Search found 44 matches

by Richard Bos
Wed Dec 10, 2014 9:58 pm
Forum: Off-topic
Topic: My Adventure-Writing Self-Challenge
Replies: 13
Views: 50568

Re: My Adventure-Writing Self-Challenge

pippa wrote:OK. But I should warn you, it'll be the same plotless treasure hunt I tried to write in the eighties.
So... how's it going? Is it going at all? Does it need testing? I'll be happy to tear into it... or heap praise on it, as may be!
by Richard Bos
Fri Nov 21, 2014 12:18 pm
Forum: Site feedback & announcements
Topic: Pirate by Chalksoft
Replies: 2
Views: 3626

Re: Pirate by Chalksoft

In the synopsis for Pirate it mentions 'using the red function keys to enter your instructions.' I can see how you can do this on a BBC but how do you do it on a Spectrum?
A short attempt at the Spectrum version indicates that you steer the ship using the cursor keys. Well, that's what you're told ...
by Richard Bos
Wed Oct 29, 2014 10:43 pm
Forum: Site feedback & announcements
Topic: Phipps/Toms system
Replies: 15
Views: 9872

Re: Phipps/Toms system

Gunness wrote:Aye, 'tis a sorry state of affairs indeed!
But fear not, for a message to the site's owner has been dispatched forthwith :)
The Timeline link is still AWOL. If you've lost the file, a TZX version is available from WoS - though they call it Time-Line, with a hyphen.
by Richard Bos
Tue Oct 28, 2014 11:47 am
Forum: Site feedback & announcements
Topic: Phipps/Toms system
Replies: 15
Views: 9872

Re: Phipps/Toms system

I don't think this system directly inspired the Quill; AFAICT it and the Quill got their inspiration from the same article by Ken Reed in Practical Computing, August 1980. They are, therefore, brothers or cousins rather than parent and child. Mind you, I've never seen that article. (There's a link ...
by Richard Bos
Mon Oct 27, 2014 6:04 pm
Forum: Site feedback & announcements
Topic: Phipps/Toms system
Replies: 15
Views: 9872

Re: Phipps/Toms system

By the way, I'm a bit puzzled by Greedy Gulch. According to the packaging, it was written "with a machine coded English command line scanner for fast word recognition".

But Toms' system was written in BASIC, right?
Yes, odd, that. It does load as if it were machine code, but it loads that code ...
by Richard Bos
Sun Oct 26, 2014 11:28 pm
Forum: Site feedback & announcements
Topic: Phipps/Toms system
Replies: 15
Views: 9872

Re: Phipps/Toms system

Richard, I reckon that anything that inspired The Quill is worthy of consideration. Do you know the name of the book?
I don't think this system directly inspired the Quill; AFAICT it and the Quill got their inspiration from the same article by Ken Reed in Practical Computing, August 1980. They are ...
by Richard Bos
Sun Oct 26, 2014 8:53 pm
Forum: Site feedback & announcements
Topic: Phipps/Toms system
Replies: 15
Views: 9872

Phipps/Toms system

Would it be a good idea to add a System entry for the specific Basic system published by Trevor Toms and used by, amongst others, his employer Phipps Associates?

Contra: it's a Basic system, and if we add entries for every Basic system in use we'll never see the end of it.
Pro: it's a very specific ...
by Richard Bos
Mon Oct 20, 2014 4:56 pm
Forum: Site feedback & announcements
Topic: Genre Suggestions
Replies: 48
Views: 26316

Re: Genre Suggestions

Gunness wrote:Lo and behold, Archaelogy has mysteriously appeared!
And is already being used!
by Richard Bos
Thu Oct 16, 2014 10:01 pm
Forum: Site feedback & announcements
Topic: Genre Suggestions
Replies: 48
Views: 26316

Re: Genre Suggestions

On the other hand maybe it is an idea to change it to another genre when it is 100% certain a game never has been created like Sword of the Samurai .
Hmmm... we do have "(unreleased)" for that, but for some reason that's a platform, not a genre.
And having looked into this a little more, we ...
by Richard Bos
Thu Oct 16, 2014 9:44 pm
Forum: Site feedback & announcements
Topic: Genre Suggestions
Replies: 48
Views: 26316

Re: Genre Suggestions

I think just sticking with the genre lost for games not available, whether really lost or not known if they are actually created, is fine to prevent making things to complicated.
On the other hand maybe it is an idea to change it to another genre when it is 100% certain a game never has been ...
by Richard Bos
Thu Oct 16, 2014 11:08 am
Forum: Site feedback & announcements
Topic: Genre Suggestions
Replies: 48
Views: 26316

Re: Genre Suggestions

One more question re. the lost games - my initial idea was only to use it for games that we positively know to have existed (due to reviews or otherwise). But we have quite a few titles in our database that can only be labelled as dubious - ie. games that we only know of via advertising or ...
by Richard Bos
Thu Oct 16, 2014 11:06 am
Forum: Site feedback & announcements
Topic: Genre Suggestions
Replies: 48
Views: 26316

Re: Genre Suggestions

Also, we have Medieval and Prehistoric genres, shouldn't there be one in between?
Probably - but what would it be? Neither genre is tied down by geographical constraints, so they can cover a wide range. Any genre in between those two would have to be very specific, a la Alex' Incas, Romans ...
by Richard Bos
Wed Oct 15, 2014 4:10 pm
Forum: Site feedback & announcements
Topic: Genre Suggestions
Replies: 48
Views: 26316

Re: Genre Suggestions

"Egyptian" doesn't suggest the ancient setting, and "archaeology" would be a unnecessarily generic name - I can't recall any games that would fit this genre outside of the ones with the pyramidal setting, anyway
Oh, and by the way... yes, you probably can. Ruins, the instructional game from Graham ...
by Richard Bos
Wed Oct 15, 2014 4:07 pm
Forum: Site feedback & announcements
Topic: Genre Suggestions
Replies: 48
Views: 26316

Re: Genre Suggestions

Perhaps it's an unclear term. I added it recently because I kept bumping into pyramid-themed games. There seem to be a lot of these.
"Egyptian" doesn't suggest the ancient setting, and "archaeology" would be a unnecessarily generic name - I can't recall any games that would fit this genre outside ...
by Richard Bos
Mon Aug 25, 2014 1:46 pm
Forum: Off-topic
Topic: My Adventure-Writing Self-Challenge
Replies: 13
Views: 50568

Re: My Adventure-Writing Self-Challenge

The ugliness comes in the duplication of code. If I decide to give the player yet another command for doing this, or make a even a slight change to what happens as the cheese gets given, it'll mean a lot of work.

With hindsight, it would've been better to make the player's commands just set one of ...