Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Edward Franks wrote: 1. Adventure was the first computer game, yes? Nope. :) Space War was (circa 1960). MIT students meet the PDP-1 and the cathode-ray tube. I meant PERSONAL computer. Adventure was playable on CPM machines if memory serves; it was certainly the first game I ever played (on an Osborne) in 1979. BTW, it is 90% certain RPG will join the main list of genres at MobyGames, so I thank all of you for taking time to illustrate your viewpoints. (But I am not budging on King's Quest being primarily IF+G, because honestly that is what it is. The input is all text (moving your character can be done with joystick but that is all a joystick can do in that game) and the output is text and graphics, so that pretty much clinches it.) 2. The Adventure genre encompasses *all* fantasy-style gaming. So RPG fits into it, yes? If not, why? No, because you you can have non-fantasy based RPGs. Wasteland and Fallout for example. (I'm assuming that you are using the term fantasy to mean the generic pseudo-medieval Tolkien-esque settings.) No, this was badly worded on my part. I meant all I am playing a character other than myself games, which includes everything from King's Quest to Zyll to Fallout. Anyway, I'm just defending myself since I don't want to look like a newbie who didn't know what Spacewar and non-fantasy-themed adventures were :-) -- http://www.MobyGames.com/ The world's most comprehensive gaming database project. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Stuart Feldhamer wrote: Then again, if you want to invent new terminology, that's your business I suppose. No, it isn't, which is why this entire discussion was initiated. You (and everyone else here) will be happy to know that I am fixing the system at MobyGames (the first and hopefully only time in our 4-year history). No, I definitely don't want to invent new terminology. MobyGames would be a sham if I did :-) -- http://www.MobyGames.com/ The world's most comprehensive gaming database project. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
RE: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Sounds good to me. BTW, I apologize if my original message was a bit argumentative. On another note, I noticed that there is a separate genre for racing/driving. Shouldn't games in that category fall under either Simulation or Sports? The racing/driving genre sticks out like a sore thumb to me amongst the other genres listed. Stuart -Original Message- From: Jim Leonard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 7:17 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 Stuart Feldhamer wrote: Then again, if you want to invent new terminology, that's your business I suppose. No, it isn't, which is why this entire discussion was initiated. You (and everyone else here) will be happy to know that I am fixing the system at MobyGames (the first and hopefully only time in our 4-year history). No, I definitely don't want to invent new terminology. MobyGames would be a sham if I did :-) -- http://www.MobyGames.com/ The world's most comprehensive gaming database project. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/ Information in this message reflects current market conditions and is subject to change without notice. It is believed to be reliable, but is not guaranteed for accuracy or completeness. Details provided do not supersede your normal trade confirmations or statements. Any product is subject to prior sale. CIBC World Markets Corp, its affiliated companies, and their officers or employees, may have a position in or make a market in any security described above, and may act as an investment banker or advisor to such. Although CIBC World Markets Corp. is an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), it is solely responsible for its contractual obligations. Any securities products recommended, purchased, or sold in any client accounts (i) will not be insured by the FDIC, (ii)will not be deposits or obligations of CIBC, (iii) will not be endorsed or guaranteed by CIBC, and (iv) will be subject to risks, including possible loss of principal in! vested. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
On Wednesday, January 29, 2003, at 06:14 PM, Jim Leonard wrote: Edward Franks wrote: 1. Adventure was the first computer game, yes? Nope. :) Space War was (circa 1960). MIT students meet the PDP-1 and the cathode-ray tube. I meant PERSONAL computer. Adventure was playable on CPM machines if memory serves; it was certainly the first game I ever played (on an Osborne) in 1979. There was also a CP/M game called Ladder (platform jumping). If you include any BASIC games (Star Trek, Wumpus, etc.), then it would be difficult determining just what the first game was. The first commercial game would probably easier to figure out. BTW, it is 90% certain RPG will join the main list of genres at MobyGames, so I thank all of you for taking time to illustrate your viewpoints. Cool. :-D (But I am not budging on King's Quest being primarily IF+G, because honestly that is what it is. The input is all text (moving your character can be done with joystick but that is all a joystick can do in that game) and the output is text and graphics, so that pretty much clinches it.) I'm not fussed either way when it comes to King's Quest. -- Edward Franks -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Jim Leonard wrote: Jagged Alliance: Strategy, subgenres Role-Playing. Birthright: Same as Jagged Alliance, with Medieval Fantasy thrown in. Europa 1400: The Guild: Strategy, subgenres Managerial. I can agree on the first two, but I'd think this one could be Adventure :) King of Dragon Pass: Adventure (finally) + Strategy, subgenres Managerial, Role-Playing. (Wow, this game looks interesting -- I'll try to play it) I have to disagree once again, this one should be primarily Strategy, and with no Role-Playing :) On a sidenote, yes, this game is tremendously interesting, (although difficult due to the complex Managerial part) and amazing in the perspective that it has _no_ animations whatsoever! -- Pedro R. Quaresma Salvador Caetano IMVT Div. Sistemas de Informação / Systems and Information Division Administração e Desenvolvimento Lotus Notes / Lotus Notes Admnistration and Development [EMAIL PROTECTED] // +351 22 7867000 (ext. 3492) It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. - Albert Einstein ToyotaShopping - A sua Loja Toyota Online http://www.toyota.pt
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
On Wednesday, January 22, 2003, at 05:26 PM, Jim Leonard wrote: [Snip You've presented some strong arguments and I'm going to have to think about them before coming up with a rebuttal. But first let me pose some situations and questions: 1. Adventure was the first computer game, yes? Nope. :) Space War was (circa 1960). MIT students meet the PDP-1 and the cathode-ray tube. It was not an RPG. So computer adventure games came before computer RPGs, right? Yes. However, adventure games came from pen-n-paper RPGs. From the _first_ pen-n-paper RPG to be exact which started a whole new game genre. The reason I'm pointing stuff out that is outside computer games is that in the case of Adventure there is no prior computer game influences for it. You have to look outside of computer games to see what the influences/lineages was. 2. The Adventure genre encompasses *all* fantasy-style gaming. So RPG fits into it, yes? If not, why? No, because you you can have non-fantasy based RPGs. Wasteland and Fallout for example. (I'm assuming that you are using the term fantasy to mean the generic pseudo-medieval Tolkien-esque settings.) Like with fantasy, one of the problems with the word adventure is that it can mean a very, very broad category. So broad that it can become meaningless. (Role-playing has the same problem as you are basically playing a role in every game.) In fact, if you wanted to you could view the SSI Gold Box crpgs en-masse as the RPG system and each individual game as a particular adventure. This would have a nice correspondence to the pen-n-paper world where the rules are the RPG and each module is the adventure. But this is really more having on an adventure rather than playing an adventure game. :) Darn those multiple word meanings. -- Edward Franks -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Stuart Feldhamer schrieb: Jim, Your system is very interesting but I don't like it. Maybe according to YOUR definition of Adventure it encompasses all fantasy-style gaming, but this is not the commonly accepted definition of the genre. As I see it, adventures are games where the focus is on solving puzzles within the context of a story. RPGs are games where the focus is on fighting, and in the process, building up your characters. I've played games like Ultima, and Pool of Radiance, and I liked them to a point, but I got bored with the battles every two minutes. The battles are not incidental, but rather are the main component of the gameplay. A game with this type of gameplay mechanics would not be considered an adventure by any stretch of the imagination. You know I'm all for drawing a line between RPGs and Adventures, but is the focus of the former really on fighting? It usually is a component of a RPG, but the focus? The Ultimas beginning with IV had conversation as a strong component, in Planescape: Torment you could advance your character through the right decisions in conversations. Marco -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Marco Thorek wrote: Others want to actually create a new genre specifically for Sierra-like games. As official taxonomer for MobyGames, they will forever remain in our system as what they really are: Interactive Fiction with Graphics. This puts them in the same category as Mask of the Sun, Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur, etc. Because when you get down to it, all of the games Sierra put out from 1984 to 1991 that required text input are exactly that -- interactive fiction with graphics. The text parser may be bad, but it's still a parser and still required to complete the game. Entrance into a new room/area doesn't always print out a text description, but you do get text updates of events/locations/dialogue. So it's a gimmicky variant. Well, yes, as a matter of fact that would be correct. Would you put the later Sierra adventures, which were entirely mouse driven IIRC? No, of course not -- there's no text parser so it doesn't qualify as Interactive Fiction. They just get classified as Adventure, with possible subgenres. It seems to me, the farther we move into the present, the harder it is to classify a game. Some genres have blurred beyond recognition. Trust me, I can classify them. :) Genres haven't blurred; people's minds have. Go ahead -- hit me with something difficult. -- http://www.MobyGames.com/ The world's most comprehensive gaming database project. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Jim Leonard schrieb: It seems to me, the farther we move into the present, the harder it is to classify a game. Some genres have blurred beyond recognition. Trust me, I can classify them. :) Genres haven't blurred; people's minds have. Go ahead -- hit me with something difficult. Hm, how about Deus Ex, Thief and System Shock 2? They incorporate adventure style puzzles, but also have character development like CRPGs and yet use elements from and look like FPS on a first glance. I admit, three nasty choices, but these are the ones I was always unsure where to put. Marco -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Yes, but since those games are just Sierra-style games with verbs and nouns you can pick from a list, it's still a derivative from IF (except this time the parser forces a limited subset of words you can choose from, in a very specific two-word combo). The pick words from a list-style adventure system was no better than Sierra's. What made Lucasarts games worth playing, thankfully, were the clever and engaging storylines and puzzles, which were good enough to force people through the awful interface. But by that logic, you could say that a game like Jack the Nipper, or Garfield: Big Fat Hair Deal were derivatives of IF as well, since you went through the game, and with the correct selection of moves (to pick up, and drop items, talk to characters, etc.) you went through a story. The interface had just changed from words typed in or chosen from a list to words chosen by specific joystick and fire button combos. It seems that any game that tells a story and has the character influence that story in any way beyond just jumping and running would be an IF. That just completely ignores the actual play mechanics which are what a Genre is supposed to be defining. Karl Kuras -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Jim Leonard wrote:
What made Lucasarts games worth playing,
thankfully, were the clever and engaging storylines and puzzles, which were
good enough to force people through the awful interface.
Clever and engaging storylines, agreed (up to a certain period), but awful interface? I admit the first version of the SCUMM system (Zak Mcracken, Maniac Mansion) was poor, but the one used on the Monkeys and DoTT is, IMHO, in the very least pretty decent. And so was the icon-based one they used later starting on, I believe Sam Max.
Sure, a parser is more precise when interpreting your ideas into the game, but an icon-based one can often be more rewarding.
As a sidenote on interfaces, I believe Ultima 6 was the first game to have both an icon-based interface _and_ also an initial based one ('O' for open, 'C' for cast, etc) I think most people, even those who were not used to the previous game, barely used the icons.
--
Pedro R. Quaresma
Salvador Caetano IMVT
Div. Sistemas de Informação / Systems and Information Division
Administração e Desenvolvimento Lotus Notes /
Lotus Notes Admnistration and Development
[EMAIL PROTECTED] // +351 22 7867000 (ext. 3492)
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Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Jim Leonard wrote: Trust me, I can classify them. :) Genres haven't blurred; people's minds have. Go ahead -- hit me with something difficult. Jagged Alliance, Birthright. Wait, want really difficult ones? OK then: Europa 1400 The Guild, King of Dragon Pass :) -- Pedro R. Quaresma Salvador Caetano IMVT Div. Sistemas de Informação / Systems and Information Division Administração e Desenvolvimento Lotus Notes / Lotus Notes Admnistration and Development [EMAIL PROTECTED] // +351 22 7867000 (ext. 3492) It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. - Albert Einstein ToyotaShopping - A sua Loja Toyota Online http://www.toyota.pt
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
On Tuesday, January 21, 2003, at 03:01 AM, John Romero wrote: [Snip] The Apple II version of King's Quest was one of the early double-resolution 16-color games and subsequent Sierra adventures used that graphics mode. Double-res on the Apple II was 160x192 with 16 colors. Mixed-mode graphics on the C64 was 160x200 with 4 colors (from a 16-color palette) per 4x8 character block. It was just a logical decision to use the same assets and resolution as the other popular platforms. From a game developer's viewpoint, when or what things made the IBM PC the platform of choice over the Apple IIs, C64s, etc.? I know that on the business side of programming the common wisdom is that 640K RAM was the key (VisiCalc vs. Lotus 1-2-3). Was it the ubiquity of the PC clones? VGA graphics? Reaching the limitations of 8-bit platform or an intersection of all three? In a way the PC seemed to be a step backward for games in the mid '80s to about '90 because of the lack of decent sound. Though, for example, Sierra pushed the various sound cards and external units, most of the people I knew didn't buy sound cards until the time of Wing Commander or Doom. -- Edward Franks -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
At its most basic, Adventure + Action, subgenres Cyberpunk, Dark Sci-Fi. Come on... simply calling it Action Adventure ignores the Character development aspects of the game and simply labeling a game where shooting occurs as Action would lump Space Invaders, Doom and Tomb Raider into the same category and let's face it, that is like saying that The French Connection, Rambo and Hard Boiled are all action movies, but they really have little to nothing in common and probably wouldn't even appeal to the same group of people. Karl Kuras -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
On Wednesday, January 22, 2003, at 10:43 AM, Jim Leonard wrote: [Snip] Adventures progress through decision, not action. Since you can't significantly change Mafia's story or outcomes based on your decisions, it's not an adventure game. People confuse this a lot; they think that great storytelling equals adventure game, which is incorrect. Half-Life had excellent storytelling, but was it an adventure game? No, but Half-Life swiped a number of elements from adventure/role-playing games to give a needed twist to first person shooters. For example, the very end was definitely an adventure-style situation. -- Edward Franks -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Pedro Quaresma wrote: Clever and engaging storylines, agreed (up to a certain period), but awful interface? I admit the first version of the SCUMM system (Zak Mcracken, Maniac Mansion) was poor, but the one used on the Monkeys and DoTT is, IMHO, in the very least pretty decent. And so was the icon-based one they used later starting on, I believe Sam Max. You're crossing genres. DoTT and Monkeys is IF+G, Sam Max was completely icon-based so it doesn't qualify as IF+G. Sure, a parser is more precise when interpreting your ideas into the game, but an icon-based one can often be more rewarding. I agree, but that's not what's being debated. The discussion is on the proper classification and taxonomy of IF and IF+G. -- http://www.MobyGames.com/ The world's most comprehensive gaming database project. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
To remain in the Interaction Fiction with Graphics subgenre, verb-noun input using text labels must be maintained. If the verbs (actions) and nouns (items) are replaced by icons or pictures, or accepts verb-only or noun-only input, it no longer qualfies as Interactive Fiction. This definition unfortunately shouldn't include early Sierra and Lucasarts games for the simple fact that movement (one of the most time consuming aspects of a text adventure) is no longer controlled by verb + noun text inputs or selections, but is now relegated to a joystick, mouse or arrow key function. I would almost go as far as saying that IF is an improper name for the genre, but it should be Interactive Novel (for the classic Infocom games), Interactive Picture Book (for the text adventures with still images, like The Hobbitt and Gremlins) and Interactive Movie (for the Sierra and Lucas games which include animated sprites representing the characters). Karl Kuras -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Edward Franks wrote: From a game developer's viewpoint, when or what things made the IBM PC the platform of choice over the Apple IIs, C64s, etc.? I know that on the business side of programming the common wisdom is that 640K RAM was the key (VisiCalc vs. Lotus 1-2-3). Was it the ubiquity of the PC clones? VGA graphics? Reaching the limitations of 8-bit platform or an intersection of all three? I think the intersection of all three. Color depth in the 320x200x256 MCGA mode (supported on MCGA and VGA) outclassed all platforms released until that time, even Amiga -- HAM was too slow for gaming, so that left up to 64 simultaneous onscreen colors in practical application (32 for most games). This was at a time when PC clones were cheap and 25MHz machines were the norm; combine all three, and what the PC lacked in graphics and sound hardware assistance it could make up for in CPU power/speed. But another way to look at it was the game designs themselves. For example, Apple II, C64, etc. could not do the kinds of things game designers wanted to do. Games with heavy memory AND CPU requirements like Wing Commander (for storing all those sprites, AND rotating/scaling them on the fly) or Falcon 3.0 (heavy 3D flight/world/etc. calculations, not just 3D rendering) just couldn't be done on any other platform. Some games even had to wait until their time had come -- for example, Strike Commander. The victim of bad timing, SC's game's engine was so advanced that even the current machines of the day couldn't run it properly (and this is NOT the fault of bad programming -- designed in 1992, it supported 3D textures, gouraud shading, distance fog, and other innovations that took two more years for other companies to produce). In a way the PC seemed to be a step backward for games in the mid '80s to about '90 because of the lack of decent sound. Though, for example, Sierra pushed the various sound cards and external units, most of the people I knew didn't buy sound cards until the time of Wing Commander or Doom. I originally bought my sound cards for better music, both composing and in games (my first PC soundcard was only supported by the program it came with, Bank Street Music Writer). I bought an Adlib in 1989 because I had received a cool record (an actual, cereal-box-style floppy record) in the mail that demonstrated what it could do, and wanted to see how some of my favorite single-voice PC speaker music sounded with better hardware. What a surprise I got when Indy 500 had actual decent sound effects -- the cars sounded incredibly authentic. (They still do -- run Indy 500 on an Adlib and you'll see what I mean.) So, my experience was atypical -- I was always in it for the music. -- http://www.MobyGames.com/ The world's most comprehensive gaming database project. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Pedro Quaresma wrote: Jim Leonard wrote: Trust me, I can classify them. :) Genres haven't blurred; people's minds have. Go ahead -- hit me with something difficult. Jagged Alliance, Birthright. Wait, want really difficult ones? OK then: Europa 1400 The Guild, King of Dragon Pass :) Jagged Alliance: Strategy, subgenres Role-Playing. Birthright: Same as Jagged Alliance, with Medieval Fantasy thrown in. Europa 1400: The Guild: Strategy, subgenres Managerial. King of Dragon Pass: Adventure (finally) + Strategy, subgenres Managerial, Role-Playing. (Wow, this game looks interesting -- I'll try to play it) These aren't hard to classify. In fact, no game is hard to classify. I think what is missing for most people is that no clear agreement of what some genres like adventure or RPG mean. Properly defining genres has been one of our missions since inception. Take a look at some MobyGames genres (find a game and click on the genre to get its description); I would very much like to know if anyone thinks we have something defined incorrectly. Most people don't have a problem with the way MobyGames defines a genre, but some people have a problem with the Main genres (Action, Adventure, Educational, Racing / Driving, Simulation, Sports, Strategy). Every month we refer people to the FAQ question Why isn't RPG a Main genre?. -- http://www.MobyGames.com/ The world's most comprehensive gaming database project. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Karl Kuras wrote: At its most basic, Adventure + Action, subgenres Cyberpunk, Dark Sci-Fi. Come on... simply calling it Action Adventure ignores the Character development aspects Sorry, I may have forgotten to add subgenre Role-Playing, which should be there. of the game and simply labeling a game where shooting occurs as Action would lump Space Invaders, Doom and Tomb Raider into the same category The same BASIC category, yes. However, please note that I chose two basic genres to classify it, Adventure + Action, and Doom and Tomb Raider would NOT fit into that. Games are the summary of their parts. MobyGames tries to make sure the parts are clearly defined and labeled. and let's face it, that is like saying that The French Connection, Rambo and Hard Boiled are all action movies, but they really have little to nothing in common and probably wouldn't even appeal to the same group of people. But that doesn't change the fact that they are action movies. We're not debating whether or not those games are similar, we're debating how to classify them. -- http://www.MobyGames.com/ The world's most comprehensive gaming database project. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Edward Franks wrote: On Wednesday, January 22, 2003, at 10:43 AM, Jim Leonard wrote: [Snip] Adventures progress through decision, not action. Since you can't significantly change Mafia's story or outcomes based on your decisions, it's not an adventure game. People confuse this a lot; they think that great storytelling equals adventure game, which is incorrect. Half-Life had excellent storytelling, but was it an adventure game? No, but Half-Life swiped a number of elements from adventure/role-playing games to give a needed twist to first person shooters. For example, the very end was definitely an adventure-style situation. I don't deny that, but 0.0001% of the gameplay giving you a story branch does not an adventure game make :-) -- http://www.MobyGames.com/ The world's most comprehensive gaming database project. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Karl Kuras wrote: Adventures progress through decision, not action. Since you can't significantly change Mafia's story or outcomes based on your decisions, it's not an adventure game. People confuse this a lot; they think that great storytelling equals adventure game, which is incorrect. Half-Life had excellent storytelling, but was it an adventure game? So if a game can only have one final outcome, no multiple endings then it's not an adventure? That's not what I wrote. MOST games have one final outcome. But if there are multiple paths or mechanics on getting there, *and* the gameplay focuses on storytelling and decision over action, it's an adventure. Within reason, you should not be restricted on how you get there. -- http://www.MobyGames.com/ The world's most comprehensive gaming database project. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Yech, it seems like Gamedex is confusing genre with plot. Jim Leonard wrote: Karl Kuras wrote: To remain in the Interaction Fiction with Graphics subgenre, verb-noun input using text labels must be maintained. If the verbs (actions) and nouns (items) are replaced by icons or pictures, or accepts verb-only or noun-only input, it no longer qualfies as Interactive Fiction. This definition unfortunately shouldn't include early Sierra and Lucasarts games for the simple fact that movement (one of the most time consuming aspects of a text adventure) is no longer controlled by verb + noun text inputs or selections, but is now relegated to a joystick, mouse or arrow key function. I don't agree. For one thing, movement was hardly the most time-consuming portion (you could use abbreviations and could stack commands -- haven't you ever typed n,e,e,n,e to move somewhere?). But more importantly, movement was the ONLY thing NOT controlled by text input. Since the majority of gameplay relied on text input, it is IF. I would almost go as far as saying that IF is an improper name for the I never wrote that. Not IF, but IF+G. IF+G is IF with relaxed restrictions. genre, but it should be Interactive Novel (for the classic Infocom games), Interactive Picture Book (for the text adventures with still images, like The Hobbitt and Gremlins) and Interactive Movie (for the Sierra and Lucas games which include animated sprites representing the characters). Too many classifications and you fall into the trap of gamedex.com. They have over 200 categories, which makes their classification system ludicrous. Just one look: Action Advenuture Cartoonish Action Adventure Fantasy Action Adventure Sci-fi Action Adventure Horror Action Adventure Action Hero Adventure Super Hero Advenutre Spy Action Adventure ..and you know they're beyond help. Hopefully I don't need to explain why this is a Very Bad Idea(tm). -- http://www.MobyGames.com/ The world's most comprehensive gaming database project. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Marco Thorek wrote: Well, according to Moby it belongs to six genres. Two main, four sub. Sorry if that's not obvious in our presentation; I should probably mention to Brian that our main genres should be highlighted differently. I thought about a game belonging to one genre, like in the good old days. Then you fall into the gamedex.com category trap, which is a mess. I remember the German Happy-Computer magazine periodically published extra gaming editions and they were categorized by genre: RPG, Action, Adventure, Sports, etc. Games that couldn't be classified clearly had their own category, Rest of the world. Elite was in there, as well as Psi-5 Trading, Koronis Rift and Alter Ego. Today Rest of the world woul probably make up most of the magazine. Exactly, which proves that the single-genre system is flawed by design. Thank you for proving my point :-) -- http://www.MobyGames.com/ The world's most comprehensive gaming database project. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
I found one flaw right here: Since there is no such thing as an RPG that isn't also an adventure, or strategy, or action game, RPG becomes a sub-genre instead of a main one. There are certainly RPGs that aren't adventure (or other genre) games. Two off the top of my head are Telengard and Rogue -- two of my favorites. There is no story to speak of in these type of games...there may be a story hinted in the manual or maybe in the conclusion (some games are open ended and have no conclusion). Even if there is the slightest hint of a story, you said that .0001% (paraphrasing) content doesn't make it switch genre. These games are hack and slash games whose goal is to make your characters as powerful as possible and find lots of treasure. No serious action, strategy or adventure. I can dig up several more of these games. Generally you'll find them to be older games since story became more common as the industry grew. However, you could argue that a game like Diablo is still a hack-n-slash RPG. They throw in some randomized plot elements (quests), but it is quite secondary to the fun of the game. Again, if Half Life isn't an adventure I would say Diablo isn't, but it is definitely an RPG. Mobygames says it is action. I'd say that's debatable since the definition requires the main focus to be action. But Telengard and Rogue are definitely not action games. Hugh ---Original Message--- From: Jim Leonard [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 01/22/03 12:35 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 Edward Franks wrote: The problem is that you can easily swap in role-playing games as a basic building block in place of Adventure. The same justifications work for either. The two are so close together (more than any of the other categories) that it is hard sometimes to see the unique differences. I completely disagree. All RPGs are adventures, but not all adventures are RPGs; because of this, RPG is a subgenre in our system. Before you debate further, here is our definition of Adventure (a main genre) and RPG (a subgenre). Please read them over before responding. Adventure: Denotes any game where the emphasis is based on experiencing a story through the manipulation of one or more user-controlled characters and the environment they exist in. Gameplay mechanics emphasize decision over action. Role-playing games (RPGs) are a common sub-genre of all adventure games, as are the classic Sierra Quest series of games. Text adventures (Interactive Fiction) are also, by definition, adventure games. Role-Playing: Denotes games where the creation and advancement of character statistics is a major element of gameplay mechanics. Inspired by traditional role-playing games, such as Dungeons and Dragons. Players have specific attributes, hit points, etc. and a large part of gameplay involves improving your character(s) through experience. Examples: Bard's Tale, Wizardry, Might and Magic, Lands of Lore, Wasteland, Fallout, etc. (Does not have to be based in fantasy settings, but most are.) --- For extra credit, the MobyGames FAQ Why is your main category list so sparse? Where's RPG? Where's puzzle games? is answered like this: Our main list of genres -- also referred to as main categories -- are the most basic building blocks of game taxonomy. Meaning, they are intentionally basic and encompassing, such that any game in the world can fit into at least one of the main categories. A lot of people have asked us why some genres, specifically RPG, are not included in this list. That is because, for a game category to be included in the main list, it must stand by itself. Since there is no such thing as an RPG that isn't also an adventure, or strategy, or action game, RPG becomes a sub-genre instead of a main one. Here's an example clarifying how important the main categories are: Think about the materials we see around us. What's the common classification expression -- Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral, right? That's a pretty good example: I am animal, the taco I just ate was vegetable, and the toilet I will no doubt be visiting shortly is mineral. Asking for the RPG genre to join the main list is like asking for rocks to join the Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral list when it's clearly already a mineral. It doesn't matter if the rock is in the shape of, say, an animal; that doesn't change the fact that it is a rock. Hopefully by now you can see the importance we place on our main categories for the purposes of proper game classification. They may not match your specific definition of a game type, but that is sort-of the point. In order to properly classify games such as a scientist would classify a new element, we have to break the mold and classify them how they are supposed to be classified, not how they already have been for years. --- Now, if you see any problems in that logic, please let me know. -- http://www.MobyGames.com/ The world's most
Re: Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
RE: #1. Actually Spacewar was the first computer game...and it was an action game. But yes, computer adventure came before computer RPG. I'm not sure that is of any significance; however, since several other genres (besides action and strategy) also came after Adventure. #2. Fantasy is not a computer-game-genre-specific characteristic. Adventures can be fantasy, sci-fi, noir, reality-based, etc. Same with RPGs. The real differentiator between video game genres should be the essence of what makes it a fun game: - For an Adventure game, it is problem/puzzle solving. I contend that Adventure games are a sub-genre of puzzle games. Without problem/puzzle solving in an adventure game, you would have no game. You would have a story (even if that was fun, it wouldn't be a game). - For RPGs, it is character growth and item gathering. This makes it distinct and not a sub-genre. A game can have this as its only focus and be fun. See Telengard, Rogue, Temple of Apshai, NetHack, etc. Hugh ---Original Message--- From: Jim Leonard [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 01/22/03 03:26 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 Hugh and Edward: You've presented some strong arguments and I'm going to have to think about them before coming up with a rebuttal. But first let me pose some situations and questions: 1. Adventure was the first computer game, yes? It was not an RPG. So computer adventure games came before computer RPGs, right? 2. The Adventure genre encompasses *all* fantasy-style gaming. So RPG fits into it, yes? If not, why? #2 is the dealbreaker. -- http://www.MobyGames.com/ The world's most comprehensive gaming database project. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Karl Kuras wrote: Now your main gripe seems to be with the fact that you can't just be in a room and say I want to do X. This was at first mainly a technical problem of doing pathfinding routines (notice that later Sierra and Lucasarts games all take care of this for you automatically through mouse controls. KQ1 was meant to be played with a joystick or keyboard, so you didn't have a mouse to point at stuff and intereact with it through icons (granted the Amiga and I believe Mac versions both had mouse support but they were just ports made at a later time. When Maniac Mansion is released these problems are dealt with). I have to stop you there -- any game requiring text input couldn't possibly have been meant to be played entirely with a joystick. While it was lack of foresight not to create an icon-based system controllable with the joystick, not changing that formula until 1991 is inexcusable. (Tass Times in Tonetown, in 1986, is the first game I can remember that perfected this. You could indeed play the entire IF with a joystick.) Also, the old descriptions in text adventures were replaced by graphics. This changed the nature of the puzzle solving from the old ok, what items are listed in the descrption and let's play with those to what items are drawn with any kind of detail and let's play with those. Part of the I can accept this argument as what they were going for, but since the graphics were 160x100 low-res, there wasn't much room for detail and I think they missed the mark. It didn't work, initially. Later releases didn't improve on this because they used the higher res of 320x200 to just draw smaller objects. appeal, especially in those early games was to try to find the items of interest, like watching an old detective movie and spotting which character was missing from the scene, because he was off murdering someone. Text adventures just had to tell you what happened and give it away or not tell you making it unfair. You haven't played enough text adventures. Even the original classic you are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike was like you describe -- a single room was described slightly differently than the others. Witness also Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where a description changes in a subtle way. And those are just some small Infocom examples. I haven't played much IF to completion, but I have played more Sierra games to completion and at the end of almost every one I have questioned the use of my time. :) Despite the fact that this post is coming out a bit disjointed, another great addition of the Sierra style game was that you could finally have something besides straight choose your own adventure style gameplay. Action sequences were added to the games (Conquest of Camelot being probably the best example of this), which began to bridge gaps between genres and giving much more realistic feeling experiences, especially since you could now actually see scenes played out that would otherwise just be described. Yes, but you've jumped too far ahead. Those games (post-1991) are out of the scope of this debate as they allow full mouse control. Besides, the action sequences were a bit clunky IMO -- better than nothing, I guess, but worse than even a bad pure action game. Despite my writing, I'm not specifically declaring that Sierra games sucked. :-) I wouldn't have played so many (about 8 to completion) if I didn't enjoy *something*... What I'm trying to understand is why they survived for so long when they were clearly a novelty and not a true innovation to the IF (or any interactive storytelling) genre. I think you hit the nail on the head when you wrote more accessible to younger audiences that were quickly bored by pages and pages of text. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: RE: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Starting in 1986, I played most of these games on the Atari ST and/or Amiga. I seem to recall the graphics being improved over the Apple/PC/C-64 versions, and I recall using a mouse. Has anybody compared the originals to the Amiga/ST ports? That could have a big effect on Jim's technology concerns. I know that Karl is a big Amiga fan, and they might have had two very different experiences playing the same game. Hugh ---Original Message--- From: John Romero [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 01/21/03 01:01 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 But the animations were incredibly crude because the sprites were inexplicably limited to half-horizontal-resolution sprites! And so were the backgrounds! I originally thought this would be for a speed increase or storage requirement decrease -- but on closer examination, the text boxes that pop up show that the game is running in 320x200, which is not half-horiz-res. And since the game backgrounds were all vector graphics, it would not have taken up that much more space to hold 320x200 coordinates. It drove me nuts to see, game after game, graphics created and displayed at 160x200 running in a 320x200 graphics mode! I believe the reason why the graphics on the PC were so low res is because they were merely ports of the Apple II games to start with. Then, when they moved over to developing the titles on the PC, they didn't change their engine technology because that resolution was the most compatible with the C-64 and Apple II systems of the day. The Apple II version of King's Quest was one of the early double-resolution 16-color games and subsequent Sierra adventures used that graphics mode. Double-res on the Apple II was 160x192 with 16 colors. Mixed-mode graphics on the C64 was 160x200 with 4 colors (from a 16-color palette) per 4x8 character block. It was just a logical decision to use the same assets and resolution as the other popular platforms. - John -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
RE: RE: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
I remember playing the Atari ST version of Black Cauldron and it was a straight port of the 16-color Apple II version. - John -Original Message- From: Karl Kuras [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 2:57 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: RE: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 Actually, I hate to say this, but until the 256 color versions of the games appeared, the Amiga and ST ports were 1-1 conversions of the PC games. No improvements whatsoever... in fact many of them ran slower. This actually goes to the issue of the lowest common denominator argument made earlier. They really did just cater to the lowest graphical platform (Apple II for several years until I believe Space Quest III or KQ 4 came out... not sure which was first). And then ported those libraries straight to other systems. As far as I know the C64 had no Quest games at all. I found a catalog listing KQ1 for the C64 once, but this was then corrected in later catalogs and never mentioned again. Not sure why this change was made, but ultimately it doesn't matter. Another side issue, if memory serves me correctly the original version of KQ1 (for the PC Jr.) did not have mouse support... this was only added later for those platforms that did have mice like the Amiga and ST. Can someone confirm this? Karl Kuras - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 12:39 PM Subject: Re: RE: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 Starting in 1986, I played most of these games on the Atari ST and/or Amiga. I seem to recall the graphics being improved over the Apple/PC/C-64 versions, and I recall using a mouse. Has anybody compared the originals to the Amiga/ST ports? That could have a big effect on Jim's technology concerns. I know that Karl is a big Amiga fan, and they might have had two very different experiences playing the same game. Hugh ---Original Message--- From: John Romero [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 01/21/03 01:01 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 But the animations were incredibly crude because the sprites were inexplicably limited to half-horizontal-resolution sprites! And so were the backgrounds! I originally thought this would be for a speed increase or storage requirement decrease -- but on closer examination, the text boxes that pop up show that the game is running in 320x200, which is not half-horiz-res. And since the game backgrounds were all vector graphics, it would not have taken up that much more space to hold 320x200 coordinates. It drove me nuts to see, game after game, graphics created and displayed at 160x200 running in a 320x200 graphics mode! I believe the reason why the graphics on the PC were so low res is because they were merely ports of the Apple II games to start with. Then, when they moved over to developing the titles on the PC, they didn't change their engine technology because that resolution was the most compatible with the C-64 and Apple II systems of the day. The Apple II version of King's Quest was one of the early double-resolution 16-color games and subsequent Sierra adventures used that graphics mode. Double-res on the Apple II was 160x192 with 16 colors. Mixed-mode graphics on the C64 was 160x200 with 4 colors (from a 16-color palette) per 4x8 character block. It was just a logical decision to use the same assets and resolution as the other popular platforms. - John -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail- [EMAIL PROTECTED]/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Sadly, most PC-to-Amiga conversions (I've never used an ST, sadly) were slower than the original. PC programmers were contracted to port to Amiga instead of hiring Amiga people to do the conversions. Or, if Amiga people were contracted, they had a hard time porting 8086 assembler over to 68000 assembler, or did it 1-to-1 where they didn't try to optimize any code (use additional registers, etc.) Or the people porting to Amiga simply didn't understand Amiga graphics hardware. This is so true... too many games were horrid on the Amiga for this very reason... probably a big contributor to the system's virtual non-existence in the US. Lucasarts was the big exception to this. their ports of MI2 and Indy 4 (despite the huge disk swapping issues for the harddriveless like me) were wonderful demonstrations of just how good a game could look in 32 colors. King's Quest 4 was the first SCI system using 320x200 16-color graphics. They built the SCI system at the same time they were writing/scripting KQ4, so they had two developlment tracks for it: AGI and SCI. Both versions were released, but the AGI version is fairly rare. Screenshots of both versions are here: http://www.mobygames.com/game/shots/gameId,129/ I didn't know that the SCI version was rare... the Amiga and ST ports both used that graphic set... most likely due to the porting happening later. Karl Kuras -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Karl Kuras wrote: I didn't know that the SCI version was rare... the Amiga and ST ports both used that graphic set... most likely due to the porting happening later. No, the AGI version was rare. The SCI version was pimped heavily because it was the first interpreter to allow external music devices (and had a decent score to support them). -- http://www.MobyGames.com/ The world's most comprehensive gaming database project. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Jim Leonard schrieb: At MobyGames we go over this every so often; people keep wanting to somehow *define* the words adventure game to mean Sierra games (the Quest games, etc.) Well, I can imagine. I remember having vivid discussions over at comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure over this http://www.gamingnexus.com/article.asp?ID=2 and this http://fourfatchicks.com/Rants/Commentary/Contemplation.shtml article with the respective editors. When you read through them you'll note that for these people adventure gaming started with Sierra and Lucas. Before that was nothing. Beside documenting pretty much ignorance from people who publish articles, this also shows that there still is no public appreciation for the roots of computer gaming, not even among those who like to play games. Old movies are considered classics and are watched, old games are just obsolete. Except for, well, us and a few others. Others want to actually create a new genre specifically for Sierra-like games. As official taxonomer for MobyGames, they will forever remain in our system as what they really are: Interactive Fiction with Graphics. This puts them in the same category as Mask of the Sun, Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur, etc. Because when you get down to it, all of the games Sierra put out from 1984 to 1991 that required text input are exactly that -- interactive fiction with graphics. The text parser may be bad, but it's still a parser and still required to complete the game. Entrance into a new room/area doesn't always print out a text description, but you do get text updates of events/locations/dialogue. So it's a gimmicky variant. Well, yes, as a matter of fact that would be correct. Would you put the later Sierra adventures, which were entirely mouse driven IIRC, and those from Legend in the same category? It seems to me, the farther we move into the present, the harder it is to classify a game. Some genres have blurred beyond recognition. Marco -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Jim Leonard schrieb: At MobyGames we go over this every so often; people keep wanting to somehow *define* the words adventure game to mean Sierra games (the Quest games, etc.) I always called that type of game a Graphic Adventure, mainly because it's what Lucasarts put as a label on Indiana Jones and the last crusade (they had two versions, the Action game and the Graphic Adventure). Guess that makes more sense then any other label, because it's an adventure that is played out in a graphic enviornment... text adventures with graphics are just that, text adventures with graphics, they could really exist without the images. Karl Kuras -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Jim Leonard schrieb: I wouldn't call that 3D -- it's interactive fiction with graphics drawn in a 3D perspective. To contrast, the Quest games let you move something in front of or behind another on-screen object, so that qualifies more as 3D than Mystery House. I remember that back in those days there were just two distinctions for adventure games: text adventures and graphical adventures. The first, of course, the likes of Zork, etc., the latter anything that came with graphics, like Magnetic Scrolls, Telarium/Trillium and so on. I'd put Mystery House in the second category. The earliest games I can remember that today would fit the description of a 3D adventure because of their gameplay and use of 3D graphics in the current definition of the term are Mercenary from Novagen and Cholo from Firebird. Was there ever a special subcategory named to classify the later Sierra and Lucasfilm adventures? Marco -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Marco Thorek wrote: Was there ever a special subcategory named to classify the later Sierra and Lucasfilm adventures? At MobyGames we go over this every so often; people keep wanting to somehow *define* the words adventure game to mean Sierra games (the Quest games, etc.) Others want to actually create a new genre specifically for Sierra-like games. As official taxonomer for MobyGames, they will forever remain in our system as what they really are: Interactive Fiction with Graphics. This puts them in the same category as Mask of the Sun, Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur, etc. Because when you get down to it, all of the games Sierra put out from 1984 to 1991 that required text input are exactly that -- interactive fiction with graphics. The text parser may be bad, but it's still a parser and still required to complete the game. Entrance into a new room/area doesn't always print out a text description, but you do get text updates of events/locations/dialogue. So it's a gimmicky variant. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Feldhamer, Stuart wrote: First of all, there was the novelty. At first it was pretty cool to be able to see your character on the screen. That is 90% of it right there. I can't see any other reason. Second, the animations. Even in their first game, KQ1, Sierra animated stuff like swimming. In later games, when you try to perform an action, you can actually see yourself doing it. Contrast this with seeing a picture of a snake in front of you and typing kill snake with rock and then the game responds with The snake is dead, and it just disappears from the screen. From a puzzle perspective this is fine, but from an entertainment perspective, I like being able to see what the character is doing. But the animations were incredibly crude because the sprites were inexplicably limited to half-horizontal-resolution sprites! And so were the backgrounds! I originally thought this would be for a speed increase or storage requirement decrease -- but on closer examination, the text boxes that pop up show that the game is running in 320x200, which is not half-horiz-res. And since the game backgrounds were all vector graphics, it would not have taken up that much more space to hold 320x200 coordinates. It drove me nuts to see, game after game, graphics created and displayed at 160x200 running in a 320x200 graphics mode! I swear, if I ever get in contact with Jeff Stephenson I am going to throttle that guy :-) I would LOVE to ask him why he designed the entire thing in low-res when all the output devices were regular res. Third, the action sequences. OK, I didn't actually like this, but the addition of the 3D movement allowed Sierra to put in such challenging tasks as making sure you didn't fall off the bridge into the moat, or running away from the dwarf. This was much much more of a hinderance than providing any actual benefit. Like climbing the beanstalk/walking up the stairs to the ogre -- remember how many times you had to go over that sequence over and over before you got it right? You had about 12 pixels leeway before the game was over. Which tree do you mean, the 1st tree, the 2nd tree, the 3rd tree, the 4th treeetc. I have never encountered that, but then again I've only played about 7 IF games to completion. Still, I find it hard to believe that the creators of the game would allow something like that to get in the way of playing. OK, maybe not such a great example. But when I played Kings Quest 2 for the 1st time (the 1st Kings Quest I played), I was always typing LOOK DOWN. This actually gave logical responses based upon where on the screen you were standing. So it might say You see nothing of note or You see a hollow stump. I found that cool also. In general, I think they did a fairly good job with the system. But that was so much extra effort! Walk, type, walk, type, walk, type... I will admit though, that it's more fun to click on a spot on the screen with the mouse and have the character move there automatically (and start to interact with something), than to first have to move the character with the arrow keys and then type something in. Sierra eventually realized that too. So maybe its original AGI system was ahead of its time, waiting for mice to become popular. Based on the 160x200 argument, I am having a hard time believing it was ahead of it's time. :-) And vector graphics were the *only* game in town for IF+G games until about 1986. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Hugh Falk wrote: Sure, I wouldn't call it 3D either, but I would call it quasi-3D, which is why I asked for a definition (since the default definition would be almost but not quite 3D). One could argue that true 3D is not possible on a 2D monitor. One could argue the game wasn't 3D at all. :) Because it wasn't. You were limited to 2 degrees of movement, X and Y. The illusion of 3D can be attributed to the background graphics you were walking on and sprites obscuring your screen. But there was nothing 3D about them. While I'm on the topic, I'll assert that Atari's arcade version of Night Driver was the first ever quasi-3D videogame (released in October 1976). It was the first to approximate a 3D perspective. Unless someone comes up with a better example, I agree. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
RE: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Okay, I thought most people knew the answers to these questions. Here's what you're looking for. (1) The first adventure game with text + graphics was Mystery House. All adventure games before Mystery House were purely text. http://www.xyzzynews.com/xyzzy.7f.html (2) The King's Quest series and all other subsequent Sierra adventures were based on the Mystery House text + graphics formula with the addition of being able to control your character. Even back when King's Quest was released, most games were still text + graphics but without character control. (3) Your question Was King's Quest 1 really the first quasi-3D adventure game released for the IBM line? The answer: King's Quest 1 was the first GAME ever released for the new IBM PC back in 1984. The release date on MobyGames is incorrect -- that's the release date for the remake. If you want more info on this: http://www.adventurecollective.com/reviews/kq1.htm - John -Original Message- From: Hugh Falk [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 11:27 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 Sure, I wouldn't call it 3D either, but I would call it quasi-3D, which is why I asked for a definition (since the default definition would be almost but not quite 3D). One could argue that true 3D is not possible on a 2D monitor. While I'm on the topic, I'll assert that Atari's arcade version of Night Driver was the first ever quasi-3D videogame (released in October 1976). It was the first to approximate a 3D perspective. Sorry, just being difficult :-) Hugh -Original Message- From: Jim Leonard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 8:30 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 Hugh Falk wrote: Well, how do you define quasi-3D adventure? You could say that Mystery House, the first adventure with graphics, was also the first quasi-3D. Since the graphics had a 3D perspective (See attached). I wouldn't call that 3D -- it's interactive fiction with graphics drawn in a 3D perspective. To contrast, the Quest games let you move something in front of or behind another on-screen object, so that qualifies more as 3D than Mystery House. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail- [EMAIL PROTECTED]/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail- [EMAIL PROTECTED]/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
On Saturday, January 18, 2003, at 03:09 PM, John Romero wrote: [Snip] (3) Your question Was King's Quest 1 really the first quasi-3D adventure game released for the IBM line? The answer: King's Quest 1 was the first GAME ever released for the new IBM PC back in 1984. The release date on MobyGames is incorrect -- that's the release date for the remake. Don't you mean the IBM PCjr? ;-) The IBM PC was released in August 1981. The first game for _that_ was Microsoft Adventure according to Dan Bricklin. http://www.bricklin.com/ibmpcannouncement1981.htm -- Edward Franks -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
(1) The first adventure game with text + graphics was Mystery House. All adventure games before Mystery House were purely text. http://www.xyzzynews.com/xyzzy.7f.html Don't put too much stock in anything in XYZZYnews... I'm the one who wrote this, back when I was first getting into game collecting and history. It's based on what I'd learned from numerous (popular) opinions, and I found nothing to contradict it at the time, but that doesn't mean there wasn't an obscure, forgotten graphical adventure game a few months/days before that. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
RE: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
To add some validation however, this fact has been published by many soruces, including books, by Sierra itself, and in an article I worte for C|net (for what that's worth). And nobody has publicly stood up to dispute it yet. Hugh -Original Message- From: C.E. Forman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Saturday, January 18, 2003 1:52 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 (1) The first adventure game with text + graphics was Mystery House. All adventure games before Mystery House were purely text. http://www.xyzzynews.com/xyzzy.7f.html Don't put too much stock in anything in XYZZYnews... I'm the one who wrote this, back when I was first getting into game collecting and history. It's based on what I'd learned from numerous (popular) opinions, and I found nothing to contradict it at the time, but that doesn't mean there wasn't an obscure, forgotten graphical adventure game a few months/days before that. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
That's why I said it's objective. I take a real 3D adventure to mean a 360 view, such as with today's crop of first person shooters like Thief, Medal of Honor, Return to Wolf, etc. The technology wasn't there 20 years ago so the 3D was an approximation. In KQ1 Sir Graham cannot change his viewing perspective, and each scene is flat. Stuart Feldhamer wrote: King's Quest 1 was the first adventure game where you could move the character around on the screen, as far as I know. What is a quasi-3D adventure game? How about Asylum? Stuart -Original Message- From: Chris Newman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 8:44 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 The opinions about the answer to this question are probably subjective but I think it's worth asking: Was King's Quest 1 really the first quasi-3D adventure game released for the IBM line? There were already hundreds of game titles available for the PC when the Jr made its debut with Sierra's infamous release, but I don't recall if any where of the same style. At the time I found KQ1 so enthralling that it could have easily clouded by memory in favor of Sierra. Chris -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
True -- I should have said animated 3D adventure. Was Mystery House the first graphical game? I know it's the first runaway hit, but I wonder if there wasn't someone else with a baggie operation, selling homemade games to stores. Hugh Falk wrote: Well, how do you define quasi-3D adventure? You could say that Mystery House, the first adventure with graphics, was also the first quasi-3D. Since the graphics had a 3D perspective (See attached). Hugh -Original Message- From: Chris Newman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 5:44 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 The opinions about the answer to this question are probably subjective but I think it's worth asking: Was King's Quest 1 really the first quasi-3D adventure game released for the IBM line? There were already hundreds of game titles available for the PC when the Jr made its debut with Sierra's infamous release, but I don't recall if any where of the same style. At the time I found KQ1 so enthralling that it could have easily clouded by memory in favor of Sierra. Chris -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/ Name: Mysteryh[1].jpg Mysteryh[1].jpgType: JPEG Image (image/jpeg) Encoding: base64 -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
RE: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Supposedly it was the first text adventure with graphics, but I suspect it would be difficult to prove this... Stuart -Original Message- From: Chris Newman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 9:38 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 True -- I should have said animated 3D adventure. Was Mystery House the first graphical game? I know it's the first runaway hit, but I wonder if there wasn't someone else with a baggie operation, selling homemade games to stores. Hugh Falk wrote: Well, how do you define quasi-3D adventure? You could say that Mystery House, the first adventure with graphics, was also the first quasi-3D. Since the graphics had a 3D perspective (See attached). Hugh -Original Message- From: Chris Newman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 5:44 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 The opinions about the answer to this question are probably subjective but I think it's worth asking: Was King's Quest 1 really the first quasi-3D adventure game released for the IBM line? There were already hundreds of game titles available for the PC when the Jr made its debut with Sierra's infamous release, but I don't recall if any where of the same style. At the time I found KQ1 so enthralling that it could have easily clouded by memory in favor of Sierra. Chris -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/ Name: Mysteryh[1].jpg Mysteryh[1].jpgType: JPEG Image (image/jpeg) Encoding: base64 -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/ Information in this message reflects current market conditions and is subject to change without notice. It is believed to be reliable, but is not guaranteed for accuracy or completeness. Details provided do not supersede your normal trade confirmations or statements. Any product is subject to prior sale. CIBC World Markets Corp, its affiliated companies, and their officers or employees, may have a position in or make a market in any security described above, and may act as an investment banker or advisor to such. Although CIBC World Markets Corp. is an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), it is solely responsible for its contractual obligations. Any securities products recommended, purchased, or sold in any client accounts (i) will not be insured by the FDIC, (ii)will not be deposits or obligations of CIBC, (iii) will not be endorsed or guaranteed by CIBC, and (iv) will be subject to risks, including possible loss of principal in! vested. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Feldhamer, Stuart wrote: Supposedly it was the first text adventure with graphics, but I suspect it would be difficult to prove this... Hardly -- I remember playing Mask of the Sun in 1983, a full year before King's Quest. The very first interactive fiction game with graphics would be pretty hard to lock down -- I guess you can argue it was Mystery House, but the parser in Mystery House is so pathetic that it barely qualifies as interactive fiction :-) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Chris Newman wrote: The opinions about the answer to this question are probably subjective but I think it's worth asking: Was King's Quest 1 really the first quasi-3D adventure game released for the IBM line? There If you are defining quasi-3D adventure game as the stereotypical Sierra game -- meaning, a visible protagonist who moves around the screen, and a limited text parser -- then yes, because it was the first game from Sierra using that system. In normal oldwarez or abandonware circles, my next comment would anger a lot of people, but in this crowd I think I'm amongst peers when I say: Sierra's adventure system simply didn't make any sense whatsoever. In a normal piece of interactive fiction, you type things like use key to unlock door. open door, then enter. and a lot of niggly stuff was taken care of, like walking over to the door, using the key, opening the door, and walking through it. But in Sierra's Quest games, you have to physically maneuver an on-screen avatar over to the door, type use key to unlock door anyway, and then maneuver him through the door. I mean, why so complicated? What is the point of making the game much harder to play? Was it an attempt at compensating for the incredibly weak text parser? If you were nowhere near the door on the same screen but typed use key to unlock door, the game would actually respond You're not close enough. Excuse me? Why are my actions limited by distance? Hello? My theory is that these types of games survived because they were a novelty. Something pretty was onscreen, and sprites moved behind other sprites giving the illusion of depth, and on certain platforms you had decent music. But overall *any* piece of interactive fiction with graphics is better -- you get to see the graphics, but you don't have to do stupid crap just to immerse you in the game. A decent story and flexible parser with multiple outcomes is what immerses you in a story, not moving a little blocky sprite around the screen. Honestly, what is the appeal of Sierra's Quest games? Anyone who likes them, please shed some light on the subject. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
RE: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
I was talking about Mystery House, not King's Quest... -Original Message- From: Jim Leonard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 11:16 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 Feldhamer, Stuart wrote: Supposedly it was the first text adventure with graphics, but I suspect it would be difficult to prove this... Hardly -- I remember playing Mask of the Sun in 1983, a full year before King's Quest. The very first interactive fiction game with graphics would be pretty hard to lock down -- I guess you can argue it was Mystery House, but the parser in Mystery House is so pathetic that it barely qualifies as interactive fiction :-) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/ Information in this message reflects current market conditions and is subject to change without notice. It is believed to be reliable, but is not guaranteed for accuracy or completeness. Details provided do not supersede your normal trade confirmations or statements. Any product is subject to prior sale. CIBC World Markets Corp, its affiliated companies, and their officers or employees, may have a position in or make a market in any security described above, and may act as an investment banker or advisor to such. Although CIBC World Markets Corp. is an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), it is solely responsible for its contractual obligations. Any securities products recommended, purchased, or sold in any client accounts (i) will not be insured by the FDIC, (ii)will not be deposits or obligations of CIBC, (iii) will not be endorsed or guaranteed by CIBC, and (iv) will be subject to risks, including possible loss of principal in! vested. -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Hugh Falk wrote: Well, how do you define quasi-3D adventure? You could say that Mystery House, the first adventure with graphics, was also the first quasi-3D. Since the graphics had a 3D perspective (See attached). I wouldn't call that 3D -- it's interactive fiction with graphics drawn in a 3D perspective. To contrast, the Quest games let you move something in front of or behind another on-screen object, so that qualifies more as 3D than Mystery House. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Feldhamer, Stuart wrote: I was talking about Mystery House, not King's Quest... Whoops -- my bad. :) It was the first commercially successful one, but I agree it seems foolish to call it the *first* interactive fiction with graphics. But until another is found, it wins. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
RE: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
OK, let's see here: First of all, there was the novelty. At first it was pretty cool to be able to see your character on the screen. Second, the animations. Even in their first game, KQ1, Sierra animated stuff like swimming. In later games, when you try to perform an action, you can actually see yourself doing it. Contrast this with seeing a picture of a snake in front of you and typing kill snake with rock and then the game responds with The snake is dead, and it just disappears from the screen. From a puzzle perspective this is fine, but from an entertainment perspective, I like being able to see what the character is doing. Third, the action sequences. OK, I didn't actually like this, but the addition of the 3D movement allowed Sierra to put in such challenging tasks as making sure you didn't fall off the bridge into the moat, or running away from the dwarf. Ultimately, you are right that A decent story and flexible parser with multiple outcomes is what immerses you in a story, not moving a little blocky sprite around the screen. Luckily, games with sprites moving around the screen can also have good stories and flexible means of entering commands. I'd like to respond to some of your other criticism about getting closer and stuff like that. Imagine this scenario: LOOK You see a grove of 10 trees. EXAMINE TREE Which tree do you mean, the 1st tree, the 2nd tree, the 3rd tree, the 4th treeetc. In a Quest game, you just walk to the tree you are interested in and poke around. OK, maybe not such a great example. But when I played Kings Quest 2 for the 1st time (the 1st Kings Quest I played), I was always typing LOOK DOWN. This actually gave logical responses based upon where on the screen you were standing. So it might say You see nothing of note or You see a hollow stump. I found that cool also. In general, I think they did a fairly good job with the system. I will admit though, that it's more fun to click on a spot on the screen with the mouse and have the character move there automatically (and start to interact with something), than to first have to move the character with the arrow keys and then type something in. Sierra eventually realized that too. So maybe its original AGI system was ahead of its time, waiting for mice to become popular. Stuart -Original Message- From: Jim Leonard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 11:26 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 Chris Newman wrote: The opinions about the answer to this question are probably subjective but I think it's worth asking: Was King's Quest 1 really the first quasi-3D adventure game released for the IBM line? There If you are defining quasi-3D adventure game as the stereotypical Sierra game -- meaning, a visible protagonist who moves around the screen, and a limited text parser -- then yes, because it was the first game from Sierra using that system. In normal oldwarez or abandonware circles, my next comment would anger a lot of people, but in this crowd I think I'm amongst peers when I say: Sierra's adventure system simply didn't make any sense whatsoever. In a normal piece of interactive fiction, you type things like use key to unlock door. open door, then enter. and a lot of niggly stuff was taken care of, like walking over to the door, using the key, opening the door, and walking through it. But in Sierra's Quest games, you have to physically maneuver an on-screen avatar over to the door, type use key to unlock door anyway, and then maneuver him through the door. I mean, why so complicated? What is the point of making the game much harder to play? Was it an attempt at compensating for the incredibly weak text parser? If you were nowhere near the door on the same screen but typed use key to unlock door, the game would actually respond You're not close enough. Excuse me? Why are my actions limited by distance? Hello? My theory is that these types of games survived because they were a novelty. Something pretty was onscreen, and sprites moved behind other sprites giving the illusion of depth, and on certain platforms you had decent music. But overall *any* piece of interactive fiction with graphics is better -- you get to see the graphics, but you don't have to do stupid crap just to immerse you in the game. A decent story and flexible parser with multiple outcomes is what immerses you in a story, not moving a little blocky sprite around the screen. Honestly, what is the appeal of Sierra's Quest games? Anyone who likes them, please shed some light on the subject. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send
Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Honestly, what is the appeal of Sierra's Quest games? Anyone who likes them, please shed some light on the subject. Ok, I guess I have to throw my hat into this ring... As a huge fan of both the old text/still graphic adventures AND the Sierra/Lucasart style games, they both have their own appeal. But the Sierra games did change some key aspects of the old text games and for the better. Now your main gripe seems to be with the fact that you can't just be in a room and say I want to do X. This was at first mainly a technical problem of doing pathfinding routines (notice that later Sierra and Lucasarts games all take care of this for you automatically through mouse controls. KQ1 was meant to be played with a joystick or keyboard, so you didn't have a mouse to point at stuff and intereact with it through icons (granted the Amiga and I believe Mac versions both had mouse support but they were just ports made at a later time. When Maniac Mansion is released these problems are dealt with). Also, the old descriptions in text adventures were replaced by graphics. This changed the nature of the puzzle solving from the old ok, what items are listed in the descrption and let's play with those to what items are drawn with any kind of detail and let's play with those. Part of the appeal, especially in those early games was to try to find the items of interest, like watching an old detective movie and spotting which character was missing from the scene, because he was off murdering someone. Text adventures just had to tell you what happened and give it away or not tell you making it unfair. The visual nature of the games (which many people including Ken Williams admit were one of the big reasons people bought Adventure games, aka show off your hardware) was a major issue on its own and was therefore very important. The whole idea that you could move a sprite behind stuff was pretty far out back then for a home computer and made the game more accessible to younger audiences that were quickly bored by pages and pages of text. I can't recall how many times I was ticked off at text adventures that would show stuff in the images (especially on later games for 16 bit machines, which had much more detailed pictures) and since they weren't mentioned in the descriptions I couldn't interact with them. Despite the fact that this post is coming out a bit disjointed, another great addition of the Sierra style game was that you could finally have something besides straight choose your own adventure style gameplay. Action sequences were added to the games (Conquest of Camelot being probably the best example of this), which began to bridge gaps between genres and giving much more realistic feeling experiences, especially since you could now actually see scenes played out that would otherwise just be described. I guess a good comparison would be between the text adventure The Hobbit and Sierra's The Black Cauldron (which yes, was a point and click affair, but still). I use both of these because they were both cartoons and books I grew up on and so they spanned all three of my favorite mediums. There are moments in The Hobbit that just don't come to life, not only because of the relatively limited parser (not the greatest game engine in the text adventure arena), but because you just lack the animation. At the end of the Black Cauldron when the little furry guy runs right into the pot, that's a moment that will stick with me forever... much more so then a paragraph describing it. Karl Kuras aka Trantor http://drawnsword.trantornator.com Yeah, go visit my webcomic! -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
RE: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Sure, I wouldn't call it 3D either, but I would call it quasi-3D, which is why I asked for a definition (since the default definition would be almost but not quite 3D). One could argue that true 3D is not possible on a 2D monitor. While I'm on the topic, I'll assert that Atari's arcade version of Night Driver was the first ever quasi-3D videogame (released in October 1976). It was the first to approximate a 3D perspective. Sorry, just being difficult :-) Hugh -Original Message- From: Jim Leonard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 8:30 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 Hugh Falk wrote: Well, how do you define quasi-3D adventure? You could say that Mystery House, the first adventure with graphics, was also the first quasi-3D. Since the graphics had a 3D perspective (See attached). I wouldn't call that 3D -- it's interactive fiction with graphics drawn in a 3D perspective. To contrast, the Quest games let you move something in front of or behind another on-screen object, so that qualifies more as 3D than Mystery House. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
RE: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
King's Quest 1 was the first adventure game where you could move the character around on the screen, as far as I know. What is a quasi-3D adventure game? How about Asylum? Stuart -Original Message- From: Chris Newman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 8:44 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 The opinions about the answer to this question are probably subjective but I think it's worth asking: Was King's Quest 1 really the first quasi-3D adventure game released for the IBM line? There were already hundreds of game titles available for the PC when the Jr made its debut with Sierra's infamous release, but I don't recall if any where of the same style. At the time I found KQ1 so enthralling that it could have easily clouded by memory in favor of Sierra. Chris -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
RE: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1
Well, how do you define quasi-3D adventure? You could say that Mystery House, the first adventure with graphics, was also the first quasi-3D. Since the graphics had a 3D perspective (See attached). Hugh -Original Message- From: Chris Newman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 5:44 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 The opinions about the answer to this question are probably subjective but I think it's worth asking: Was King's Quest 1 really the first quasi-3D adventure game released for the IBM line? There were already hundreds of game titles available for the PC when the Jr made its debut with Sierra's infamous release, but I don't recall if any where of the same style. At the time I found KQ1 so enthralling that it could have easily clouded by memory in favor of Sierra. Chris -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/ attachment: Mysteryh[1].jpg
