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

[Bill Loguidice]

I didn't say I finished it. One day, though, when I'm feeling up for the
"challenge" I may go back to it.

I was actually just playing Gold Runner II. I kind of like the non-stop
speech. Reminds me a lot of Bezerk.

-Bill

===================================================
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director; Armchair Arcade,
Inc.<http://www.armchairarcade.com>
===================================================
Authored Books<http://www.amazon.com/Bill-Loguidice/e/B001U7W3YS/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_1>and
Film <http://www.armchairarcade.com/film>; About me and other ways to get
in touch <http://about.me/billloguidice>
===================================================


On Sat, May 24, 2014 at 5:13 PM, Eddie P. <eddiepl75 at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Good to hear you've finished it. I'm going through all the games that use
> the speech sound cartridge myself but need to do the 2MHz mod.
>
> (Gold Runner doesn't shut up!)
>
> Eddie P.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On 25 May 2014, at 6:02 am, "Bill Loguidice" <bill at armchairarcade.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > I got directed to the hints I needed via Facebook. The hint worked, so
> the
> > version of Zanth I have is good. It's just a remarkably poorly designed
> > game. I guess to hide its short length, it kills you unless you make
> > incredibly specific and not entirely logical moves in a very precise
> order,
> > sort of like a classic Sierra game, but one designed by someone who
> > genuinely seems to hate its players. I was looking forward to trying the
> > company's other game, "Wild West," because again, taking advantage of
> both
> > 512K and the Speech-Sound Pak are nifty tricks, but I'm wary now because
> of
> > how poorly designed Zanth is. Pity.
> >
> > -Bill
> >
> > ===================================================
> > Bill Loguidice, Managing Director; Armchair Arcade,
> > Inc.<http://www.armchairarcade.com>
> > ===================================================
> > Authored Books<
> http://www.amazon.com/Bill-Loguidice/e/B001U7W3YS/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_1>and
> > Film <http://www.armchairarcade.com/film>; About me and other ways to
> get
> > in touch <http://about.me/billloguidice>
> > ===================================================
> >
> >
> > On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 5:51 PM, Bill Loguidice <bill at armchairarcade.com
> >wrote:
> >
> >> *I'm still looking for help with the beginning of the game*, but to
> >> respond to Nick for a moment... I think it comes down to either having
> an
> >> affinity for classic synthesized speech or not. I always loved the
> sound of
> >> it and still do. I seek out such options for my collection for every
> >> platform possible. In fact, I wish it was easier to make more games -
> >> particularly text adventures - talk. It just adds something very
> >> era-specific to the experience that can't really be matched today. Today
> >> it's no big deal to have speech in games; that speech though is "real"
> >> speech, not generated on-the-fly. Certainly there were better solutions
> >> even in the classic era, but the ones that sounded better were generally
> >> limited to a small amount of phrases versus "unlimited" speech like you
> >> hear in the Zanth game.
> >>
> >> The expansion interface is clunky, agreed, but then these mass market
> >> consumer systems generally weren't meant to be internally expandable.
> Costs
> >> had to be saved somewhere. It's hard to compare an Apple II, which cost
> >> well north of $1000 to a CoCo or Commodore 64 that cost well south of
> $500.
> >>
> >> ===================================================
> >> Bill Loguidice, Managing Director; Armchair Arcade, Inc.<
> http://www.armchairarcade.com>
> >> ===================================================
> >> Authored Books<
> http://www.amazon.com/Bill-Loguidice/e/B001U7W3YS/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_1>and
> >> Film <http://www.armchairarcade.com/film>; About me and other ways to
> get
> >> in touch <http://about.me/billloguidice>
> >> ===================================================
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 5:35 PM, CoCoList for Color Computer
> Enthusiasts <
> >> coco at maltedmedia.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>>> On 12/05/2014 4:10 AM, CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Anyone play this 1987 CoCo 3 game from Computerware, The Magic of
> Zanth,
> >>>> before? I like to think I know my way around a game or two, but the
> scant
> >>>> instructions with this text and graphics adventure and my lack of
> >>>> familiarity with Anthony's world of Xanth that this is based on seems
> to
> >>>> have doomed me to failure right at the start.
> >>>
> >>> Does every game (are there many?) that used the speech part of the
> >>> sound'n'speech pack sound like a cyclon?  :)
> >>>
> >>> I've owned one of these packs for 20 years (bought cheap when they were
> >>> being cleared) and I've never used it.
> >>>
> >>> Firstly because there weren't enough games that used it (properly) and
> >>> because of my refusal to attach one of those god awful multi-crap
> kludges
> >>> on the side of my CoCo.
> >>>
> >>> The Apple II had nice internal slot expansion.
> >>>
> >>> The TRS-80 Model 1 had a nice tidy expansion interface under the
> monitor.
> >>>
> >>> The CoCo has this god awful "multi-crap" dongle on the side with odd
> size
> >>> cartridges and cables everywhere... not to mention the risj of blowing
> a
> >>> 6809 when it's bumped!
> >>>
> >>> Nick
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Coco mailing list
> >>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> >>> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> >
> > --
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