gauthier@ug.cs.dal.ca (Paul Gauthier) (12/27/90)
Almost every PD/Shareware game I've come across on local BBS systems and the anonymous FTP sites that I've looked on has been of terrible quality. I found a really enjoyable 3D Chess program, a bazillion versions of Tetris clones, but that's about it. Almost everything else is written so poorly as to be unplayable. I'm looking for PD/Shareware games which are of high quality. Pointers to such games would be greatly appreciated. I'm looking for both text adventure (well written ones, not the BASIC trash that seems so abundant) and arcadish type games. I have a Herc card but have a CGA emulation program, so CGA games would be of interest as well. I'm also _very_ interested in strategy oriented games (text adventures kind of fall into this category). It seems to me that the PC's strong suit would be detailed games of strategy and/or simulation, so I think (hope) there would be at least a few gems out there. I'm looking for both one-player, two-player, head-to-head and many-player type games. Games where a group of people can sit around and spend a lazy evening playing a strategy game would be excellent. While still of interest, games which make use of a modem aren't really what I'm looking for. The reasons? I'm on break from school and wouldn't mind some enjoyable games to pass the days. Also, I just sold a '286 to a friend and he has 3 kids ranging from grade 6 to 4th year university. All of them, and the father, would like to have some games to make use of the machine while they climb the steep learning curve towards using it for word processing, database, spreadsheet, etc. Any and all recommendations are appreciated, PG -- Paul Gauthier | tyrant@ug.cs.dal.ca President, Cerebral Computer Technologies | tyrant@dalac.bitnet Phone: (902)462-8217 Fax: (send email first) | tyrant@ac.dal.ca
ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) (01/01/91)
In article <1990Dec26.224913.12338@cs.dal.ca> gauthier@ug.cs.dal.ca (Paul Gauthier) writes: >Almost every PD/Shareware game I've come across on local BBS systems >and the anonymous FTP sites that I've looked on has been of terrible >quality. I found a really enjoyable 3D Chess program, a bazillion versions >of Tetris clones, but that's about it. Almost everything else is written >so poorly as to be unplayable. > >I'm looking for PD/Shareware games which are of high quality. Pointers ... rest deleted ... First of all one has to agree in general to what is being said here. The average quality of PC games is poor (in comparison to other PC programs). That is much because of the history of the PC usage. If you want games, there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of well-made (even if childish, nothing wrong with that) games for C64, Amiga, and Atari. Second, take a look at the /pc/pd2/files-mm.zip listing what it has in the way of games. Sorry no, I can't single any of them out. Third, many ftp sites, e.g. Simtel20 in particular, and uwasa.fi to a lesser degree are not game oriented, or have no games at all. A question of deliberate policy. Fourth, an indignant note from the insulted author :-). What the heck is wrong with my flag games? (/pc/ts/tsgmed11.arc). I thought that they were gr8. :-) ................................................................... Prof. Timo Salmi (Moderating at anon. ftp site 128.214.12.3) School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun
neil@progress.COM (Neil Galarneau) (01/01/91)
gauthier@ug.cs.dal.ca (Paul Gauthier) writes: >I'm looking for PD/Shareware games which are of high quality. Pointers >to such games would be greatly appreciated. I'm looking for both text >adventure (well written ones, not the BASIC trash that seems so abundant) >and arcadish type games. I have a Herc card but have a CGA emulation >program, so CGA games would be of interest as well. I'm also _very_ interested >in strategy oriented games (text adventures kind of fall into this >category). It seems to me that the PC's strong suit would be detailed >games of strategy and/or simulation, so I think (hope) there would be at >least a few gems out there. >I'm looking for both one-player, two-player, head-to-head and many-player >type games. Games where a group of people can sit around and spend a lazy >evening playing a strategy game would be excellent. While still of interest, >games which make use of a modem aren't really what I'm looking for. One game that fits the bill perfectly is Space War. Space War is a share-ware game which is of the highest quality. Space War is an arcade-type game. You can play either 1 or two players on one keyboard. If there is only 1 player, you can turn on a defensive or offensive robot to practice against if you so choose. Space War was written in 1985 by Bill Seiler I believe. He supported Hercules and cga. I sent him some money, he sent me the source code. It is all in assembly language, but very clean and well documented. The herc is beautiful! This game is the same idea as the Space War on the PDP-1. You and an opponent have spaceships (gravity and a planet are independent toggle switches) and you fly around in a wrap around universe and shoot at each other. I HIGHLY recommend the game. I spent far too many hours playing this game to tell you exactly HOW MANY in a public forum such as this :-). The exciting thing about the game is that you can play against a tricky, learning, persistent opponent (a human being) in addition to the robots. I don't know where this game is in netland. Have fun! Neil neil@progress.com
bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) (01/01/91)
Some P.D. games that I think are reasonably good (and worth every pfennig! :-)
MasterMind (the board game) by David Tanguay
Solitaire by Allyn Wade
Pente by ?
Monopoly by ? (multiplayer)
Yahtzee by ?
gnuchess - ported to MS-DOS
Adventure - the Unix game, 551-point version
Larn, moria, nethack Unix-derived hack-&-slash games.
These all run on my CGA system. Sorry I can't give pointers to them...
If anybody wants copies, send me a self-addressed, stamped mailer and 1 - 3
disks and I'll send the games back. 5.25" 360K or 3.5" 720K. At least one
of these has source, I won't send you any viruses if you won't trust my
unsupported word :-), let me know what archivers you do or don't want me to use.
I am: Bob Montante
238 N. Smith Rd., Apt 30
Bloomington, IN 47408gordon@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu (John Gordon) (01/01/91)
Well, since you only have CGA, this might not be of any help, but the
*best* shareware game I have *ever* seen is called Captain Comic, for the PC
with EGA graphics. It is an outstanding game. If you cannot find a copy,
email me and I'll try to help.
---
John Gordon
Internet: gordon@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu #include <disclaimer.h>
gordon@cerl.cecer.army.mil #include <clever_saying.h>ath@prosys.se (Anders Thulin) (01/01/91)
In article <1990Dec26.224913.12338@cs.dal.ca> gauthier@ug.cs.dal.ca (Paul Gauthier) writes: >I'm looking for PD/Shareware games which are of high quality. Pointers >to such games would be greatly appreciated. I got something called 'Kingdom of Kroz' recently - reasonably fine, I thought, although a bit too fast on 386 boxes. Frac - the three-dimensional tetris from Simsalabim software is also very fine. Didn't this appear on cbip not long ago? Might not be CGA, though. The recent posting of the TEGL demo on cbip contained several good games, including a 'cute' Monopoly. Again I can't swear as to CGA. >I'm looking for both text >adventure (well written ones, not the BASIC trash that seems so abundant) Since the demise of Infocom, some of their old text adventures appear to be sold off rather cheaply by various retailers. If you can get any of this, do. It's not PD/Shareware, but it's very good nevertheless :-) Hope this is of any help, -- Anders Thulin ath@prosys.se {uunet,mcsun}!sunic!prosys!ath Telesoft Europe AB, Teknikringen 2B, S-583 30 Linkoping, Sweden
tcs@mailer.jhuapl.edu (Carl Schelin) (01/02/91)
In article <1990Dec31.191208.11880@news.cs.indiana.edu>, bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) says: > >Some P.D. games that I think are reasonably good (and worth every pfennig! :-) > >MasterMind (the board game) by David Tanguay >Solitaire by Allyn Wade >Pente by ? >Monopoly by ? (multiplayer) >Yahtzee by ? >gnuchess - ported to MS-DOS >Adventure - the Unix game, 551-point version >Larn, moria, nethack Unix-derived hack-&-slash games. > >These all run on my CGA system. Sorry I can't give pointers to them... > >If anybody wants copies, send me a self-addressed, stamped mailer and 1 - 3 >disks and I'll send the games back. 5.25" 360K or 3.5" 720K. At least one >of these has source, I won't send you any viruses if you won't trust my >unsupported word :-), let me know what archivers you do or don't want me to use. > >I am: Bob Montante > 238 N. Smith Rd., Apt 30 > Bloomington, IN 47408 Moria - wuarchive.wustl.edu NetHack - linc.cis.upenn.edu You'll have to look around for the Nethack files. Moria is located in the /pub directory (pcmoria.zip). Carl Schelin tcx@mailer.jhuapl.edu
arritt@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (01/03/91)
In article <1990Dec26.224913.12338@cs.dal.ca>, gauthier@ug.cs.dal.ca (Paul Gauthier) writes: > Almost every PD/Shareware game I've come across on local BBS systems > and the anonymous FTP sites that I've looked on has been of terrible > quality. I found a really enjoyable 3D Chess program, a bazillion versions > of Tetris clones, but that's about it. Almost everything else is written > so poorly as to be unplayable. A problem with many PD/Shareware games is that they use bizarre sets of keystrokes for the commands. This can be overcome by writing simple mouse menus (assuming you have a mouse) to replace the keys. It really helps e.g. in a shoot-em-up game to fire a weapon by hitting a mouse button or move your ship by moving the mouse, instead of having to hit the space bar to fire the weapon or Ctrl-Alt-LeftShift-,-ScrollLock [whatever] to move the ship. It is VERY EASY to learn to program the mouse using the software that comes with many of the mice (mine is Logitech, I don't know about the others). Once you set up your first menu it is simple to adapt this as a template for other games. (Or even non-game software.) ________________________________________________________________________ Raymond W. Arritt | Assistant Professor | Dept. of Physics and Astronomy | "everyone knew that as time went Univ. of Kansas | by they'd get a little bit older Lawrence, KS 66045 | and a little bit slower..." arritt@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu | arritt@ukanvax.bitnet |
herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (daniel lance herrick) (01/04/91)
In article <1990Dec31.181931.26956@uwasa.fi>, ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes: > Fourth, an indignant note from the insulted author :-). What the > heck is wrong with my flag games? (/pc/ts/tsgmed11.arc). I thought > that they were gr8. :-) > I have read your many announcements of tsgmed and want them. I do not believe they have passed by on c.p.i.b. I am now able to get things from simtel20 through the rpi listserver, but listserv persists in telling me the pd2-msdos2 directory does not exist. Are they coming on c.p.i.b? Or, did I, indeed, miss them when they went by? dan herrick herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com
herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (daniel lance herrick) (01/04/91)
herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (daniel lance herrick) writes: > In article <1990Dec31.181931.26956@uwasa.fi>, ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes: >> Fourth, an indignant note from the insulted author :-). What the >> heck is wrong with my flag games? (/pc/ts/tsgmed11.arc). I thought >> that they were gr8. :-) >> > I have read your many announcements of tsgmed and want them. I do > not believe they have passed by on c.p.i.b. I am now able to get > things from simtel20 through the rpi listserver, but listserv > persists in telling me the pd2-msdos2 directory does not exist. That was bad net manners. Here is what listserv has to say: ]From: Revised List Processor (1.6e) <uunet!CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU!LISTSERV%RPIECS.BITNET@ab.com> ]Subject: Output of your job "abvax!iccgcc.DNET!herrickd" ]To: abvax!iccgcc.DNET!herrickd ] ]> /pdget mail PD2:<MSDOS2.EDUCATION>wordwiz.arc uuencode ]Directory for PD2:<MSDOS2.EDUCATION>WORDWIZ.ARC unknown ] ]> /pdget mail PD2:<MSDOS2.EDUCATION>tsgmed11.zip uuencode ]Directory for PD2:<MSDOS2.EDUCATION>TSGMED11.ZIP unknown I get the same result for anything I request from PD2:<MSDOS2...> I edit those requests directly from the index listing (I started after beginning to get these results). > > Are they coming on c.p.i.b? Or, did I, indeed, miss them when they > went by? > > dan herrick > herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com still, dan
w8sdz@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Keith Petersen) (01/04/91)
herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (daniel lance herrick) writes: >I have read your many announcements of tsgmed and want them. I do >not believe they have passed by on c.p.i.b. I am now able to get >things from simtel20 through the rpi listserver, but listserv >persists in telling me the pd2-msdos2 directory does not exist. Apparently you do not have an up-to-date copy of SIMIBM.ARC, the complete index of msdos files on SIMTEL20. Timo's programs are all available from SIMTEL20. The PD2:<MSDOS2.*> directories do not exist. They were moved to PD1:<MSDOS.*>. This was announced to the net about two months ago. Keith -- Keith Petersen Maintainer of SIMTEL20's MSDOS, MISC & CP/M archives [IP address 26.2.0.74] Internet: w8sdz@WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil or w8sdz@vela.acs.oakland.edu Uucp: uunet!umich!vela!w8sdz BITNET: w8sdz@OAKLAND
mcc@WLV.IMSD.CONTEL.COM (Merton Campbell Crockett) (01/04/91)
Actually, Professor Timo Salmi's game collections are quite good. My daughter actually prefers them to other games that I have found. They are either in *.arc or *.zip archive formats and the collections are TSGAME, TSGMEB, TSGMEC, TSGMED, and TSGMEE available at chyde.uwasa.fi and simtel20.army.mil. Try the flag game and quiz and think it was from TSGMED. (Timo the error in the flags that I mentioned several months ago was a mental problem on my part--the national flags of Bahrain and Qatar are nearly identical.) My daughter likes the Tower of Hanoi puzzle and Hangman. The latter has a skill level option that allows you to have the gallows pre-built. Some of the other "games" in his collections should be classified as education- al utilities rather than games. Particularly, the vocabulary "games". Timo has provided a test utility--you provide the vocabulary file for the particular language you wish to study. Nice! Merton
ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) (01/04/91)
In article <2650.278314ef@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com> herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (daniel lance herrick) writes: : >I have read your many announcements of tsgmed and want them. I do >not believe they have passed by on c.p.i.b. I am now able to get >things from simtel20 through the rpi listserver, but listserv >persists in telling me the pd2-msdos2 directory does not exist. > >Are they coming on c.p.i.b? Or, did I, indeed, miss them when they >went by? Well, you missed part of them. But not all have been posted. Furthermore, as with all material, the most recent versions are best available from uwasa.fi archives directory /pc/ts (and Simtel20, of course). Be warned, though :-). All my games have an educational flavor, and one may end up inadvertently learning something. If you want to get programs from uwasa.fi archives (by anonymous ftp, or if you can't, by our mail server), and don't know how to do it, just email me for the prerecorded instructions. (Incidentally you are not using Simtel20 listserver correctly, but Keith has explained that in another message, as far as I recall.) We decided with Bill that the rest of my games will not be posted in c.b.i.p.d, because they are available by these alternative means. There is so much traffic and material for Bill to process as it is. (A further general note for downloaders. If you have anonymous ftp, DON'T use the mail server! And if you use anonymous ftp to uwasa.fi, consider using the automatic /unix/ts/batchftp102.tar.Z. It is more cost effective and besides it is more convenient for you, once you get used to it.) ................................................................... Prof. Timo Salmi (Moderating at anon. ftp site 128.214.12.3) School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun
sonny@charybdis.harris-atd.com (Bob Davis) (01/05/91)
In article <2650.278314ef@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com> herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (daniel lance herrick) writes: [DELETIONS] >not believe they have passed by on c.p.i.b. I am now able to get >things from simtel20 through the rpi listserver, but listserv >persists in telling me the pd2-msdos2 directory does not exist. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ My latest simibm.arc index file from SIMTEL shows that the PD2 disk area has disappeared and that ALL MSDOS stuff is in directories of the form: PD1:<MSDOS.xxxx> Anyone using index files showing a PD2 hierarchy probably ought to get a fresh one. _____________________________________________________________________________ Bob Davis, UofALA alum \\ INTERNET: sonny@trantor.harris-atd.com | _ _ | Harris Corporation, ESS \\ UUCP: ...!uunet!x102a!trantor!sonny |_| |_| | | Advanced Technology Dept.\\ AETHER: K4VNO |==============|_/\/\/\|_| PO Box 37, MS 3A/1912 \\ VOICE: (407) 727-5886 | I SPEAK ONLY | |_| |_| | Melbourne, FL 32902 \\ FAX: (407) 729-2537 | FOR MYSELF. |_________|
roy@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail) (01/07/91)
herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (daniel lance herrick) writes: > I get the same result for anything I request from PD2:<MSDOS2...> > I edit those requests directly from the index listing (I started > after beginning to get these results). I believe your listing is out of date. The SIMTEL directories were re-organized in December, and all the MS-DOS archives were moved to PD1:<MSDOS.*>. I retrieve files from nodak, which has also re-done their dir structure to mirror SIMTEL. -- Roy M. Silvernail -- roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu - OR- cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu Department of redundancy department, or "Take the long way home...": main(){system("perl -e '$x = 1/50; print \"Still just my \\$$x!\n\"'");} [new year, new .sig, same ol' cyberspace]