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

Fri Apr 17 13:04:20 EDT 2015

I just checked my archive and "The Search For Almazar" is in the mm archives. If it can't be found, let me know and I'll post it.
It's a set of DECB programs, all in BASIC. It is the same as the program in "80 Microcomputing" but converted to Coco.
Almazar is a "two word" command adventure with 72 rooms and a really good adventure engine.

Bill Pierce
"Today is a good day... I woke up" - Ritchie Havens

My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia
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E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Pierce via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
To: coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Cc: Bill Pierce <ooogalapasooo at aol.com>
Sent: Fri, Apr 17, 2015 12:35 pm
Subject: Re: [Coco] OT: COMPUTE's Guide to Adventure Games book

As another note to writing text Adventures, a very good example is in "80
Microcomputing". The adventure is "Almazar" by Winston Llamas.

 The unique
thing about Almazar is that it uses database files for room descriptions,
treasures and monsters. These are separate files on disk, therefore allowing you
to put more into the actual game engine and not blow your memory on data arrays.
You use just a few 'generic' arrays to load the the data from disk for
display.

I think "Almazar" was ported to the Coco (original was Model III) by
someone and is in the one of the various coco archives. I also did a port but I
have no idea where it may be. I think the one in the archives is for OS9 (not
sure) and I'm also not sure if it's the same program, I've just seen the name in
moving archive files around.

Almazar is in the "1983 Special Anniversary
Edition of 80 Microcomputing". It can be
found:
https://ia600709.us.archive.org/10/items/80-microcomputing-magazine-1983-SE/80Microcomputing_SE83.pdf

page
288

Bill Pierce
"Today is a good day... I woke up" - Ritchie Havens

My
Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 &
3
https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for
CocoPedia
http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
E-Mail:
ooogalapasooo at aol.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Pierce via
Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
To: coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Cc: Bill Pierce
<ooogalapasooo at aol.com>
Sent: Fri, Apr 17, 2015 10:16 am
Subject: Re: [Coco] OT:
COMPUTE's Guide to Adventure Games book

Salvador, I used the "Tower of
Mystery" engine from the Compute! book and
enhanced that with stuff from the Tim
Hartnell book and had a pretty workable
adventure engine in BASIC. I just never
did anything with it. I had one
adventure I was working on and ran out of memory
on my 16k Coco 2. I think about
that time, I got my 64k Coco 2, then I bought a
MIDI keyboard and Lyra by Lester
Hands and from then on, most of my Cocoing was
related to sound & MIDI.

Bill Pierce
"Today is a good day... I woke up" -
Ritchie Havens

My Music
from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2
&
3
https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
Co-Contributor, Co-Editor
for
CocoPedia
http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
E-Mail:
ooogalapasooo at aol.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Salvador
Garcia
<ssalvadorgarcia at netscape.net>
To: coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Fri,
Apr
17, 2015 9:42 am
Subject: Re: [Coco] OT: COMPUTE's Guide to Adventure
Games
book

Thanks Bill, I will have a look at that book. This looks like a
good
follow up
to the COMPUTE book. Salvador

-----Original
Message-----
From:
Bill Pierce
via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
To: coco
<coco at maltedmedia.com>
Cc:
Bill Pierce
<ooogalapasooo at aol.com>
Sent: Fri, Apr
17, 2015 7:49 am
Subject: Re:
[Coco] OT:
COMPUTE's Guide to Adventure Games
book

Salvador, a better book for
"learning"
to write adventures is (which I
also
have)

Creating Adventure Games
on Your
Computer by
Tim
Hartnell
http://www.atariarchives.org/adventure/

The
reason the
other book
was
brought up was because it contained "Tower of Mystery"
which is
an
excellent
starting adventure engine.

This book gives play-by-play
of
various
game
sections

And yes... games have come a long way, but adventure
is
still
alive.
A good example (and my favorite) is "Tomb Raider" featuring
Laura
Croft.
I have
all of these.

Bill Pierce
"Today is a good day... I
woke
up" -
Ritchie
Havens

My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color
Computer
2
&
3
https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
Co-Contributor,
Co-Editor
for
CocoPedia
http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
E-Mail:
ooogalapasooo at aol.com

-----Original
Message-----
From:
Salvador
Garcia
<ssalvadorgarcia at netscape.net>
To:
coco
<coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Fri,
Apr
17, 2015 8:25 am
Subject: [Coco]
OT:
COMPUTE's Guide to Adventure
Games
book

Hi all,   

First of
all,
thanks to whoever posted
the
reference to
this book. I located it,
downloaded
and read it. I just want
to
share my
thoughts about it. The first 7
chapters are
basically descriptions
of
adventure
games that were available at
the time the
book was written. While
some
of these
are a compelling read I was
hoping that
the author would discuss
the
design and
development of these more. 

Chapter 8 provides
help
and hints
on how to solve a game.
Chapter 9 is
where everything begins to
pick
up. The
author discusses the theory
of operation
of an adventure game.
Chapter
10 really
gets cooking as the author
presents a
breakdown of an
adventure game,
describing
each component and
providing pseudo
code. Chapter 11
presents a
listing of a
simple (author's
description) text
adventure game. The
listing is
provided in
such a way that
depending on which
computer is available,
the reader
types in a
specific
listing.  

Finally chapter 12
looks toward
the future.
This
chapter was interesting in its
own right as the
author ponders
on
the
possibility of having hi definition
images. He mentions
the resources
needed
for
such an endeavor and does not see
it possible for a
home computer to
have
such
power. Also, the video disc is
mentioned as a
possible means to
enhance
game
play.  

It was a
good read and
enjoyed the nature
of the
games
presented.    Now my turn to get
philosophical.
All the games
presented in
the
book had to do with solving
something. While
there was the
possibility of
battle
and sword fights I can't
help comparing them
with the
games available
today
which present a much higher
degree of graphic
gore and
violence. In Google
I
typed in xbox games and the
first items on the
list it
generated were
Grand
Theft Auto, Destiny and Call of
Duty. It seems to
me that
when the
adventure
games described in the book were
available were
simpler times
where
there was no
need for gore and violence to
make a game
appealing.  

Best
regards, Salvador  

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