Sunday, September 17, 2023

Game 384: Castle Adventure

Our next and final whale of 1984 is Steve Davis Snooker, a ZX Spectrum billiards sim published by British software house CDS Software. As their sole whale credit, this is the only time I expect to be covering anything out of their label, so in my usual fashion I've opted to begin with a small selection of early games leading up to it.

I'm going to have to emulate a ZX81 again, aren't I?

Game 384: Castle Adventure

 

As I have no indication of CDS's precise chronology beyond copyright years, I've chosen to start with 1982's Castle Adventure for no reason except that it looks the most interesting. Their other products of the year, all ZX81 games, consist of an unauthorized Breakout port, a Head-On clone, Connect 4, Othello, and an Avalanche-like paddle game.

The manual tells us that the goal is to find the castle's hidden exit and leave with as much energy as possible, and that enemies including a dragon, cobra, dwarves, goblins, and spiders will try to stop us. I've dealt with worse; let's go.

 

We're off to a bad start already, as Castle Adventure seems to mix up east and west! But let's go south.

Great, let's get the sword!


Boo hiss. I restart and go east this time.


Uh-oh. How do I leave? I try going west.


Nice, I crashed it!

Going north,

 

Too bad I don't have a sword. I flee and go west.

 

I bet I know what to do with this!

 

North.


Up.

 

Four more unexplored rooms. I check them out one by one. North first:


Then east.


Two swings of my sword and all I have to show for it are 40 lost energy points. I flee and go west.


Not good! I run again and go south.

 

Going back to the dark room,


Sword time!


 

Back downstairs, I enter the code.


Alas, I died here. But it took me little time to reach this point again, with more hit points, and I cut through the web with my sword.



Finally, a puzzle! You must move across the chessboard, using knight movement patterns, while avoiding the dwarves who move one space in any direction.

This took me a few tries, but the key is to plan your route, working backwards from the exit so that it gets the zig-zagging out of the way sooner rather than later, when you're close to the exit and in the corner where you have little room to maneuver.

One solution

This puzzle is infuriatingly luck-based, as the dwarves move randomly, and catch you if they are even adjacent to your position, diagonals included. You'll probably have to make a risky move at some point and just pray that they move away from you.


 

Next you get a sliding tile puzzle, and there's a 50% chance that the randomly generated setup is unsolvable. But tries are unlimited.

Next, a maze.

 

There's a bit of perspective weirdness as the view is overhead but also rotates 90° when you go left or right, but the old wall-following technique gets you out eventually.

 

Hmmm, ten directions, you say? Start with "1."


Ah, this is Hunt the Wumpus, isn't it? But I don't have my crossbow.

After some wandering around, I determine the maze layout is nonsensical but deterministic, though its purpose is unclear. "Left" increments the location by 2, "right" decrements by 3. Exceptions: going right from rooms 1-3 takes you back to the entrance, going right from rooms 39-40 also takes you back to the entrance, and going left from rooms 39-40 takes you to room 5.

Room 32 is marked the "end of the maze" but otherwise behaves the same as any other room.

 

Returning to the entrance, going direction '2' informs me that I need a gold key. '3' takes me to another chasm.


Well, I know better than to try to jump it. I go back.

Direction '4' takes me to a black door with no indication that it can be opened. '5' prompts me to enter a "blue code." '6' takes me into another maze, but this one has a plasma gun in room 32.

'7' takes me to an encounter.

 

Good news - I have a plasma gun of my own. Bad news, I have no idea how you use it, and after several wrong guesses and much lost health, I retreat and try direction '8'.


Maaaybe I should come back a bit later. I go back and try '9'.


I'm still not sure how to use the plasma gun, but wrong guesses don't cost me energy this time. 

I try '10.' It's a locked door and I need an emerald to open it.

I go back and enter '8'. Seven steps forward and I see a code.


Heading back to the start, my energy is getting critical. But I go to '5', and the code is accepted, giving me a black key. This unlocks the black door, granting me a torch. This scares away the goblin, giving me the gold key, which opens another door where I find a crossbow!

I get it now. I didn't find a plasma gun. I found a plasma bolt! But my energy is so low now that when I go to the dwarf, he kills me before I can fire back.

So I have to restart the whole game and work my way back.

[20 minute later...]

I struggled a bit with the chess game, but eventually made it back. And I let the dwarf here have it!


The wand lets me get the emerald.


And the emerald lets me leave.



GAB rating: Below average. What I find most interesting here is how quickly I thought I had this amateurish game figured out. Within a few minutes, it looked for sure like the game consisted of eight rooms, each with a simple lock-and-key puzzle in one form or another, and once I entered each in the right order I'd win and could just drop a bad rating and move on. The whole experience reminded me think of BASIC adventures that I'd code in an afternoon and never touch again.

But after entering the final room with the explosive lock, the game kept going. It didn't go on long - the whole experience lasted about an hour and a half, including the restarts, and much of it was spent cropping screenshots and writing notes. But there's just barely enough substance here for me to not hate it.

Friday, September 15, 2023

Game 383: Paperboy


You may not like the news, but you have to admire the boys who deliver it, bleeps out Paperboy through its distinctive Speak & Spell voice synthesizer by Texas Instruments. With a luxurious double-resolution, 64-color display, a popping suburban aesthetic reminiscent of The Sims, a convincing soundscape of flying newspapers, shattered windows, car horns, brakes, deadly crashes and other fanfare, frequent spoken witticisms by the paperboy himself ("need a passenger?" quips paperboy after colliding with a carelessly driven hearse), and a funky stereophonic beat with just enough cowbell, Paperboy, if nothing else, might just be the best-looking and best-sounding game I've covered yet.

The premise, like most arcade games of the day, is simple enough, and more grounded than most. Drive a morning newspaper bike route, delivering to your customers for points, and smash the windows of non-customers for a few bonus points. But watch out - you've got a deadline, the 'hood is indifferent at best to your survival, and if you miss a paying customer, or break their windows with an errantly thrown paper, or run over their flowers, they'll unsubscribe.

Photo by Jeremy Wagner

 

One of the first challenges was to figure out, how the heck do I control this? The real machine sports a pair of bicycle handlebars, actually a modified Star Wars flight yoke. And while a USB flight stick plays Star Wars well, Paperboy doesn't feel so nice with it. I've played with the real thing at ACAM New Hampshire, but that 40-year-old controller didn't perform too well either.

I tried using my Logitech racing wheel, and while the steering worked great, speed control was an issue. Throttle and brake pedals work well for racing games, but on Paperboy hardware, you push the handlebars forward or pull them back, and this didn't comfortably map to my racing setup.

Finally, I wound up mapping speed control to my shifter, and was happy with this.

At this point it's too late to hit the brakes.
 

I played this way for several days, and eventually learned how to survive for longer than a few seconds, but I wouldn't say that at any point I got good. Paperboy is difficult and unforgiving even for an arcade game. Even on the ironically named "Easy Street" route, which I never mustered the skill to graduate past from. Touching anything - curb edges, sewer grates, breakdancing teens, small remote control cars, you name it, will crash your bike. The isometric perspective makes it hard to judge your throws, hard to tell if you're going to crash into an upcoming obstacle or not, and with houses and their yards taking up a good 75% of the screen, the perspective gives you barely any room to maneuver or to see what's ahead of you.

But I managed to hold a career for a few ingame days, at which point I raced swarms of bees, swerved around dynamite explosions set by anti-gentrification saboteurs, dodged stray tires, mean cats, etc. Each day also concludes with an obstacle course to bike through for some bonus points. A full career goes the whole week to Sunday, where the jumbo-sized Sunday papers can't be thrown as far. Mine ended on Thursday, when I swerved to avoid a cat, only to slam right into a skateboarder.

 

Some notes:

  • Surprisingly, I found I performed better when I spent most of the time going as fast as I could pedal. This gives you little time to react to stuff, but the momentum helps carry your papers farther and more accurately this way. Memorizing the street and its day-to-day dangers is key.
  • On that note, crossing the intersection is the most dangerous part, especially when going fast. 1980's traffic stops for nobody.
  • By far the most important thing, apart from not getting killed, is delivering papers and not accidentally losing subscribers. Vandalism points are fun, but each day gives you a daily 250 point end-of-day bonus for each remaining customer, with the possibility of doubling it and getting a new subscriber if you perform really well.
  • Vandalism also has diminishing returns, as broken windows get boarded up on subsequent days and can't be smashed again.
  • You can score an extra 250 points by landing your paper right in the mailbox, but this is too difficult to be worth trying on purpose. If it happens to land there, great, but don't get distracted and crash because you were focused on this optional task.
  • Higher difficulties ("Middle Road" and "Hard Way") double and triple your points, respectively. They're also filled with threats that you don't even see on Easy Street, like the milk delivery truck, and even the grim reaper.
  • There was a bit of a missed opportunity to express the player's score as a cash value to further sell the theme of "you are a child laborer performing a crummy job for crummy pay." Imagine instead of 4,500 points at the end of the day, your route boss gives you a $4.50 paycheck plus ten cents bonus for each non-subscribers' window smashed.
  • My wife gave it a try and made it to Tuesday on her third attempt, which is a lot fewer tries than it took me.


"Easy Street," 1917c


GAB rating: Above average. I want to like Paperboy better, but it's just too frustrating for me to find enjoyable, and not quite deep enough to be rewarding. For what it's worth, I did feel motivated to play, replay, and improve my performance, but only to an extent.

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Ports of Entry: EA Canada

This list includes games by Distinctive Software, the predecessor to EA Canada.


Unknown lead platform:

 

Test Drive

First released for Amiga & Commodore 64 in October 1987

Released for Atari ST & PC in December 1987

Released for Apple II in June 1988


I have a recollection of reading that Commodore 64 was the lead development platform, but I can't find or remember the source.

 

The Duel: Test Drive II

First released for Commodore 64 & PC in March 1989

Released for Amiga in April 1989

Released for Apple IIgs in July 1989

Released for Macintosh in 1989

Ported to Amstrad CPC, MSX, & ZX Spectrum in 1989

Ported to Atari ST in 1990

 

The Cycles: International Grand Prix Racing

First released for Amiga in November 1989

Released for PC in December 1989

Released for Amstrad CPC, Macintosh, & ZX Spectrum in 1990

 

4-D Boxing

First released for Amiga, PC, & Macintosh in 1991

Ported to FM Towns in 1992

 

NHL '94

First released for SNES in October 1993

Released for Genesis & Sega CD in 1993

 

It's possible that all of these are independent conversions of the earlier DOS game NHL Hockey.

 

FIFA Soccer 96

First released for Playstation in November 1995

Released for PC in 1995

Ported to Sega 32X and Sega Saturn in 1995

 

The Need for Speed: Special Edition

Simultaneous DOS/Windows release in August 1996

 

NBA Live 97

First released for Playstation in November 1996

Released for PC in 1996

Ported to Sega Saturn in November 1996

 

NBA Live 97

Released for Genesis & SNES in 1996

 

FIFA Soccer 97

First released for DOS/Windows in November 1996

Released for Playstation in 1996

Ported to Sega Saturn in 1996

 

FIFA Soccer 97

Released for Genesis & SNES in 1996

 

Need for Speed II

First released for Playstation in March 1997

Released for PC in April 1997

 

FIFA: Road to World Cup 98

First released for PC in June 1997

Released for Playstation in November 1997

Ported to Nintendo 64 & Saturn in December 1997

 

FIFA: Road to World Cup 98

Released for Genesis & SNES in 1997

 

NHL 98

First released for PC & Playstation in September 1997

Ported to Saturn in November 1997

 

NHL 98

Released for Genesis & SNES in 1997

 

World Cup 98

First released for Playstation in March 1998

Released for Nintendo 64 in May 1998

Released for PC in June 1998

 

Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit

First released for Playstation in March 1998

Released for PC in September 1998

 

NHL 99

First released for Playstation in September 1998

Released for PC in October 1998

Ported to Nintendo 64 in October 1998

 

FIFA 99

First released for PC & Playstation in November 1998

Ported to Nintendo 64 in December 1998

 

Need for Speed: High Stakes

First released for Playstation in March 1999

Released for PC in June 1999

 

FIFA 2000: Major League Soccer

Released for Playstation & PC in October 1999

 

NBA Live 2000

Released for Nintendo 64, Playstation, & PC in November 1999

 

Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed

First released for PC on March 22, 2000

Released for Playstation on March 24, 2000

 

NHL 2001

First released for Playstation on September 27, 2000

Released for PC on September 28, 2000

Released for PS2 on October 2000

 

FIFA 2001: Major League Soccer

First released for PC in October 2000

Released for PS2 in November 2000

 

NHL 2002

First released for PC on September 18, 2001

Released for PS2 on September 25, 2001

Released for Xbox in December 2001

 

FIFA Soccer 2002: Major League Soccer

First released for PC on October 26, 2001

Released for PS2 on October 30, 2001

Released for Gamecube in November 2001

 

SSX Tricky

First released for PS2 on November 6, 2001

Released for Gamecube on November 27, 2001

Released for Xbox in December 2001

 

2002 FIFA World Cup

First released for PS2 & Xbox on April 15, 2002

Released for Gamecube on April 16, 2002

Released for PC on April 24, 2002

Released for Playstation on April 25, 2002

 

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2

First released for Gamecube, PS2, & Xbox on October 2, 2002

Released for PC on October 20, 2002

 

FIFA Soccer 2003

Released for Gamecube, PC, PS2, & Xbox in October 2002

 

007: Nightfire

First released for Gamecube & PS2 on November 19, 2002

Released for Xbox on November 20, 2002

 

SSX 3

Released for Gamecube, PS2, & Xbox in October 2003

 

Def Jam: Fight for NY

Released for Gamecube, PS2, & Xbox in September 2004

 

FIFA Soccer 2005

First released for Xbox on October 8, 2004

Released for Gamecube & PS2 on October 12, 2004

Released for PC on October 14, 2004

 

FIFA Soccer 06

First released for Gamecube, PC, & PS2 on September 29, 2005

Released for Xbox on September 30, 2005

 

Need for Speed: Most Wanted

First released for Gamecube, PC, PS2, & Xbox on September 15, 2005

Released for Xbox 360 on September 25, 2005

 

Select chronology:


Distinctive era:

Title Lead platform Date Contemporary ports
Test Drive ??? 1987-10 Simultaneous releases on Amiga & C64
Same-quarter releases on Atari ST & PC
1988 release on Apple II
Grand Prix Circuit DOS 1988-11 Simultaneous port to C64
1989 ports to Amiga, Apple Iigs, & PC
The Duel: Test Drive II ??? 1989-03 Simultaneous releases on C64 & PC
Same-quarter release on Amiga
Same-year releases on Apple IIgs & Mac
Same-year ports to Amstrad CPC, MSX, & ZX Spectrum
1990 port to Atari ST
The Cycles: International Grand Prix Racing ??? 1989-11 Same-quarter releases on Amiga & PC
1990 releases on Amstrad CPC, Mac, & ZX Spectrum
Stunts DOS 1990-10
4-D Boxing ??? 1991 Same-year releases on Amiga, Mac, & PC
1992 port to FM Towns

4th gen:

Title Lead platform Date Contemporary ports
FIFA International Soccer Genesis 1993 1994 ports to Amiga, PC, Game Gear, Sega CD, & SNES
NHL Hockey DOS 1993 Listed separately from NHL '94
NHL '94 ??? 1993-10 Same-year releases on Genesis, Sega CD, & SNES
The Need for Speed 3DO 12/9/1994 Ported to PC in September 1995
NHL 95 DOS 1994 Same-year ports to Genesis & SNES
1995 ports to Game Boy & Game Gear
FIFA Soccer 96 ??? 1995-11 Same-year releases on PC & PS1
Same-year ports to Sega 32x & Saturn
FIFA Soccer 96 Genesis 1995 Same-year port to SNES
The Need for Speed: Special Edition ??? 1996-08 DOS & Windows release
 

5th gen:

Title Lead platform Date Contemporary ports
NBA Live 97 ??? 11/1/1996 Same-year releases on PC & PS1
Same-month port to Saturn
NBA Live 97 ??? 1996 Same-year releases on Genesis & SNES
FIFA Soccer 97 ??? 11/25/1996 Same-year releases on PC & PS1
Same-year port to Saturn
FIFA Soccer 97 ??? 1996 Same-year releases on Genesis & SNES
Need for Speed II ??? 3/31/1997 Same-quarter releases on PC & PS1
FIFA: Road to World Cup 98 ??? 6/17/1997 Same-year releases on PC & PS1
Same-year ports to N64 & Saturn
FIFA: Road to World Cup 98 ??? 1997 Same-year releases on Genesis & SNES
NHL 98 ??? 9/24/1997 Simultaneous releases on PC & PS1
Same-quarter port to Saturn
NHL 98 ??? 1997 Same-year releases on Genesis & SNES
Need for Speed II: SE Windows 10/28/1997
World Cup 98 ??? 3/13/1998 Same-year releases on N64, PC, & PS1
Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit ??? 3/25/1998 Same-year releases on PC & PS1
NHL 99 ??? 9/21/1998 Same-quarter releases on PC & PS1
Same-quarter port to N64
FIFA 99 ??? 11/11/1998 Simultaneous releases on PC & PS1
Same-quarter port to N64
Need for Speed: High Stakes ??? 3/1/1999 Same-year releases on PC & PS1
FIFA 2000: Major League Soccer ??? 10/26/1999 Simultaneous releases on PC & PS1
NBA Live 2000 ??? 11/17/1999 Simultaneous releases on N64, PC, & PS1
 

6th gen:

Title Lead platform Date Contemporary ports
Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed ??? 3/22/2000 Same-month releases on PC & PS1
NHL 2001 ??? 9/27/2000 Same-quarter releases on PC, PS1, & PS2
FIFA 2001: Major League Soccer ??? 10/30/2000 Same-quarter releases on PC & PS2
NHL 2002 ??? 9/18/2001 Same-month releases on PC & PS2
Same-year release on Xbox
FIFA Soccer 2002: Major League
Soccer
??? 10/26/2001 Same-month releases on PC & PS2
Same-quarter release on Gamecube
SSX Tricky ??? 11/6/2001 Same-quarter releases on Gamecube, PS2, & Xbox
007: Agent Under Fire PlayStation 2 11/15/2001 2002 ports to Gamecube & Xbox
2002 FIFA World Cup ??? 4/15/2002 Same-month releases on PC and multiple consoles
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 ??? 10/2/2002 Same-month releases on Gamecube, PC, PS2, & Xbox
FIFA Soccer 2003 ??? 10/30/2002 Simultaneous releases on Gamecube, PC, PS2, & Xbox
007: Nightfire ??? 11/19/2002 Simultaneous releases on Gamecube, PS2, & Xbox
SSX 3 ??? 10/21/2003 Simultaneous releases on Gamecube, PS2, & Xbox
Def Jam: Fight for NY ??? 9/20/2004 Simultaneous releases on Gamecube, PS2, & Xbox
FIFA Soccer 2005 ??? 10/8/2004 Same-month releases on Gamecube, PC, PS2, & Xbox
FIFA Soccer 06 ??? 9/29/2005 Simultaneous releases on Gamecube, PC, PS2, & Xbox
Need for Speed: Most Wanted ??? 11/15/2005 Same-month releases on Gamecube, PC, PS2, Xbox, & Xbox 360

Sunday, August 27, 2023

Game 382: Donald Duck's Playground


From the man who brought you Leisure Suit Larry

 

It's no surprise that media giant Disney expanded into video games fairly early into the industry's history. Mobygames lists their first titles as Mickey Mouse and Mickey & Donald, produced by Nintendo in 1981-1982 as part of their Game & Watch line of electronic toys, and the following years had no fewer than six TRON arcade and console games. In 1984, three licensed computer games were produced by Sierra; the children's adventures Winnie the Pooh and Mickey's Space Adventure, and the first Disney whale, Donald Duck's Playground.

Being a bit of Sierra completionist in the past, I had heard of this but not played it, understanding it to be a non-adventure game powered by the AGI engine that ran Space Quest and King's Quest III, as well as the 1987 re-releases of KQ 1&2. Oddly, no DOS version had ever been officially released, making it the only AGI game not to have one, but mostly functional bootlegs had been made available by extracting data files from Amiga/Atari ST version disks and running them with the DOS AGI interpreter from another game. I'm pretty sure I saw it running this way on a DOS machine in the late 80's.

After starting this blog and making a serious effort to play first versions whenever possible, I was surprised to find out that Commodore 64 had been the original target. Commodore 64 never had any AGI games! The engine always required 128KB, twice what the non-expandable 64 came with, so how was this the only exception? Simple - the C64 original isn't AGI at all; for some of the later platforms it had been remade in the AGI engine; a conversion process Al Lowe described as "ridiculous."


Three difficulty modes are offered, and going in semi-blind, I initially played on beginner to get an idea of how things work. Within maybe half an hour, I saw everything there was to see; you play minigames to earn money, spend money on pieces for your playground, and then arrange your playground and maybe play around on it a little before you get bored and quit.

So I replayed on Advanced.


All of Duckburg is accessible through this screen. On the left, three shops sell you gear for your playground, but Donald is broke. On the right, four offices offer jobs, and to the north, across the railroad tracks, the empty playground awaits.

I entered the Amquack railroad station to earn my first buck. Here, you just walk into a business and they give you a job that you can work at for as long or as short as you like. The 1980's was a different time.

It's a train track-switching puzzle game, where you have to get the train to the indicated stations as efficiently as you can, earning cash for each passenger delivery.

This got me $1.80 in two minutes for not doing very much.


This is a lot more money than I had earned in beginner mode, and I honestly couldn't remember if it got any harder. But had prices gone up, too?


Well, damn, yes they had. This toy horse had cost a quarter in beginner mode, which I could have easily earned in two minutes there. So I settled for a $1.47 trampoline.

Buying stuff involves a change-counting minigame, which is the only overtly educational aspect of the package, though I can't help but sense that the overall gameplay loop carries a bit of consumer culture indoctrination, teaching kids they'll do menial jobs for pitiful wages, like good little workers, and then give it all given right back to the system in exchange for meaningless distractions to play with for a little bit, like good little consumers, before returning to work again. It's what Uncle Walt would have wanted.

Why am I making change? You're the cashier, Minnie.

Whee. This is even less fun than the job I did to earn it.

 

Back to the grind to earn more cash, I worked the toy store job next.


 

Here, you have to place items on their proper places on the shelf - a task made more difficult for me thanks to my colorblindness - and for an added bit of fun you have to close the shop whenever the train passes by or else your stuff falls and breaks, and your pay is docked.

I only earned $1.05 doing this for two minutes, not enough to buy anything from Minnie's boutique, but at Mickey's hardware store I bought myself a $1.04 swing set.

Next job - produce sorting at the grocery store.


Three lousy cents per item sorted, and dodgy collision detection makes it real easy to drop them (and consequently get Donald angry), but at least this doesn't dock your pay. I got $1.44 for two minutes, not enough to buy anything.

The last job available is luggage sorting at the airport.


It's a losing battle against the conveyor belt, but nevertheless earned me $2.34, making it the most lucrative job of the set. With my savings, I bought a slide.

Your playground sucks, Donald.
 

After that, I just grinded out another $40+ bucks working four eight-minute shifts at the airport and bought everything.


The completed playground.


GAB rating: Average, but only regarding edutainment value to small children. Who, let's face it, aren't likely to be impressed by the Commodore 64 any longer. Anyone older than the target demographic is certain to find this too easy, unsubstantial, and boring.

What about the AGI version? It's no simple port, and I don't expect I'll ever have another reason to play it, so I went ahead and played through, mainly for that sense of AGI-engine completionism.

Diegetic difficulty selection

There's a in-game prologue this time, which showis off the multi-screen Duckburg.

 

In retrospect, I should not have picked advanced mode, as this makes most of the games unplayable unless you are emulating a slow computer. Case in point,


This train never stops or slows down!

Duckburg's commercial street
 
Walking around Minnie's shop, King's Quest-style

Stuff is a lot cheaper than C64's advanced difficulty

The park entrance. Look both ways before crossing!

The playground got a big, multi-screen upgrade, but isn't rearrange-able now.

Produce-catching is also too fast and I suck at it.

The toy store is nearly impossible on advanced mode. And it keeps giving me toys with no place to put!


The coolest new addition - a rocket ship slide!

North end

East end

Bottom line - less playable minigames, but the reward for playing them is cooler.

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