romeo@lindy.Stanford.EDU (Patrick Goebel) (01/01/90)
Can anyone recommend a programming language for the Mac that would be especially well suited for writing one's own arcade/simulation games? In particular, access to the Mac QuickDraw routines should be quick and easy. I'm curious because I just acquired a two-page display and every action game I have (e.g. Ferrari, Falcon etc.) sends all its graphics to a dinky little window the size of the original Mac 9" monitor. This seems like a terrible waste of a big screen so I thought I might just try writing something of my own. Many thanks in advance! patrick goebel--romeo@lindy.stanford.edu
chewy@apple.com (Paul Snively) (01/04/90)
In article <6800@lindy.Stanford.EDU> romeo@lindy.Stanford.EDU (Patrick Goebel) writes: > Can anyone recommend a programming language for the Mac that would be > especially well suited for writing one's own arcade/simulation games? > In particular, access to the Mac QuickDraw routines should be quick > and easy. Given just these constraints, it seems clear to me that the language that you'll need is assembly language. In article <6800@lindy.Stanford.EDU> romeo@lindy.Stanford.EDU (Patrick Goebel) writes: > I'm curious because I just acquired a two-page display and > every action game I have (e.g. Ferrari, Falcon etc.) sends all its > graphics to a dinky little window the size of the original Mac 9" > monitor. This seems like a terrible waste of a big screen so I thought > I might just try writing something of my own. Good luck. There's a good reason for sticking to the small window: the small window has fewer pixels to move around. When you're doing arcade-type stuff, that's an important consideration. It's so important, in fact, that most of the really quality arcade stuff, like the Dark Castle family from Silicon Beach Software, doesn't even use QuickDraw because it's STILL too slow. So be warned. In article <6800@lindy.Stanford.EDU> romeo@lindy.Stanford.EDU (Patrick Goebel) writes: > Many thanks in advance! Don't thank me for this; I wouldn't consider it encouraging news. ;-) > patrick goebel--romeo@lindy.stanford.edu __________________________________________________________________________ Just because I work for Apple Computer, Inc. doesn't mean that they believe what I believe or vice-versa. __________________________________________________________________________ C++ -- The language in which only friends can access your private members. __________________________________________________________________________
uzun@pnet01.cts.com (Roger Uzun) (01/05/90)
hmmmm... I have never seen what one would call an "arcade quality" gam
(that's game) for any Mac. Certainly Dark Castle with Monochrome
15-20 Frame Per Second animation cannot be considered anywhere near
"arcade" quality. For example, any arcade game out since about 1986 or so
features at least 32 color displays, 50-60 Frame per second animation, stereo
sound, and detailed backgrounds over which the characters are animated. I
have done animation routines for the Mac II series, and to get even 30
frames/sec I had to write directly to harware, limit the size of the objects
and, FORCE 8 bit pixels. Even then the Sound Manager routines seemed to slow
things even more so, of course that was about a year or so ago.
Does anyone think an arcade quality Mac II game would sell at all?
(if such a thing is even possible)
Certainly other computers are capable of arcade quality games, but they have
default video hardware that aids this greatly, it is too bad the Mac II's do
not have this as well, since it would speed up OS graphics as well. I know
such boards are available to Mac II users but one has to develop to the lowest
common denominator and so one cannot release a product that requires such an
add on board, to be compatible with all such software one must use the toolbox
calls and these will just not cut it for even a moderate game so....
Of course with its default 640X480 screen and 256 color out of 16+ million
color display, Mac II games would look MUCH better than any competing systems,
and even better than 99% of all commercial systems, too bad they would be so
slow as to be unplayable!
-Roger
UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd ucsd nosc}!crash!pnet01!uzun
ARPA: crash!pnet01!uzun@nosc.mil
INET: uzun@pnet01.cts.comgosselin@CLIK.QC.CA (Pascal Gosselin) (01/07/90)
I have played Crystal Quest v2.2 on a Mac II and the IIcx at work quite a few times, and the action+sound are FAST. I must admit that the objects on the screen are small, but there are quite a few of them. The other decently fast color game on the Mac II is Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer. The graphics aren't that hot, but the speed is there. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pascal Gosselin | gosselin@clik.qc.ca | SIMCO, Inc. - A division of Computer Connection | uunet!clik.qc.ca!gosselin | -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
t-jacobs@cs.utah.edu (Tony Jacobs) (01/08/90)
In addition to the games mentioned already (Crystal Quest etc) there is a new shareware game out called "Solarian II" what has extremely fast graphics occuring along with sound. Not only does it have a lot of objects moving around on the screen at the same time, each object is animated as it moves by changing shape, color, and orientation. This game is very much like Galaxian where you have to shoot down all the space creatures that come at ya. Tony Jacobs * Center for Engineering Design * U of U * t-jacobs@cs.utah.edu
uzun@pnet01.cts.com (Roger Uzun) (01/09/90)
>> In addition to Crystal Quest Chuck Yeager, etc there is Solarian
Crystal quest animates objects over a BLACK background, Chuck Yeager
does not use arbitrary bitmap backgrounds either and has a very low
frame rate. I have not seen Solarian so I cannot comment.
Apparently Mac Users have not entered video arcades since about 1981,
if they indeed feel that these represent arcade quality, interactive
animations. The Mac is a fantastic architecture in many ways, and has
some of the greatest software in the world written for it, but I have
yet to see a professional quality interactive animation on it.
If Solarian is like galaxian then it is 10 years behind the times.
Sound takes little cpu and changing an objects appearance each frame
is simply a matter of changing an imagepointer in any case.
I am looking for something like, OutRUN, or even Double Dragon II
(not those game types, just that sort of quality and frame rate)
on the mac II platform.
-Roger
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ARPA: crash!pnet01!uzun@nosc.mil
INET: uzun@pnet01.cts.comrht@smsdpg.uu.net (Randy Thompson) (01/10/90)
From article <1115@crash.cts.com>, by uzun@pnet01.cts.com (Roger Uzun): > I am looking for something like, OutRUN, or even Double Dragon II > (not those game types, just that sort of quality and frame rate) > on the mac II platform. I think that You will be quite impressed with Solarian II. It is a superb example of a true Arcade Quality game on the Mac II. One minor bug tho, upon exit the desktop doesnt redraw completely. (Sys 6.0.4 GK, GK-Aid 1.0.1) _________________________________________________________________________ Randy Thompson | uunet!smsdpg!rht -- Office SMS Data Products Group, Inc. | uunet!smsdpg!tailchasr!rht -- Mac@home 703/648-9400 | _________________________________________________________________________ * Constructive criticism is always appreciated * Send Flames to: Trash%tailchasr@smsdpg.UUCP _________________________________________________________________________
benjamin@i-core.UUCP (Benjamin F. Kuo) (01/12/90)
Have you seen Crazy Cars? It does a reasonably good color simulation -- at least as good as the Amiga version, at least. The only problem is the lack of features (accelerate, brake, back and forth, quit.) It has a good graphic designer, contrary to some other color programs (like the motorcycle game out from Sega or whoever--NO color dithering, uses solids only, fast but the graphics are really horrible) --