From: jdunning@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (John Alan Dunning)
Subject: Re: Out of this World Mac demo on sumex
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 14:47:52 GMT

In article <martin.721311369@marsh> martin@cs.curtin.edu.au (Martin Dougiamas) writes:
>bdugan@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Bill Dugan) writes:
>>Try RUNNING!  He's bigger than you.  :)
>
>Just today I had the pleasure of playing this game for the first time on
>a Quadra 950 using the full screen.  A.W.E.S.O.M.E.  I'd figured out a method

Very true.  I have  a Q700 and the animation is very smooth at the
highest resolution, although it slows down slightly when the ground
shakes a lot and rocks fall.  By the way, the 640X400 screen is not
just a blown-up version of 320X200 with chunky pixels.  It uses all
the pixels.

>for getting past the beast (ie squashing leeches on the way right, then 
>running left and swinging on the rope)  but no matter how fast I ran I 
>couldn't outrun the beast.  For some reason "running jumps" don't work
>the same way when I'm being chased as when I was just practising on one
>of the other screens.  Straight running (option+j) definitely doesn't work.
>
>Any hints?

That's exactly how I did it.  You actually don't have to kill any
leeches; if your timing's right, you can just run and jump over them.
In fact, I'm not sure you can outrun the beast if you spend time
kicking leeches around.  Running jumps (shift or option+j+i) worked
just fine for me.  If you make sure you start running as soon as you can
after the beast appears, jump over the leeches and don't stop before
you jump onto the vine, you should be able to outrun him.

>>If anybody finds any bugs in the demo, please email me at this address.
>>Now is the time to catch them.  Someone reported a problem where he didn't
>>get any sound.  Anybody else have any problems?
>
>Only one.  I started the game, ran the demo, played the game for a while,
>then ran the demo, then played the game a bit more, then ran the demo 
>again and it "crashed" at the end of the demo with some kind of error
>about not enough memory (Quit or OK).  Memory not being freed, perhaps?

Me too.  I ran the demo, played the game until I completed the first
screen, after which the demo seemed to play automatically.  I tried to
play the game again and I got the same message.  Clicking OK produced
a beep and the same message over again.  I clicked quit and then the
game seemed to quit, but the machine crashed.

>>Glad you enjoyed the demo.
>
>You better believe it!  I love all the subtle extras like the way the 
>falling rocks break up and hang around etc...   Very cool.  

Agreed.  Leaving footprints as you walk in the sand, the way the
leeches bounce on the ground, the close-ups when they bite you, the
use of transparency and light are all very well done.  The underwater
scene at the beginning of the first level is _SUPERB_.  The quality of
the dmeo bodes well for the real thing.

>Martin

Some people have compared OotW to Prince of Persia and found that the
character movements in OotW aren't really as smooth or detailed.  That's
probably true, but only because the character in PoP is highly
constrained in what he can do, so it's possible to have individual
bitmaps for each frame of movement.  In OotW, the character has many
more actions, from swinging on vines to falling on his face to getting
zapped by a laser.  It wouldn't be practical to draw bitmaps for all
the possible actions the character can make.

Here's a question for Bill Dugan, who is apparently speaking for
MacPlay, which wrote the game.  How come you email address is at
MIT (bdugan@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu)?  Did MIT students form MacPlay?

John