HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: johnjohn@cco.caltech.edu (John White)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: Re: DM ??
Date: 1 Oct 1992 00:53:48 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: itchy.caltech.edu
Originator: johnjohn@itchy

In article <BvF09z.5IC@news.cso.uiuc.edu> sms35849@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Scott  
M. Stortzum) writes:

>Sir Backbreaker is 15-4-3 with 100 skills, 3 masters and 2 A/e's.  :-)

You're a bastard, Scott!

--
John White
johnjohn@cco.caltech.edu
|===============================================================|
|                          What the HELL?!                      |
|                   Did I come BACK to Caltech?!                |
|===============================================================|
-- 
John White
johnjohn@cco.caltech.edu
|===============================================================|
|                          What the HELL?!                      |
From: gb0o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Greta Bette Bartlog)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: Legends: North Island
Date: 2 Oct 92 22:03:46 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

The following is partly hearsay...

I believe that the first North Island Campaign game is going to be
limited to players who have done well in previous games - from what I
heard secondhand, anyone who has had prestige 30+ (or was it 40+?) in a
previous game can join and bring in one other player with them.
There was a fair amount of complaining about this limitation, and MG may
run NIC #1 with normal joining conditions and instead rename this other
NIC game.  Call it NIC- Champions game or something.

Anyway, some friends and I have the requisite previous prestige and will
be joining the North Island Campaign.  Will post if I see anything
interesting.

Boris Bartlog - Lord Kelming RTI 3 (Prestige: 19(45) )
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
From: baidins@barney.cis.udel.edu (Juris Baidins)
Subject: LEGENDS questions
Followup-To: rec.games.pbm
Organization: University of Delaware, Newark
Distribution: rec
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 17:01:14 GMT

1) Do city walls provide extra magic resistance to troops ?

2) In Realms of the Immortals, does Masinome have something
   against Maratasen priests of his, I have tried to get above
   level 6, but no luck even though the result states,
   that the priest thought that training was an easy task ?

Juris Baidins
baidins@cis.udel.edu

Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
From: billones@grebyn.com (Jeremy Billones)
Subject: Private for John Frost Re: UEFL
Followup-To: alt.flame
Summary: Lost Address
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 01:38:03 GMT

To the Net: Sorry about this, guys.

To John: I got your message, but lost your new address.  Could you
resend?  Thanks.

Jeremy Billones				billones@grebyn.com
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
From: mrh0631@zeus.tamu.edu (Mark Hesidence)
Subject: Galaxy
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 12:38:00 GMT


  Would someone be kind enough to e-mail or post the combat equation
  for galaxy traslated into C or FORTRAN.  Due to a recent massacre of
  my ships I no longer trust program I wrote.


  No perl please
  Thanks in advance
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| You have reached an imaginary number, please  | Mark R. Hesidence     |
| rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.   | mrh0631@zeus.tamu.edu |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Organization: Johannes Kepler University Linz - Computing Center
Date: Friday, 2 Oct 1992 13:14:45 CET
From: <K331280@ALIJKU11.BITNET>
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: re magic items in ROI

Hi Bill |

Many thanks for the great list | I will write a list too-give me one or
two days-and send it to the PBM articles.

Greetings Mike |
Xref: sparky rec.games.pbm:2646 rec.games.board:9422
From: jefu@nmt.edu (Jeff Putnam)
Subject: Game Programs with High Level Interfaces
Organization: The Museum of Differential Geometry
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 00:46:09 GMT

I'm looking for a game program that has a well defined interface that a
program can talk to (preferably on a socket or something similar).  I'd
like something like empire or xtank, but need an interface other than
a simple X protocol.

Any suggestions?

-- 
jefu@jupiter.nmt.edu  -- Jeff Putnam, New Mexico Tech, Socorro, NM
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always
so sure of themselves but wiser people are full of doubts." B. Russell
From: saidra@prism.CS.ORST.EDU (Raoul Said)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Sprite storage in Mode X -- Need More ROOM!
Date: 28 Sep 92 18:21:37 GMT
Organization: Oregon State University, Computer Science Dept.

In article <80600@ut-emx.uucp> baylor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Baylor) writes:
>>
>>Magic Pockets and Gods use the 320x200 16 colour EGA mode but use the VGA
>>palette. This is probably because it is the mode that is most ST/Amiga
>>compatible. It is not Mode X. Mode 13 ($0D, 0DH) allows two page flip screens
>>(@ 32K each) with 6 pages left for graphics (@ 192K). Not all the graphics
>>have to be on the card though but what is will be faster.
>>
>
>	Ok, i'm no expert, and i've been wrong before, but somerthing about 
>this feels wrong. I can't see a way where you can use the vga pallete
>in mode D. It's 320x200x16. You get 1 bit per pixel, giving you a total
>of 4 bits that can hold a color code; ie., 16 unique colors at a time.

	Its true!  Gods does use only 16 colors.  If you take a snapshot with
Dpaint's camera tsr and then inspect the palette you will see this.  This is
probably one of the best alternatives to Modex ever!  I assume you get 8 pages
of video ram to play with which would offer way more flexibiltiy and speed.
The only drawback is you would have to find an artist who can make 16 carefully
selected colors look like 256!  Obviously Gods pulls this off.  I wonder if
its as straight forward as setting 320x200x16 and setting the palette with
the VGA colors you want?
			Hmm.....
From: jgreen@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (John Green)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Anybody keeping track of wishlist
Date: 30 Sep 92 00:56:47 GMT
Organization: Virginia Tech Computer Science Dept, Blacksburg, VA

Is anybody keeping/collating the wishlist.  I recently thought about doing so,
but the machine I'm on doesn't save that much...

Regards,
John Green
jgreen@csugrad.cs.vt.edu
Xref: sparky rec.games.programmer:3961 rec.games.video:19319
From: jdl47513@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Jason Lowe)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer,rec.games.video
Subject: Re: Wanted: Genesis/Megadrive Development Info
Date: 28 Sep 92 04:54:10 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

I am also very interested in any information regarding development for the
Sega Genesis, so please post for general knowledge.  Thanks!


-- 
Jason Lowe      |   //      | Lynx | "Leave everything to me!"
stimpy@uiuc.edu | \X/ Amiga |  Up! |     -- Powdered Toast Man
From: gt7803b@prism.gatech.EDU (Raving Mad Lunatic)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Game Design Issues(Randomness, Windows, Women)
Date: 28 Sep 92 21:37:19 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

>	I think that society does this to women and it really isn't
>some strange inherent thing.  They're not as good probably because

Actually, there IS an innate difference in skills in a variety of areas.
It isn't, however, enough to really mean much to anyone other than the 
scientists doing brain studies...

Just debunking a feminist myth,
Krang, Klyk, Line Noise, and, in RL, Greg!
-- 
Child-molesting is an art, not a science...
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: allen@baja.viewlogic.com (Dave Allen)
Subject: USML archive site
Originator: allen@baja
Organization: Viewlogic Systems, Inc., Marlboro, MA
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 17:22:34 GMT

Ralph Wirthlin (rwirthli@nyx.cs.du.edu) wrote:

> That reminds me, several years back there was a group formed that was 
> working on the Universe Simulator.  Does anyone have the ftp site where
> the various simulations were stored?

This isn't a flame, but you included about 50 lines of old messages to
post a three line question.  Please edit the inclusions to keep the
signal to noise ratio high.

Anyway, the answer to your question is: try anonymous ftp from
topgun.agps.lanl.gov [192.12.184.4] in the directory pub/usml.

Note, I have nothing to do with this site or its administration; I last
looked there in October 1990.  Just now, I pinged agps.lanl.gov and got
an answer, but I suspect topgun is down at the moment since ping said
"no answer from topgun.agps.lanl.gov"

- DaveA
From: baylor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Baylor)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Sprite storage in Mode X -- Need More ROOM!
Date: 27 Sep 92 17:16:02 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

>
>	Ok, using video ram to store sprites is too limiting.  There are

That's strange, i wouldn't figure that would be the case with two pages
(if you just double buffer). Oh well.

>games out there that are some how getting around this limitation.  For instance
>in Gods or Magic Pockets by Konami, there are enough large unique characters
>to easily overwhelm video ram storage.  So the question is how are they
>storing all these characters in such a manner that their games still perform

	I don't think i would say gods preforms respectfully. I thought it
was quite slow. That, and i don't remember too much unique in it. Many
of the monsters seemed to me alike. Remember that games animate well
by skipping som ehightech stuff and just trying to trick you with illiusions.
	It's possibelas you go from level to level that you simply flush
your storage page and load the monster specific to that level.

>respectively.  Maybe a plane by plane memory to video copy is fast enough,
>but I would think this wouldn't be fast enough.  Any ideas out there?

	Excuse my ignorance, but what does plane-by-plane have to do with
storage?
	You could always just use system ram. store them in pointers,
reserve room and use their address (hard-coded pointers) or some
such. Sprites uses an array in system ram and lots of pointers and uses
no video ram at all (and doesn't do plane by plane copy , since it's
normal mode $13 which isn;t planar - otherwise of course you copy plane
by plane).
	The bgi stuff uses pointers too, but that's hardly a recommendation.
From: baylor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Baylor)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: So... what are you all doing?
Date: 29 Sep 92 22:37:10 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

In article <1992Sep25.071554.19407@u.washington.edu> kludge@hardy.u.washington.edu (MoonMan) writes:
>
>  One of my main concentrations in this game is on the plot/storyline - I'm

	Oh, i forgot to mention some advice i got when i started out -
forget the plot on your first game. Make a game that will challenge
you slightly technically but forget the actuall involved story.
	Why? Because your first game rarely turns out the way you want
it too. You'll scrape it together, learn tons of graphics and data types
and stuff, but you'll keep finding you did things wrong or could do them
better and before you know it, you hate your game and want to trash it
and start over.
	And when you do, you'll know more about programming games,
and will have plenty of time to get a really awesome story line.

						- baylor
						no, i have no .sig file
From: jparadis@fraclit.login.qc.ca (Jerome Paradis)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Advice needed on fractal game
Date: 30 Sep 92 17:32:55 GMT
Organization: Paradivision, Montreal, Quebec

Hi folks!

  I've designed a game prototype on a sgi IRIS that works quite well. I have
some changes to make to it before it's playable by anyone. Anyways, my current
priority is to convert it to MSDOS. The game is played on a 3D playfield, with
the player in the cockpit of a spaceship, a bit like a flight simulator. The
game style is more like an arcade game: simple commands and action. The play-
field is rectangular landscape created at each stage with the help of fractals.
This technique create nice (sur)realistic mountains.  You have to travel from
one end of the playfield and land at the other end by destoying the ennemies
that are fractally placed on the playfield. The ennemies can be on the ground
or in the air.  The most enjoyable thing about the game is that it's always
different and always realistic.
 
  In my quest to make a playable MSDOS game out of it, I have a few questions:

1) I need to find a FAST 3D polygonal library in C (with perspective). I would
 prefer a public library with source, available via ftp, but as a last ressour-
 ce I could buy a commercial package. I would also prefer if it could work on
 Zortech's C++ (I want C, not C++) with the built-in 32bit extender (I want to
 use a lot of memory, without paying the extra cash for PharLap). If you only
 know of one that works with Borland, I would like to have the info anyways.
 The ideal would be with source and with it's own (FAST!) graphics primitives
 so that it could work with Zortech(32bit compatibility is a plus) or Borland.
 Mode X (VGA 256 colors) would be great.
2) I know there is a game of the same type that has been done. I would like to
know if anyone know of such a game and if it's accessible via ftp and on what
machine it works on.
3) Any suggestions about features the public would like to see?  Keep in mind
that speed is a important factor.

Please e-mail to  jparadis@fraclit.login.qc.ca  or post to the newsgroup if you
think it's of general interest.

Thanks to everyone,


------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jerome Paradis    jparadis@fraclit.login.qc.ca  paradisj@jsp.umontreal.ca
                  jparadis@sobeco.com                        quote[0] = '\0';
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: kennehra@craft.camp.clarkson.edu (Rich"TheMan"Kennehan)
Subject: Re: NES rampack & programming
Organization: Clarkson University
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 01:54:55 GMT



Please ignore my reply to that post about not being able to unzip
the file.  I forgot to remove the trailer at the bottom of the file.
It works.  Thank you so much!!!

- Rich
  kennehra@logic.camp.clarkson.edu


Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: baruch@gallifrey.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Robert Baruch)
Subject: Re: real sprites
Organization: NYNEX Science & Technology, Inc.
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 18:23:37 GMT

In article <kennehra.718319025@craft.camp.clarkson.edu>, kennehra@craft.camp.clarkson.edu
 (Rich"TheMan"Kennehan) writes:
|> 
|> 
|> I think that you could make MILLIONS if you designed a "sprite engine"
|> for the IBM that is basically a video card like VGA that allows you
|> to manipulate sprites (I mean BIG sprites, like on Street Fighter 2)
|> I've come up with a couple of algorithms written in turbo pascal that
|> simulates the type of sprite graphics used in NES and SNES games that
|> uses a tiled background with sprites, but the refresh rate is like
|> 8 seconds.  (unoptimized, pure pascal code, no assembler)

In my system designs I like to put as little strain on the CPU as possible,
and try to coprocess my way to speed.  For example, I have played with
designing a video card for high-res (say, 1280x1024 or so).  I kept going
back to the idea of simply parallelling graphics memory and handling
hardware, and only putting it all together at the output!  This way, all
the high-speed high-expense components are limited.

Never mind that I never actually implemented anything.  What can
I say, I kept getting distracted by other interesting ideas!
  
|> Ive told people about my idea of designing a sprite engine, but they
|> all said that it would'nt work because they say that the people who 
|> play IBM games
|> don't like arcade style games and that they like to think.

I try not to make it a habit to listen to too many people.  I'd build one,
make some apps for it, and then show it off to see how people react.  MY
biggest problem is art.  All these games and things have wild and funky
backgrounds, neat full-screen scenes, and nice little "sprites" that look
great.

So what did I do?  I went into an icon editor, and took a look at some
of the icons, maybe try my hand at editing a few.  I found that the icon
editor displayed two views of the icon:  blowup and normal size.  I found
that the normal size icons I looked at looked great, but when they were
blown up they looked like colored static!  I could see that each blown-up
pixel corresponded to a tiny pixel in the actual image, but apparently
I can't process the blown-up image!  I could come up with game after game
after game, it's just that the only way I know to get nice graphics is to
swipe 'em from other, more talented, people!

|>  If I had
|> the technical knowledge in Electrical Engineering I'd build one JUST
|> TO SHOW EM!!!

That's a tough one to answer.  I certainly have the technical knowledge, no
problem there.  I also have access to large quantities of data books.  I guess
it's just a question of putting together some kind of coherent system.  Perhaps
we should talk on e-mail about a design...

|>  I think that there is a HUGE market for arcade style
|> games on the IBM and if anyone wants to get together and try to build
|> a "sprite engine" Please let me know!!!

Let's talk!
 
--Rob!
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: vputz@nyx.cs.du.edu (Victor Putz)
Subject: Help me, Themie Gouthas! (Xlib02 quest)
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 14:22:25 GMT



I'm still toying with icon-type sprites in Modex using Themie Gouthas'
xlib02 library (very complete, for t emost part).  However, I'm having one
problem.  Evidently when everything gets initialized, memory is allocated
for the splitscreen page starting at the top of video ram.  The rest of
the memory <<seems>> to be hacked into two equal-sized pages for
Page0_Offs and Page1_Offs.  I know there's plenty of memory for 3.5 pages
(maybe 4) in 320*200; I want half a page for splitscreen, a hidden page, a
visible page, and a page to store a background.

Anyone know how to do this reliably and easily?  I've had some luck
changing the global variables Page1_Offs, etc, but I'm wary of doing so
without the approval of the routines themselves.

Also: the '386 xblt routines J. Slagel put out a while ago seem to be a
little faster than xlib's.  Is there enough '286s out there that I should
stick with the slightly slower but more universal 286 code?

Thanks-->Vputz@nyx.cs.du.edu

Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: jew5001@venus.tamu.edu (WILLIAMSON, JOHN EDWARD)
Subject: Game Design Issues(Randomness, Windows, Women)
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 14:55:00 GMT


This seems to be the most appropriate place to ask these game design
questions that have me rather stumped.

First, why is there never any variation in the Nintendo-type of scrolling
games (Mario, Street Fighter, Commander Keen, and the like)?  By variation
I am not refering to the genre itself (though that too could use some new
ideas), but rather the lack of variation in the number and location of 
villians you are supposed to attack.  Or is memorizing the exact and predictible
location of each villian part of the fun of the game?  

Second, other than the Sim series (ant, city, world), I have yet to see
a game for the Windows environment that actually uses the GUI to improve
gameplay (Balance of Power, sort of made good use of a GUI).  Is this
because of the difficulty programming in Windows, or because we, as game
designers, are so used to thinking of one screen designs, or because multiple
windows of information (that can be resized, etc.) just aren't important to
a good game?

And finally, what are you doing as designers in an attempt to lure women
to play your games (and spend their money).  Aside from the Barbie Design
Studio and the Laura Bow series I haven't seen any big ticket attempts to
attract women into computer gaming (forgot about Ms. Pacman). Is this
because you've given up on this sector of the population or because you
feel that a good game should appeal to everyone one or that women will play
more computer games if they get more access to computers at an earlier age?

There is some emperical evidence that women are not as good and do not
enjoy the traditional fly and shoot 'em up type of game even after
you control for computer experience, computer phobia, and spatial ability.
Or it could just be that they don't like this type of game and their score
reflects more boredom than ability.

John W.
From: bkoike@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Bryce Koike)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: RPG
Date: 28 Sep 92 18:38:21 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

In article <1992Sep28.143011.1127@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> vputz@nyx.cs.du.edu (Victor Putz) writes:
>
>Not too bad so far, but "created by a god" is still a little flimsy for
>the continuation of a species.  Not saying that you need to create and
>divulge the complete intricacies of a world's ecosystem, but maybe a
>little work should be done here.

	Eh, I've often found that the creation of a universe is
rarely very important to a computer game (unless that's tied into
the game itself...eh...dunno if I like that personally).  What's
more important is playability, how fun it is, how simple/
difficult/complex it is...etc...

>A little less emphasis on critters is not a bad way to play things; after
>all, we are living in a pretty fascinating world today, courtesy of homo
>sapiens (we screw up a lot, but we do do some pretty nifty stuff).  You
>just can't have beetloads of wild monsters romping around the countryside.

	Sure you can!  (Grin!)  You just won't find a very good
REASON for it, usually (unless you're a Nethack fan...then it's
expected...).  I prefer few to NO wandering monsters.  The more
infrequent they are, the more of a surprise they are.  There's been
times in games where I've been impatient just to leave a dungeon but
I have to face dozens and dozens of random encounters to make it out
(sometimes getting killed in the process, screaming, and rebooting
the computer...)
	Not my piece of cake, really...

> You do have an advantage in that you created intelligent races (to serve
>as an army), so they won't be bent on self-destruction or interspecies
>conflict so much as serving Karion.

	Yow...frightening concept, isn't it...intelligent bad
guys... (shh...don't tell this one to anyone else...)

>Sounds like an okay start.  And-- yes, people will play a game if the
>story is good but the graphics substandard (I was addicted to antepenult,
>an ultima 3 clone released for the Amiga, for about four months last
>year).  Your trick will be to get people to play it in the first place. 
>Once they're into it, you will have far fewer troubles.

	Nethack, for the PC, is about as substandard as games get
and I still play it.  The trick is to make certain that the graphics
don't get in the way of the enjoyment of the game.  If the graphics
are awkward or stupid-looking, fewer people will want to play.  So
long as they adequately work, I think people will play the game so
long as it's good!

>-->Vputz
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: kennehra@craft.camp.clarkson.edu (Rich"TheMan"Kennehan)
Subject: Re: NES rampack & programming
Organization: Clarkson University
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 01:05:21 GMT



Hi!  Thank you SO much for posting that!!!  But one thing is wrong
with the file.  It will not unzip.  It gives a "loss of central
directory" error!  Could you please post a corrected version?  thanks
in advance!!!

- Rich
  kennehra@logic.camp.clarkson.edu