.  I think the graphical limitations
> of the era were what brought out the humor creativity.
>
>>My memories of it are very thin but I can picture a scene by a
>>cliffside with some motorbike gangs that may have been where I got
>>stuck.
>
> You can play it (as well as the Zork games) on classic reload:
>
> https://classicreload.com/pork-2-the-gizzard-of-showbiz.html

Oh, excellent, thank you. It turns out you can get to the biker bit in
about 5 minutes so I guess I didn't play this for as long as I
remember doing so!

Wow, what an annoying game, though.

-- 
-Toby
Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.

Spalls Hurgenson  <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>I still have my Zorkmid, but unfortunately all the rest of my Infocom
>goodies have been lost over the years. Those boxes were great, but
>very bulky. I /loved/ the cardboard peril-sensitive "sunglasses" that
>came with Hitchhikers Guide ;-)

Of the three Infocom games I own, Suspended, Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy, and Planetfall, I still have all the feelies except two.
Unfortunatetly they're thy're two of most imporant ones, the Don't
Panic button that game with HHGTG that I used to display proudly on my
backpack at highscool, and the vinyl tokens that came with Suspended.
The button fell off my backpack at some point, while I'm not sure where
the tokens went.  They might be still around somewhere, stuck in some
box for "safekeeping".  On the other hand, I still have my Stellar Patrol
Special Assignment Task Force ID card from Panetfall in my wallet.

Oh, and I think Suspended was the first computer game I bought with my
own money.

>"Zork" aside, of all the Infocom games I probably enjoyed "Journey"
>and "Crescent Hawk's Revenge" the most. "Journey" really wasn't much
>of a game - it was more of an interactive novel - but it was a
>charming fantasy story and had impressive graphics for the time.
>"Crescent Hawk's Revenge" was a big departure for the company, being
>more of an action-RPG, utilising the Battletech license.

BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception is my favourite Infocom game,
althought they only published it.  It was Westwood Associates of Command
& Conquer fame who deveoped it.  I was never any good at Infocom's
interactive finction games, so I can't say I'm a huge fan of them.
I think I might have managed to finish HHGTTG, but the only game I'm
sure I finished was Pundered Hearts, and that was because I played with
two other people sitting around a computer terminal.

					Ross Ridge

-- 
 l/  //	  Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]  rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/  http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/ 
 db  //	  

 > Nonetheless, as I sit in front of my computer on this warm Spring day,
 > thirty and more years later, memories of my explorations of the Great
 > Underground Empire return to me, carried again by the green breezes of
 > the season. Some might say that's because Zork was my first, but I
 > think it's because it was one of the best.

I am not entirely sure what prompted you to write that trip down memory 
lane, but please write some more.

-Taxalot

On 4/17/2017 1:50 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> The first computer game I owned - barring whatever came on the
> "Getting Started" diskettes for my Apple IIc - was Zork I. It wasn't
> the first video game I played - that was probably Pong - or even the
> first computer game

Hard to say here too.  Arcade game was probably Pong here too, but that 
didn't grab me, might have been Space Invaders.  Asteroids was 
definitely the first that grabbed me.  I was into Pinball before those 
came out.

For the personal side, my Mom's boyfriends had a CP/M home-made computer 
I got to play some games on, Wumpus, some economic kingdom games (buy x 
grain to keep your population up, get taxes, try to keep them happy), 
and my favorite, Trek which had ASCII graphics instead of just words!

I played (Colossal Cave) Adventure which is a bit like a predecessor to 
Zork on that but got stuck pretty quick at the snake, and got lost in a 
maze of twisty little passages all the same over and over.  I did play 
Zork at a friend's, better than Adventure, but still getting eaten by a 
Grue repeatedly wasn't particularly fun, at least it wasn't Hitchhiker's 
Guide to the Galaxy which neither my friend or I could figure out how to 
get past the babelfish.

I then got to go over and play (mostly watch) my friend play stuff on 
his Atari 400.  I remember something like Aladin?  And a bunch of 
garbage shareware games.

My first console was an Intellivision much later.  I played blackjack 
with my long past grandfather who bought it for me quite a bit, and a 
number of other games on it, I remember the D&D game & Tennis were my 
favorites besides blackjack.

- Justisaur

On 4/19/2017 4:04 PM, Ross Ridge wrote:

> Oh, and I think Suspended was the first computer game I bought with my
> own money.

That's another good hallmark, one easier to remember.  I'm pretty sure 
mine was Pool of Radiance.  I sold my Intellivision and with some more 
money I had saved up I bought a used C-64 and bought Pool of Radiance 
for it.

- Justisaur

On Mon, 17 Apr 2017 16:50:19 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>The first computer game I owned - barring whatever came on the
>"Getting Started" diskettes for my Apple IIc - was Zork I. It wasn't
>the first video game I played - that was probably Pong - or even the
>first computer game - my memory is hazy in this regard, but I think it
>was Ultima I - but Zork is where I officially count my start as a
>computer gamer. Not dependent on an endless stream of quarters or the
>use of somebody else's hardware, I could play Zork whenever I wanted
>and at my own pace.

The old game post made my spidey sense tingle, I haven't read the
group in a long time. ;-)

My first computer game was for my first computer, the Atari 800xl. It
was Temple Of Apshai. A Dungeons & Dragons type adventure game.
Everything about it appealed to me at the time -sprawling levels, cool
monsters, character creation. At the time it looked to be the early
80's rendition of Skyrim. I somehow ended up with the game before
having the computer and the anticipation was bonkers.

Unfortunately, I think it was written in Basic and was pretty much
horrible. The setup for PC gaming letting me down for decades! haha

The first video game I played at all was Atari Stunt Cycle. They had
it at the 7-11 at the corner of my neighborhood and my mom gave me
money to play it. I've thought about buying the machine just for the
sake of owning it, but its pretty one-dimensional for home use. Once
you commit the throttle settings for the bus jumps to muscle memory
there is really nothing else to do.

I also had Zork for the 800xl. I was never huge on text adventures (I
loved stuff like Castle Wofenstein), but my buddy took graph paper and
made a map of the word. I'd love to see that map again. If I remember
correctly there were a couple of direction anomolies with the world,
adjacent rooms you could only access from on direction. This caused
him to have to re-draw the map multiple times since it wouldn't fit
into a perfect N-S-E-W grid of blocks. He finished the game, I never
bothered to do it even with the map.

On Wed, 26 Apr 2017 08:01:16 -0400, Tim O <n...@thanks.com> wrote:

>My first computer game was for my first computer, the Atari 800xl. It
>was Temple Of Apshai.

Temple of Apshai on my C64 might have been my first RPG. My favorite
part of that game was reading the room descriptions in the manual.
That same idea would be used later in the first gold box game, The
Pool of Radiance. Pool of Radiance and Maniac Mansion on the C64 are
my two favorite games on that system.

On 2017-04-25, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/17/2017 1:50 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>> The first computer game I owned - barring whatever came on the
>> "Getting Started" diskettes for my Apple IIc - was Zork I. It wasn't
>> the first video game I played - that was probably Pong - or even the
>> first computer game
>
> For the personal side, my Mom's boyfriends had a CP/M home-made computer 
> I got to play some games on, Wumpus, some economic kingdom games (buy x 
> grain to keep your population up, get taxes, try to keep them happy), 
> and my favorite, Trek which had ASCII graphics instead of just words!

She must have had very particular taste in men for them all to have
the same model CP/M. Or was it one CP/M shared between them? What kind of a
home arrangement are you talking about here??!

-- 
-Toby
Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.

On Wed, 26 Apr 2017 08:01:16 -0400, Tim O <n...@thanks.com> wrote:

>On Mon, 17 Apr 2017 16:50:19 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
><spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>The first computer game I owned - barring whatever came on the
>>"Getting Started" diskettes for my Apple IIc - was Zork I. It wasn't
>>the first video game I played - that was probably Pong - or even the
>>first computer game - my memory is hazy in this regard, but I think it
>>was Ultima I - but Zork is where I officially count my start as a
>>computer gamer. Not dependent on an endless stream of quarters or the
>>use of somebody else's hardware, I could play Zork whenever I wanted
>>and at my own pace.
>
>The old game post made my spidey sense tingle, I haven't read the
>group in a long time. ;-)
>
>My first computer game was for my first computer, the Atari 800xl. It
>was Temple Of Apshai. A Dungeons & Dragons type adventure game.
>Everything about it appealed to me at the time -sprawling levels, cool
>monsters, character creation. At the time it looked to be the early
>80's rendition of Skyrim. I somehow ended up with the game before
>having the computer and the anticipation was bonkers.
>
>Unfortunately, I think it was written in Basic and was pretty much
>horrible. The setup for PC gaming letting me down for decades! haha
>
>The first video game I played at all was Atari Stunt Cycle. They had
>it at the 7-11 at the corner of my neighborhood and my mom gave me
>money to play it. I've thought about buying the machine just for the
>sake of owning it, but its pretty one-dimensional for home use. Once
>you commit the throttle settings for the bus jumps to muscle memory
>there is really nothing else to do.
>
>I also had Zork for the 800xl. I was never huge on text adventures (I
>loved stuff like Castle Wofenstein), but my buddy took graph paper and
>made a map of the word. I'd love to see that map again. If I remember
>correctly there were a couple of direction anomolies with the world,
>adjacent rooms you could only access from on direction. This caused
>him to have to re-draw the map multiple times since it wouldn't fit
>into a perfect N-S-E-W grid of blocks. He finished the game, I never
>bothered to do it even with the map.

Zork was evil that way. You'd start in a room and go East. You'd think
that the new room you just entered would have a corresponding door to
the West but no, often that passage would enter from the South or
North or wherever. And some nasty passages would loop back to the same
room, often without telling you it had done so ("A maze of twisty
passages, all alike"). It made mapping very unintuitive. 

I remember my first playthrough of an Infocom game was simply to go
through all the rooms and try to map the connections. I'd start in a
room, go East, then try to get back to the original room. I'd repeat
for all possible directions in each room. It was a laborious process
and often left the game in an unwinnable state (usually because I had
taken to long just trying to get the lay of the land rather than solve
the puzzles, many of which were timed) but it was a necessary step.
After I had a map, I could then go back and try to properly play the
game.

Strangely, I sort of got into pen-n-paper role-playing that way. Even
before I really knew what D&D was, I was playing a "let's pretend"
game with my friends where I led them through adventures that was made
up of "rooms" connected by twisty corridors. The maps I drew looked
exactly like the maps I drew up for Infocom games. It was only years
later we added dice and rules (and my maps became more realistic).

BTW, if you want to see some really nice Infocom maps, check out the
Zork Usergroup Maps at http://gue.cgwmuseum.org/ Here's a nice one; my
maps never looked this good ;-)
http://gue.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?pub=4&item=34&id=5&key=zork1_zug_map_2

On Wed, 26 Apr 2017 09:45:09 -0400, Mike S. <Mik...@nowhere.com>
wrote:

>On Wed, 26 Apr 2017 08:01:16 -0400, Tim O <n...@thanks.com> wrote:
>
>>My first computer game was for my first computer, the Atari 800xl. It
>>was Temple Of Apshai.
>
>Temple of Apshai on my C64 might have been my first RPG. My favorite
>part of that game was reading the room descriptions in the manual.
>That same idea would be used later in the first gold box game, The
>Pool of Radiance. Pool of Radiance and Maniac Mansion on the C64 are
>my two favorite games on that system.

I had to look up gameplay videos to see if it was as painful as I
remembered, it was worse! Character moves at like 1 step per second.

I also found Gateway To Apshai videos, and that looks like the game I
wanted, realtime character movement and sword combat. 30-40 bucks was
a hell of a lot of money to me at that time, I never would have taken
a chance on the second game after the disappointment of the first.

On Wed, 26 Apr 2017 10:08:46 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Zork was evil that way. You'd start in a room and go East. You'd think
>that the new room you just entered would have a corresponding door to
>the West but no, often that passage would enter from the South or
>North or wherever. And some nasty passages would loop back to the same
>room, often without telling you it had done so ("A maze of twisty
>passages, all alike"). It made mapping very unintuitive. 
>
>I remember my first playthrough of an Infocom game was simply to go
>through all the rooms and try to map the connections. I'd start in a
>room, go East, then try to get back to the original room. I'd repeat
>for all possible directions in each room. It was a laborious process
>and often left the game in an unwinnable state (usually because I had
>taken to long just trying to get the lay of the land rather than solve
>the puzzles, many of which were timed) but it was a necessary step.
>After I had a map, I could then go back and try to properly play the
>game.
>
>Strangely, I sort of got into pen-n-paper role-playing that way. Even
>before I really knew what D&D was, I was playing a "let's pretend"
>game with my friends where I led them through adventures that was made
>up of "rooms" connected by twisty corridors. The maps I drew looked
>exactly like the maps I drew up for Infocom games. It was only years
>later we added dice and rules (and my maps became more realistic).
>
>BTW, if you want to see some really nice Infocom maps, check out the
>Zork Usergroup Maps at http://gue.cgwmuseum.org/ Here's a nice one; my
>maps never looked this good ;-)
>http://gue.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?pub=4&item=34&id=5&key=zork1_zug_map_2

That is really nice. Looking at the map, I can tell I saw most of the
rooms. I remember making it to the dam at random one time. 
My buddies final map was smudged up pencil from going over and erasing
again and again. He make the cave rooms odd shapes and also drew in
stalagmites and stuff. God, to have that kind of time to waste again.
lol

On 4/26/2017 1:04 PM, Tim O wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Apr 2017 09:45:09 -0400, Mike S. <Mik...@nowhere.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 26 Apr 2017 08:01:16 -0400, Tim O <n...@thanks.com> wrote:
>>
>>> My first computer game was for my first computer, the Atari 800xl. It
>>> was Temple Of Apshai.
>>
>> Temple of Apshai on my C64 might have been my first RPG. My favorite
>> part of that game was reading the room descriptions in the manual.
>> That same idea would be used later in the first gold box game, The
>> Pool of Radiance. Pool of Radiance and Maniac Mansion on the C64 are
>> my two favorite games on that system.
>
> I had to look up gameplay videos to see if it was as painful as I
> remembered, it was worse! Character moves at like 1 step per second.
>
> I also found Gateway To Apshai videos, and that looks like the game I
> wanted, realtime character movement and sword combat. 30-40 bucks was
> a hell of a lot of money to me at that time, I never would have taken
> a chance on the second game after the disappointment of the first.
>

I thought Apshai was one of the better games of the day.  I didn't have 
it originally, but played it at a friends.  Years later I bought it and 
played it on my Jackintosh*, and rather enjoyed it.  Perhaps the speed 
of the computer helped out.

* Wow the definition of that sure has changed.  I'm talking about the 
Atari ST, not the definition that shows up first on a search from Urban 
Dictionary.

- Justisaur

On Thu, 27 Apr 2017 09:00:58 -0700, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>I thought Apshai was one of the better games of the day.  I didn't have 
>it originally, but played it at a friends.  Years later I bought it and 
>played it on my Jackintosh*, and rather enjoyed it.  Perhaps the speed 
>of the computer helped out.

The specific title I had was Temple of Apshai Trilogy by Epyx software
for the Commodore 64. What memories I have of the game are positive. I
was just a kid when I played it back then. No idea if I would like it
now though.

On Thu, 27 Apr 2017 15:33:16 -0400, Mike S. <Mik...@nowhere.com>
wrote:

>On Thu, 27 Apr 2017 09:00:58 -0700, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>I thought Apshai was one of the better games of the day.  I didn't have 
>>it originally, but played it at a friends.  Years later I bought it and 
>>played it on my Jackintosh*, and rather enjoyed it.  Perhaps the speed 
>>of the computer helped out.
>
>The specific title I had was Temple of Apshai Trilogy by Epyx software
>for the Commodore 64. What memories I have of the game are positive. I
>was just a kid when I played it back then. No idea if I would like it
>now though.

This is for the C64, but how I remember the Atari computer version.
Movement was excrucuating. Actual gameplay starts just past the 2:00
mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihneu571t0k&t

On Tue, 25 Apr 2017 15:50:50 -0700, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On 4/17/2017 1:50 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>> The first computer game I owned - barring whatever came on the
>> "Getting Started" diskettes for my Apple IIc - was Zork I. It wasn't
>> the first video game I played - that was probably Pong - or even the
>> first computer game
>
>Hard to say here too.  Arcade game was probably Pong here too, but that 
>didn't grab me, might have been Space Invaders.  Asteroids was 
>definitely the first that grabbed me.  I was into Pinball before those 
>came out.

Funny you should start this thread, it wasn't that long ago that I 
started wondering the same.

Anyways, my first ever PC (slash any desktop computer) gaming 
experience was with VIC-20 at our local electronics store , and I was
trying out their demo piece, playing few rounds of Moon Lander ( of
course the cartridge version...:) )

However then awed, I still stalled few months, maybe a year until C64
came  out. Now, I really don't remember which game I got first, but 
the  really first one I put some time into, was an airline business 
"simulation", forgot the name, but the complexity was overwhelming at
the time. I was about 10 years old  back then.

Yes ditto, Zorks and other Infocoms came later, and Zaxxon, Impossible
Mission and at later stages of C64 active life, Way of Exploding Fist.
However, as with I think probably us all, my diskette bank was 200+ 
large with most of them made 2-sided (crime is by now too old to be 
prosecuted so easy to write about it, haha :D

Happy and Joyful Walburg night everybody !

Cheers,
R.

On Thu, 27 Apr 2017 20:29:33 -0400, Tim O <n...@thanks.com> wrote:

>This is for the C64, but how I remember the Atari computer version.
>Movement was excrucuating. Actual gameplay starts just past the 2:00
>mark.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihneu571t0k&t

That does look slow and that is not the version of the game I played.
Here is the one I played when I was a kid. Go to about the 4:50 minute
mark to see the character moving. I am not sure if it is faster. -->

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02VHNTARjWI

On Fri, 28 Apr 2017 14:57:27 +0300, Rudi <ru...@iki.fi> wrote:

>the  really first one I put some time into, was an airline business 
>"simulation", forgot the title, but the complexity was overwhelming

Ps. Probably "High Flyer"
(or something thereabouts)

On Fri, 28 Apr 2017 16:10:20 +0300, Rudi <ru...@iki.fi> wrote:

>Ps. Probably "High Flyer"
>(or something thereabouts)

Sorry, nope. High Flyer here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5qE9F-LejE

Not this one. Will keep searching

On Fri, 28 Apr 2017 09:07:21 -0400, Mike S. <Mik...@nowhere.com>
wrote:

>On Thu, 27 Apr 2017 20:29:33 -0400, Tim O <n...@thanks.com> wrote:
>
>>This is for the C64, but how I remember the Atari computer version.
>>Movement was excrucuating. Actual gameplay starts just past the 2:00
>>mark.
>>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihneu571t0k&t
>
>That does look slow and that is not the version of the game I played.
>Here is the one I played when I was a kid. Go to about the 4:50 minute
>mark to see the character moving. I am not sure if it is faster. -->
>
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02VHNTARjWI

That screen is from a remake.  The original Atari 8-bit version was a
port (from Apple and TRS80 I think) that came out about 4-5 years
prior, and not a particularly exciting one.

I had it on cassette tape rather than cartridge, I think it might have
come on both.  Loading a game from cassette is an experience anyone
who takes disk drives for granted should have!  I think it took like
10-15 minutes just to load the game into memory.

The Atari 8 bit version was written in interpreted BASIC and you could
break execution and list the source code. I think I spent more time
surfing the source code than I did in the actual game.   I think all
the subsequent Apshai games were ported to more suitable compiled
languages.

On 4/28/2017 4:57 AM, Rudi wrote:
> On Tue, 25 Apr 2017 15:50:50 -0700, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 4/17/2017 1:50 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>>> The first computer game I owned - barring whatever came on the
>>> "Getting Started" diskettes for my Apple IIc - was Zork I. It wasn't
>>> the first video game I played - that was probably Pong - or even the
>>> first computer game
>>
>> Hard to say here too.  Arcade game was probably Pong here too, but that
>> didn't grab me, might have been Space Invaders.  Asteroids was
>> definitely the first that grabbed me.  I was into Pinball before those
>> came out.
>
> Funny you should start this thread, it wasn't that long ago that I
> started wondering the same.
>
> Anyways, my first ever PC (slash any desktop computer) gaming
> experience was with VIC-20 at our local electronics store , and I was
> trying out their demo piece, playing few rounds of Moon Lander ( of
> course the cartridge version...:) )
>

I remember drooling over a VIC-20 in a computer store and playing their 
demo of "Snake" and some sort of bad rip-off of an arcade plaformer. 
Never did get a VIC-20 either.

- Justisaur
>

On Fri, 28 Apr 2017 09:07:21 -0400, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, Mike
S. wrote: 

>On Thu, 27 Apr 2017 20:29:33 -0400, Tim O <n...@thanks.com> wrote:
>
>>This is for the C64, but how I remember the Atari computer version.
>>Movement was excrucuating. Actual gameplay starts just past the 2:00
>>mark.
>>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihneu571t0k&t
>
>That does look slow and that is not the version of the game I played.
>Here is the one I played when I was a kid. Go to about the 4:50 minute
>mark to see the character moving. I am not sure if it is faster. -->
>
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02VHNTARjWI

I had the original one with the black screen and slow draw times.

My favorite part was the killer tomatoes add-on.

-- 
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten

On Fri, 28 Apr 2017 16:28:52 +0300, Rudi <ru...@iki.fi> wrote:

>On Fri, 28 Apr 2017 16:10:20 +0300, Rudi <ru...@iki.fi> wrote:
>
>>Ps. Probably "High Flyer"
>>(or something thereabouts)
>
>Sorry, nope. High Flyer here:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5qE9F-LejE

>Not this one. Will keep searching

Airliner (Protek, 1984, Commodore 64 and ZXSpectrum)?

Alternately, any one of these: 
http://www.mobygames.com/search/quick?q=airline%20mogul

On Fri, 28 Apr 2017 10:20:05 -0400, Rin Stowleigh
<rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:

>I had it on cassette tape rather than cartridge, I think it might have
>come on both.  Loading a game from cassette is an experience anyone
>who takes disk drives for granted should have!  I think it took like
>10-15 minutes just to load the game into memory.

I first used a cassette tape drive on my C-64 before upgrading to the
1541 disk drive. The only things I remember about the tape drive was
the slow loading speeds and the message PRESS PLAY ON TAPE.

On Sat, 29 Apr 2017 10:37:53 -0400, Mike S. <Mik...@nowhere.com>
wrote:

>On Fri, 28 Apr 2017 10:20:05 -0400, Rin Stowleigh
><rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I had it on cassette tape rather than cartridge, I think it might have
>>come on both.  Loading a game from cassette is an experience anyone
>>who takes disk drives for granted should have!  I think it took like
>>10-15 minutes just to load the game into memory.
>
>I first used a cassette tape drive on my C-64 before upgrading to the
>1541 disk drive. The only things I remember about the tape drive was
>the slow loading speeds and the message PRESS PLAY ON TAPE.

There's a youtube vid out there where a guy is comparing gameplay side
by side on an actual C64 and a PC running an emulator.  Even though
the games play identical while running, he made the observation that
it's more fun on the C64, because waiting for the game to load,
hearing the burps and bleeps of the disk drive, etc. creates this
sense of growing anticipation that makes the entire experience more
fun once you actually get in the game.

I thought this was a spot-on observation and something I hadn't
thought a great deal about until he said it.  It's one of the reasons
some emulators build in options for artificial disk-load delays and
noise, to emulate the original experience as soon as possible.  

Music composers and filmmakers swear by this concept too:  the gradual
build up of anticipation for a climactic event is a much bigger
component of actual enjoyment than the climactic event itself.

Only problem with cassette drives was that the build up of
anticipation was a little TOO gradual! ;)  I guess there is a sweet
spot before the human brain gets exhausted by the delay, and starts to
lose interest in the end goal.

On Sat, 29 Apr 2017 10:50:27 -0400, Rin Stowleigh
<rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:

>There's a youtube vid out there where a guy is comparing gameplay side
>by side on an actual C64 and a PC running an emulator.  Even though
>the games play identical while running, he made the observation that
>it's more fun on the C64, because waiting for the game to load,
>hearing the burps and bleeps of the disk drive, etc. creates this
>sense of growing anticipation that makes the entire experience more
>fun once you actually get in the game.

I believe it! I remember when playing the Infocom games on my C64,
when you had to wait for the drive to load what was needed after you
typed in your command. I got excited waiting for the drive to finish
to see if I did something right and I could move on in the game. There
was definitely anticipation there. A build-up of excitement.

>Music composers and filmmakers swear by this concept too:  the gradual
>build up of anticipation for a climactic event is a much bigger
>component of actual enjoyment than the climactic event itself.

Yeah, the anticipation itself  is usually better then the very thing
you are anticipating. I find this especially true for movies. Video
games too, but movies especially, at least for me.

>Only problem with cassette drives was that the build up of
>anticipation was a little TOO gradual! ;)  I guess there is a sweet
>spot before the human brain gets exhausted by the delay, and starts to
>lose interest in the end goal.

Yeah that makes sense. The sweet spot, at least back in the day for
me, was a 1541 C64 disk drive. :) Tapes were definitely too slow.

Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>On 2017-04-25, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 4/17/2017 1:50 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>>> The first computer game I owned - barring whatever came on the
>>> "Getting Started" diskettes for my Apple IIc - was Zork I. It wasn't
>>> the first video game I played - that was probably Pong - or even the
>>> first computer game
>>
>> For the personal side, my Mom's boyfriends had a CP/M home-made computer 
>> I got to play some games on, Wumpus, some economic kingdom games (buy x 
>> grain to keep your population up, get taxes, try to keep them happy), 
>> and my favorite, Trek which had ASCII graphics instead of just words!
>
>She must have had very particular taste in men for them all to have
>the same model CP/M. Or was it one CP/M shared between them? What kind of a
>home arrangement are you talking about here??!

CP/M wasn't hardware, it's an operating system.
Pre Dos.

Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr 

On Sat, 29 Apr 2017 09:11:58 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Airliner (Protek, 1984, Commodore 64 and ZXSpectrum)?
>
>Alternately, any one of these: 
>http://www.mobygames.com/search/quick?q=airline%20mogul


Thnx for your effort- probably none of the above. #4 on this list
seemed most close candidate, but I would surely remember if I
had to play the game in German :)

I may return with this question later, I *think* most of my 
retro computer stuff should still be at my parents' house attic...
-or actually my parent's, my mom passed in December, @76 years
of age. Yes, will go up to the attic anyway, to sort and empty it, 
once the weather gets warmer and nicer.

On Mon, 01 May 2017 10:04:24 +0300, Rudi <ru...@iki.fi> wrote:

>On Sat, 29 Apr 2017 09:11:58 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
><spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Airliner (Protek, 1984, Commodore 64 and ZXSpectrum)?
>>
>>Alternately, any one of these: 
>>http://www.mobygames.com/search/quick?q=airline%20mogul
>
>
>Thnx for your effort- probably none of the above. #4 on this list
>seemed most close candidate, but I would surely remember if I
>had to play the game in German :)
>

It reminds me of my search for a book I read as a kid. All I
remembered were a few vague facts about it, and even those I wasn't
sure if I was mixing it up with other books. It wasn't even a
/favorite/ childhood book, just odd enough to be memorable. 

Long story short, after decades of on-again, off-again searching, I
eventually found it (the Internet knows everything). So I've faith
that you'll rediscover this game too.

Spalls Hurgenson kirjoitti 1.5.2017 klo 16.10:

> Long story short, after decades of on-again, off-again searching, I
> eventually found it (the Internet knows everything). So I've faith
> that you'll rediscover this game too.

Well Yes, Thank you for your support,  I already did find it :)

It seems that there were at least two games that had the same name,
and most of the nostalgia buffs around the net had happily mixed (at
least these Two) games... the box cover that showed a DC-3 and a
Concorde was *of the correct game*, but the youtube video and most
screenshots were from a completely another game, most likely one of
those Basic-code games that you would have to type from a gaming
magazine...

This page shows the game proper, which I was talking about:

http://ready64.it/giochi/scheda_gioco/id/2469/high-flyer

Basic premise is that it is year 1945, war is over and you
have very little money. You start by purchasing a surplus DC-3
and make a trip from London to Amsterdam. Then another. Then buy
another DC-3. Et Cetera :)

Ross Ridge wrote:
> Oh, and I think Suspended was the first computer game I bought with my
> own money.

Justisaur  <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
>That's another good hallmark, one easier to remember.  I'm pretty sure 
>mine was Pool of Radiance.  I sold my Intellivision and with some more 
>money I had saved up I bought a used C-64 and bought Pool of Radiance 
>for it.

I bought half of Pool of Radiance with my own money.  Or more accurately,
it was one of two games, the other being Ultima V, that me and friend
bought.  He bought one of the games, and I bought the other and we
took turns playing them.  I ended up with both games though, he lots in
interest in them after he went to university.

					Ross Ridge

-- 
 l/  //	  Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]  rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/  http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/ 
 db  //	  

Tim O <n...@thanks.com> writes:

> I also had Zork for the 800xl. I was never huge on text adventures (I
> loved stuff like Castle Wofenstein), but my buddy took graph paper and
> made a map of the word. I'd love to see that map again. If I remember
> correctly there were a couple of direction anomolies with the world,
> adjacent rooms you could only access from on direction.

I guess that was somewhat common back then. I remember playing Asylum on
a C64, it was kind of a text adventure but you're in an asylum and it's
a maze. Mapping was pretty hard, it looked like it's all straight angles
but then there was a hexagonal structure, complete with six straight
angles :) Kinda hard to put on paper, that. Also the maze wrapped so you
never reached an edge as I recall. I remember my (partial) map was
rather messy.

I never finished Asylum, only what was kind of a first quest, right at
the start you're told you can get out if you find a doctor's coat and
stethoscope. I got that far but the game didn't end there and it seemed
there was a larger part (and a larger maze) to go through.

But clearly, Asylum made an impression since I still remember so much of
it. It was hardly my first computer game, looks like it came out in 1985
for the Commodore 64. Also it had first person perspective 3D view of
the maze and also key-cards had to be acquired to get through
doors. Seems kinda familiar but Wolfenstein 3D came out in 1992.

As for the first computer game on a computer I owned, I think it was a
type-in from a magazine for the Commodore VIC-20. If that can be said to
be owned. The same mag had some kind of car racing game and some kind of
Space Invaders type of game. Typing those in was kinda annoying because
firstly the games didn't work due to typos and secondly the cassette
drive thingy wouldn't work so I couldn't save and try fixing later. I
think I had to exchange the VIC three or four times to get a fully
working one.

On Mon, 08 May 2017 12:33:50 +0300, Anssi Saari <a...@sci.fi> wrote:

>As for the first computer game on a computer I owned, I think it was a
>type-in from a magazine for the Commodore VIC-20. If that can be said to
>be owned. The same mag had some kind of car racing game and some kind of
>Space Invaders type of game. Typing those in was kinda annoying because
>firstly the games didn't work due to typos and secondly the cassette
>drive thingy wouldn't work so I couldn't save and try fixing later. I
>think I had to exchange the VIC three or four times to get a fully
>working one.

Wow, the type in's from magazines. I forgot about those. I used to
type then in from Compute's Gazette magazine which was dedicated to
the Commodore 8 bit computers. I had no trouble saving them on the C64
as I am sure I was already using a disk drive by then. But yeah, the
typos could be a pain.

Anssi Saari  <a...@sci.fi> wrote:
>I guess that was somewhat common back then. I remember playing Asylum on
>a C64, it was kind of a text adventure but you're in an asylum and it's
>a maze. Mapping was pretty hard, it looked like it's all straight angles
>but then there was a hexagonal structure, complete with six straight
>angles :) Kinda hard to put on paper, that. Also the maze wrapped so you
>never reached an edge as I recall. I remember my (partial) map was
>rather messy.
>
>I never finished Asylum, only what was kind of a first quest, right at
>the start you're told you can get out if you find a doctor's coat and
>stethoscope. I got that far but the game didn't end there and it seemed
>there was a larger part (and a larger maze) to go through.

I tried playing the original TRS-80 version of Asylum on a friends
computer a couple of times, but I never even got that far.  I couldn't
get out of the first room.

						Ross Ridge

-- 
 l/  //	  Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]  rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/  http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/ 
 db  //	  

On Mon, 8 May 2017 17:13:51 +0000 (UTC), rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
(Ross Ridge) wrote:

>I tried playing the original TRS-80 version of Asylum on a friends
>computer a couple of times, but I never even got that far.  I couldn't
>get out of the first room.
>
>						Ross Ridge

And here I thought getting out of the first room was only a problem
for Wizardry 4! I never heard of Asylum but now I wonder if it is a
more difficult game then Wiz 4.

rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Ross Ridge) wrote:
>I tried playing the original TRS-80 version of Asylum on a friends
>computer a couple of times, but I never even got that far.  I couldn't
>get out of the first room.

Mike S.  <Mik...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>And here I thought getting out of the first room was only a problem
>for Wizardry 4! I never heard of Asylum but now I wonder if it is a
>more difficult game then Wiz 4.

I don't think I played it for more than a half-hour, so I'm not sure
if my experience is indicative.  It's probably not as hard as Wizardry
4 overall but the difficulty is different.  Asylum is basically a text
adventure game with graphics, so it's all about figuring what you need
to type rather than hoping the random number generator will go your way.

					Ross Ridge

-- 
 l/  //	  Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]  rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/  http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/ 
 db  //	  

On Mon, 8 May 2017 22:13:59 +0000 (UTC), rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
(Ross Ridge) wrote:

>I don't think I played it for more than a half-hour, so I'm not sure
>if my experience is indicative.  It's probably not as hard as Wizardry
>4 overall but the difficulty is different.  Asylum is basically a text
>adventure game with graphics, so it's all about figuring what you need
>to type rather than hoping the random number generator will go your way.
>
>					Ross Ridge

I used to play a lot of text adventures, with and without graphics,
and I found them all difficult. I am very bad at puzzle solving. I
have no idea why I like a genre that I am bad at but I do. Thank god
for hint books.

On 5/9/2017 6:16 AM, Mike S. wrote:
> On Mon, 8 May 2017 22:13:59 +0000 (UTC), rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
> (Ross Ridge) wrote:
>
>> I don't think I played it for more than a half-hour, so I'm not sure
>> if my experience is indicative.  It's probably not as hard as Wizardry
>> 4 overall but the difficulty is different.  Asylum is basically a text
>> adventure game with graphics, so it's all about figuring what you need
>> to type rather than hoping the random number generator will go your way.
>>
>> 					Ross Ridge
>
> I used to play a lot of text adventures, with and without graphics,
> and I found them all difficult. I am very bad at puzzle solving. I
> have no idea why I like a genre that I am bad at but I do. Thank god
> for hint books.
>

Is anyone actually *good* at guessing whatever exact bit of text some 
text adventure game wants?

- Justisaur

On Tue, 9 May 2017 08:33:21 -0700, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On 5/9/2017 6:16 AM, Mike S. wrote:
>> On Mon, 8 May 2017 22:13:59 +0000 (UTC), rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
>> (Ross Ridge) wrote:
>>
>>> I don't think I played it for more than a half-hour, so I'm not sure
>>> if my experience is indicative.  It's probably not as hard as Wizardry
>>> 4 overall but the difficulty is different.  Asylum is basically a text
>>> adventure game with graphics, so it's all about figuring what you need
>>> to type rather than hoping the random number generator will go your way.
>>>
>>> 					Ross Ridge
>>
>> I used to play a lot of text adventures, with and without graphics,
>> and I found them all difficult. I am very bad at puzzle solving. I
>> have no idea why I like a genre that I am bad at but I do. Thank god
>> for hint books.
>>
>
>Is anyone actually *good* at guessing whatever exact bit of text some 
>text adventure game wants?

Doubtful, but the trial and error process was part of the fun,
especially watching that disk light activate whenever you stumbled on
some combination of text commands that did something different.

On 2017-05-09, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 9 May 2017 08:33:21 -0700, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>On 5/9/2017 6:16 AM, Mike S. wrote:
>>> On Mon, 8 May 2017 22:13:59 +0000 (UTC), rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
>>> (Ross Ridge) wrote:
>>>
>>>> I don't think I played it for more than a half-hour, so I'm not sure
>>>> if my experience is indicative.  It's probably not as hard as Wizardry
>>>> 4 overall but the difficulty is different.  Asylum is basically a text
>>>> adventure game with graphics, so it's all about figuring what you need
>>>> to type rather than hoping the random number generator will go your way.
>>>>
>>>> 					Ross Ridge
>>>
>>> I used to play a lot of text adventures, with and without graphics,
>>> and I found them all difficult. I am very bad at puzzle solving. I
>>> have no idea why I like a genre that I am bad at but I do. Thank god
>>> for hint books.
>>>
>>
>>Is anyone actually *good* at guessing whatever exact bit of text some 
>>text adventure game wants?
>
> Doubtful, but the trial and error process was part of the fun,
> especially watching that disk light activate whenever you stumbled on
> some combination of text commands that did something different.

Brilliant.

-- 
-Toby
Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.

On Wed, 10 May 2017 10:16:56 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com>
wrote:

>On 2017-05-09, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, 9 May 2017 08:33:21 -0700, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>On 5/9/2017 6:16 AM, Mike S. wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 8 May 2017 22:13:59 +0000 (UTC), rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
>>>> (Ross Ridge) wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I don't think I played it for more than a half-hour, so I'm not sure
>>>>> if my experience is indicative.  It's probably not as hard as Wizardry
>>>>> 4 overall but the difficulty is different.  Asylum is basically a text
>>>>> adventure game with graphics, so it's all about figuring what you need
>>>>> to type rather than hoping the random number generator will go your way.
>>>>>
>>>>> 					Ross Ridge
>>>>
>>>> I used to play a lot of text adventures, with and without graphics,
>>>> and I found them all difficult. I am very bad at puzzle solving. I
>>>> have no idea why I like a genre that I am bad at but I do. Thank god
>>>> for hint books.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Is anyone actually *good* at guessing whatever exact bit of text some 
>>>text adventure game wants?
>>
>> Doubtful, but the trial and error process was part of the fun,
>> especially watching that disk light activate whenever you stumbled on
>> some combination of text commands that did something different.
>
>Brilliant.

I'm not sure if that's sarcasm or not.  :)

I don't recall your age, but if you weren't yet into computer games in
the early 80's using early floppy drives, that paragraph would seem
hard to relate to I'm sure.  If you were gaming then, it probably
brought back great memories.

On 2017-05-10, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 10 May 2017 10:16:56 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com>
> wrote:
>
>>On 2017-05-09, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Tue, 9 May 2017 08:33:21 -0700, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>On 5/9/2017 6:16 AM, Mike S. wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, 8 May 2017 22:13:59 +0000 (UTC), rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
>>>>> (Ross Ridge) wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't think I played it for more than a half-hour, so I'm not sure
>>>>>> if my experience is indicative.  It's probably not as hard as Wizardry
>>>>>> 4 overall but the difficulty is different.  Asylum is basically a text
>>>>>> adventure game with graphics, so it's all about figuring what you need
>>>>>> to type rather than hoping the random number generator will go your way.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 					Ross Ridge
>>>>>
>>>>> I used to play a lot of text adventures, with and without graphics,
>>>>> and I found them all difficult. I am very bad at puzzle solving. I
>>>>> have no idea why I like a genre that I am bad at but I do. Thank god
>>>>> for hint books.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Is anyone actually *good* at guessing whatever exact bit of text some 
>>>>text adventure game wants?
>>>
>>> Doubtful, but the trial and error process was part of the fun,
>>> especially watching that disk light activate whenever you stumbled on
>>> some combination of text commands that did something different.
>>
>>Brilliant.
>
> I'm not sure if that's sarcasm or not.  :)
>
> I don't recall your age, but if you weren't yet into computer games in
> the early 80's using early floppy drives, that paragraph would seem
> hard to relate to I'm sure.  If you were gaming then, it probably
> brought back great memories.

It brought back great memories!

-- 
-Toby
Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.

On Wed, 10 May 2017 07:36:38 -0400, Rin Stowleigh
<rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:

>I don't recall your age, but if you weren't yet into computer games in
>the early 80's using early floppy drives, that paragraph would seem
>hard to relate to I'm sure.  If you were gaming then, it probably
>brought back great memories.

I completely agree with you. I am old enough to remember that, so I
can relate. I remember the gray background and white text of the
Infocom games on the C-64. I remember after typing in a command, the
disk drive light suddenly going on as the drive would noisily load
something from the disk. That meant I might have done something right.
This anticipation was even better with later illustrated text
adventures as you were now waiting for a nice new image to load. I
remember this clearly with The Pawn and The Guild of Thieves from
Rainbird.