January 19, 2006
Text adventures
The first computer game I ever played was Zork on the Commodore 64. Its a good, old fashioned text adventure. Go north. Take the key. Throw the sack at the troll (from memory, the troll catches the sack, eats it and hits you in the head with its axe). Its command parser was excellent - a good deal smarter than the one in Rot muds.
(As a side note, if you ever wondered what the hell a Grue was in Rot's Newbie school, they're from Zork).
Poking around in my Linux system, I've discovered that GNU emacs (no flames) comes bundled with a few things on the sly. Games. They're tucked away in /usr/share/emacs/21.3/lisp/play (The 21.3 numbers vary across machines). Any system with GNU Emacs has these tucked away - BSD Unix, Linux, Mac OS X.
meathe@quincy:/usr/share/emacs/21.3/lisp/play> ls 5x5.elc doctor.elc hanoi.elc snake.elc animate.elc dunnet.elc landmark.elc solitaire.elc blackbox.elc fortune.elc life.elc spook.elc bruce.el gamegrid.elc meese.elc studly.elc cookie1.elc gametree.elc morse.elc tetris.elc decipher.elc gomoku.elc mpuz.elc yow.elc dissociate.elc handwrite.elc pong.elc zone.elc meathe@quincy:/usr/share/emacs/21.3/lisp/play> cd ~ meathe@quincy:~> emacs -batch -l dunnet Dead end You are at a dead end of a dirt road. The road goes to the east. In the distance you can see that it will eventually fork off. The trees here are very tall royal palms, and they are spaced equidistant from each other. There is a shovel here. >take the shovel Taken. >
This could keep me busy for a while.
I've been asked. If you're also wondering why the computer is named Quincy, it's running OpenSuSE Linux where the logo is a chameleon. Quincy is the iguana in the Foxtrot comic. I know this is a stretch.
>east
You fall down the cliff and land on your head.
You are dead.
You have scored 50 out of a possible 90 points.
Theres always next time.
The bear is very annoyed that you would be so presumptuous as to try and walk right by it. He tells you so by tearing your head off.
You are dead.
You have scored 0 out of a possible 90 points.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 10:51 AM
August 08, 2005
All hail King Torg!
I lasted through a part of Blogathon 05 (I wasn't participating in any capacity, I was simply online as part of a wider Kittyn pit crew), until about 3:30am. The following morning, the cat and dog having methodically and relentlessly chased invisble invaders around the house from about 4am on, I wasn't in any mood to pick up the keyboard and get coding (my pay isn't going to be docked, is it?). Or do anything that involved a monitor.
So, on a semi-regular tour of some second hand bookshops, I came across something which caught my eye. A cheap pen-and-pencil roleplay/game system, with no pretense to anything other than silly fun. So I picked it up. It reminded me that I haven't roleplayed offline for a very long while now - coming up on three years, which is, coincidentally enough, when I moved. It might be time to get back into it. I haven't looked into the d20 system at all, but I could be persuaded.
My family was always good at making games and cheap entertainment. Weekly visits to my grandparents led all the kids to wargaming (the earliest I can remember doing this was around age six), recreating World war II scenarios via the simple device of home made rules, a coin, a few dice pillaged from the Monopoly and Cluedo (Clue in the US) sets, my uncle's old toy soldiers, pillows and a heavy green blanket over the billiard table. Cannon and tank fire was simulated by flipping a coin (as though you were tossing it) from the barrel to vaugly where you wanted the shot to land. It was simple. It was fun.
My cousin, four years my senior, was making pen and paper sci-fi RPGs before I hit 8 (yes, I lifted part of this paragraph from an earlier post. It fits here). We travelled in super-hyper speeders to the Medusa galaxy, comandeered Transit Shuttles and journeyed to the limits of the galaxy, through wormholes and into alternate worlds. Then my uncle gave me a copy of Dungeons and Dragons for my tenth birthday - and worlds changed for me. Any time I had spare, I read, reread, memorised the books. I played the Fighting Fantasy games when there was no one else to game with. They're a choose-your-own adventure style book, with combat and dice rolling. They al seem to be getting a reprint - I shall buy these for my nephew (and a set for myself). Of course, other systems were played (Rolemaster, Hunter Planet, Traveller, Tunnels and Trolls, etc) but the staple remained TSR's offerings.
Judges Guild adventures were cherished, as they fit the three essential categories that were important to those of limited pocked money: they were extensive, readily customisable and, most importantly, relatively inexpensive. Dragon and White Dwarf magazines were the staple periodicals, when they could be found and afforded. Both magazines started their life as all encompasing, with articles and adventures spannning many systems, so they were not, as they both are now, exclusivly in-house. White Dwarf also had "Heavy Metal" - a section on painting miniatures.
The idea of using miniatures to represent people and monsters in D&D was old hat to us, as we'd always used Britain's knights (they were much cheaper then), plastic dinosaurs and any other toy that could be pressed into service. But the idea of one inch tall lead representatives of your character, that you got to paint, was striking. Citadel was the best, in my eyes, their figures were always cleaner. Ral Partha and Grenadier were also very good. There were a host of other manufacturers, and more latecomers and spinoffs (Mithril is one of the best I've seen lately). They were all 25mm (one inch to 6 feet) scale.
But Games Workshop (Citadel) moved into wargames in the early 90s. They progressivly made the figures more ornate, to appear striking, losing the elegant simplicity while simultaneously pumping up the size. One dwarf I measured stood at 30mm, overshadowing six-feet tall barbarians of a true 25mm scale. At the same time, White Dwarf became the in-house vehicle it is today, which was when about when I lost interest in the company.
I really do need to find a good RPG games store locally. Whilst online purchasing is well and good, browsing through an overcrowded shelf of games has something to be said for it.
And then a gaming group. Surely there's one in Manhattan somewhere who'll put up with not understanding me when I say "ite" (eight).
There is a Games Workshop store literally around the corner from me in the city, but I want something a eclectic, with offerings from many companies and, as was always my favourite, a large second-hand section, where occasionally you'll see something you wanted way back when and could not find or afford, or something you never knew about that piques an interest.
The game I chanced upon is Kobolds ate my baby! It's most definitely a beer, pretzels, music and more beer kind of game. ALL HAIL KING TORG! Burn cows! Bark Like a Kobold! Cast Magic Spells! Kill Chickens! Eat Your Friends! They're sick little monkeys over at 9th Level.
It's a game in which you play the kobolds. They're short, furry and have the life expectancy of a depressed lemming. They are all little gourmands (who knew?) and the finest food in the world is the chubby human child. The ways to get yourself killed many and varied, from the Angry Red God whose wrath is terrible and frequent, farmers wives, chickens, other kobolds and, of course, Random Horrible Deaths. It was fun to read, I'm rather looking forward to actually quaffing the beer while playing.
They also, it appears, make a companion game where the objective is to deliver burgers in 30 minutes or less.
Feeling a little hungry? Want a Ninja Burger? with a side of fries and a cola? Ordering from Ninja Burger? is simple! We already know where you are, so there's no need to enter an address. We can deliver anywhere, so unlocking doors or deactivating security systems is not necessary. To ensure your safety during the delivery process, please do not make any sudden movements. And please, do not tip the Ninja!
Now, if I can just round up a few people for beer, pizza and kobolds. Or Dungeons and Dragons. Anything.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 09:26 AM