morris@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Brad Morris ) (11/13/90)
Just wondering if there was a new version of risk with color and smarter computer players. I know it has been asked about before but I have never seen a response.
c60a-aj@danube.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Gousha) (11/13/90)
morris@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Brad Morris ) writes: >Just wondering if there was a new version of risk with color and smarter >computer players. I know it has been asked about before but I have never >seen a response. Yes indeed, there is one out called (interestingly enough) ColorRisk. I've seen it in action on a color Mac (very nice!), and it play very well. Unfortunately, there's no real difference between the new version and the older ones except for the color enhancements. The major user groups like BMUG and BCS should have copies for distribution, or maybe some kind soul could post it in comp.binaries.mac for those people who want it. I'd like to, but it's 400K for just the game itself (not counting the optional color icon ResEfiles), and I don't have the know-how to do it. Anybody want to try it? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Charles Gousha | "Yes, Star Trek IS a way of life" c60a-aj@danube.berkeley.edu | (myself) All normal disclaimers apply, including some abnormal ones.
orpheus@reed.UUCP (Aaron Semplers) (11/13/90)
I decided to call Tone Engel and find out whether there was a newer version than the black and white one I had. (Not only does it bomb on the II series machines, it bombs with the usual INIT configuration on the nine-inchers I use, too.) Apparently, Engel wrote it as a proposal to Parker Brothers. They had some gripes about the user interface and the deal fell apart. He said the copy I had was a copy of a bootleg that was never intended to be distributed. He also said that he was not planning on working on it again, and that Parker Brothers was glad of it. Ignorant fools. Dare I say it, that bootleg has become one of the most popular Macintosh games ever. If they had just shrink-wrapped it and gotten it to some retailers... Oh well. Just goes to show, someone or something is trying to keep the Macintosh game market depressed. I don't know who, and I don't know why, but I intend to find out. orpheus@reed just trying to bring a little conspiracy to our bland existence
mlab2@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (11/14/90)
In article <15687@reed.UUCP>, orpheus@reed.UUCP (Aaron Semplers) writes: > Apparently, Engel wrote it as a proposal to Parker Brothers. They had > some gripes about the user interface and the deal fell apart. He said > the copy I had was a copy of a bootleg that was never intended to be > distributed. He also said that he was not planning on working on it > again, and that Parker Brothers was glad of it. > --stuff del-- > > Just goes to show, someone or something is trying to keep the Macintosh > game market depressed. I don't know who, and I don't know why, but I > intend to find out. > > orpheus@reed > just trying to bring a little conspiracy to our bland existence Has it occurred to anyone else that situations like this ought to inspire some sort of law. What I mean is, if a game was offered to a company that could perhaps sue if it is released w/o their approval, then said company ought to have its rights over the program denied. So, Parker Brothers doesn't want it? Fine, it's shareware. Or, how about games that are no longer supported or whose owning companies have folded? Should that game perhaps fall into the public domain? Where can I get Run For the Money? :) john calhoun (no long sig. here - short posts don't justify it)
pmeyer@ecocd7.intel.com (Paul Meyer) (11/15/90)
In article <26904.2740520a@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> mlab2@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes: >In article <15687@reed.UUCP>, orpheus@reed.UUCP (Aaron Semplers) writes: >> Apparently, Engel wrote it as a proposal to Parker Brothers. They had >> some gripes about the user interface and the deal fell apart. He said > >Has it occurred to anyone else that situations like this ought to inspire some >sort of law. What I mean is, if a game was offered to a company that could >perhaps sue if it is released w/o their approval, then said company ought to >have its rights over the program denied. So, Parker Brothers doesn't >want it? Fine, it's shareware. >Or, how about games that are no longer supported or whose owning >companies have folded? Should that game perhaps fall into the >public domain? Where can I get Run For the Money? :) > >john calhoun (no long sig. here - short posts don't justify it) I don't know about companies that have folded, but I wouldn't agree with a law making the Risk version PB turned down into public domain. Perhaps Parker Brothers is going to develop their own version, or they think a computer version will cut into the sales of the board version. Who knows? It's their game. We don't have a "right" to have a Mac version unless they feel like selling one or licensing it. I think the only way to get game companies into the Mac market is to make it worth their while. Buy game software, stop pirating it. Don't balk too much at a $50 or $60 game. If we give them a profit and don't steal their games, they'll see a market and fill it. Also, the low cost macs have GOT to help. If we can broaden the user base, especially at the low end, there will be a much larger market for Mac games, and we'll see some new entrants into the mac gaming arena. -- ****************************************************************************** ** Paul Meyer (602)554-2078 ** "I remember reading somewhere that men learn ** ** Intel Corp. CH3-40 ** to love the person they're attracted to and ** ** 5000 W. Chandler Blvd. ** that women become more and more attracted to ** ** Chandler, AZ 85210 ** the person that they love." ** ** pmeyer@cmdnfs.intel.com ** Sex, Lies, and Videotape ** ******************************************************************************
ccastcr@prism.gatech.EDU (Russo, Chris A.) (11/15/90)
What if the person who writes the game doesn't make any money off it?
For instance, I wrote a game called NeXTman (similar to PacMan if you hadn't
guessed) and in it are icons representing NeXT, IBM, Apple, and Sun. I'm
not 'demanding' a sharewawre fee, so I don't stand to make any money on it.
Can they do something legal about it if they want to?
--
Russo, Chris A.
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!ccastcr
Internet: ccastcr@prism.gatech.educarl@udwarf.tymnet.com (Carl Baltrunas & Cherie Marinelli 0.1.9) (11/15/90)
In article <8848@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, c60a-aj@danube.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Gousha) writes: > > morris@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Brad Morris ) writes: > >Just wondering if there was a new version of risk with color and smarter > >computer players. I know it has been asked about before but I have never > >seen a response. > > Yes indeed, there is one out called (interestingly enough) ColorRisk. > I've seen it in action on a color Mac (very nice!), and it play very well. > Unfortunately, there's no real difference between the new version and the > older ones except for the color enhancements. > ... I'd like to, but it's 400K for just the game itself (not > counting the optional color icon ResEfiles), ... > Charles Gousha Hmmm. That's funny. I have Risk by Antone Engel in black & white, takes 120k on my hard disk, and a color version 2.40 of the same game that takes 114k. I didn't get a copy of the color icon ResFiles, although there are a couple of color icons in the program itself. -Carl Carl A Baltrunas - Catalyst Art Cherie Marinelli - Bijoux {sumex, apple}!oliveb!tymix!atlas!udwarf!{carl or cherie} {carl or cherie}%udwarf@tardis.tymnet.com
mlab2@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (11/16/90)
In article <17105@hydra.gatech.EDU>, ccastcr@prism.gatech.EDU (Russo, Chris A.) writes: > What if the person who writes the game doesn't make any money off it? > > For instance, I wrote a game called NeXTman (similar to PacMan if you hadn't > guessed) and in it are icons representing NeXT, IBM, Apple, and Sun. I'm > not 'demanding' a sharewawre fee, so I don't stand to make any money on it. > Can they do something legal about it if they want to? > > > -- > Russo, Chris A. I've been told that, more than likely, the company could only get you to pull your game (read Williams and Glypha). That seems sort of difficult though. You could only hope to take it off the boards you put it up on. And then, of course, someone else puts it back up. It's a tough one. john calhoun
carl@udwarf.tymnet.com (Carl Baltrunas & Cherie Marinelli 0.1.9) (11/16/90)
In article <15687@reed.UUCP>, orpheus@reed.UUCP (Aaron Semplers) writes: > > I decided to call Tone Engel and find out whether there was a newer > version than the black and white one I had. > Apparently, Engel wrote it as a proposal to Parker Brothers. They had > some gripes about the user interface and the deal fell apart. He said > the copy I had was a copy of a bootleg that was never intended to be > distributed. He also said that he was not planning on working on it > again, and that Parker Brothers was glad of it. > I always wondered how he got past Parker Prothers and the trademark. Thank you for letting us know. Well, I just pulled out ResEdit and compared the two versions of Risk I have a little bit more. Black & White version: The "About Risk" from the apple icon gives us the picture that lists Tone Engel as the implementor and gives his address and 1986 as the date. A "str" resource has "Tone Engel and Mark Briggs" listed as implementors. The get info comments say "Tone's Tester - August 4, 1985". Color version: The get info comments say "A world conquest game" and "version 2.40" which appears to be version 2, revision 4, revision-stage 0 or build-number 0. All references to Tone Engel et al have been removed. No authorship was found anywhere in the file that I looked. (Mind you, I just did all this while I was composing this message, so I didn't scan the code resources for any possible strings.) The BNDL resource has references to the color icons and there are a few icons in the icl8 resource. They appear to play identically, except that the color version lets you choose colors and the b&w version lets you choose patterns. I think you can also get the patterns on the color version, but I don't remember where or when I saw it. The color version has a couple of extra menu options and lets you set animation speed. > Ignorant fools. Dare I say it, that bootleg has become one of the most > popular Macintosh games ever. If they had just shrink-wrapped it and > gotten it to some retailers... Oh well. Maybe they're listening. Then again, why would they be on the internet? > Just goes to show, someone or something is trying to keep the Macintosh > game market depressed. I don't know who, and I don't know why, but I > intend to find out. Gee! and I thought Apple was doin' that :-) by not putting in any custom graphics chips like that other 680x0 machine. :-) :-) :-) > orpheus@reed -Carl Carl A Baltrunas - Catalyst Art Cherie Marinelli - Bijoux {sumex, apple}!oliveb!tymix!atlas!udwarf!{carl or cherie} {carl or cherie}%udwarf@tardis.tymnet.com
orpheus@reed.UUCP (Aaron Semplers) (11/16/90)
| AARON SEMPLERS: | Apparently, Engel wrote it as a proposal to Parker Brothers. They | had some gripes about the user interface and the deal fell apart. | JOHN CALHOUN: | What I mean is, if a game was offered to a company that could | perhaps sue if it is released w/o their approval, then said company | ought to have its rights over the program denied. So, Parker | Brothers doesn't want it? | Fine, it's shareware. | PAUL MEYER: | I don't know about companies that have folded, but I wouldn't | agree with a law making the Risk version PB turned down into public | domain... It's their game... | I think the only way to get game companies into the Mac market is | to make it worth their while. Buy game software, stop pirating it... | If we can broaden the user base, especially at the low end, there | will be a much larger market for Mac games, and we'll see some new | entrants into the mac gaming arena. No one can deny that Risk belongs to Parker Brothers. It would be interesting to see legislation passed that made copyright and trademark nothing more than a "first shot at it" sort of thing. Interesting, but probably not in the long term interests of the economy. I am not big on intellectual property rights myself, but they do serve a purpose. More to the point, the reason the Mac game market is pretty damn barren is not because of pirating. That is a factor in any game market, but certainly much more of a factor in the PC world than the Mac world, and I don't see Jet Fighter coming out for the Mac any time soon. I suspect that copy protection itself is more to blame for poor game sales that piracy. And of course, that is not the primary reason, either. The truth is, programming a Mac to do any serious gaming requires devotion and time. Lots of it. It is a far cry from the micros of the early Eighties, and to do anything with offscreen worlds has been a roller coaster ride to Hell until recently. HyperCard was meant to soften the blow, I think. Perhaps this current crop of HyperCard games will go on to put out a lot of good products. (Eeesh. I'm scaring myself.) The best thing being done for the Macintosh game market today is 32-Bit QuickDraw and the low-cost machines. orpheus@reed
orpheus@reed.UUCP (Aaron Semplers) (11/16/90)
| AARON SEMPLERS: | Apparently, Engel wrote it as a proposal to Parker Brothers. They | had some gripes about the user interface and the deal fell apart. | JOHN CALHOUN: | What I mean is, if a game was offered to a company that could | perhaps sue if it is released w/o their approval, then said company | ought to have its rights over the program denied. So, Parker | Brothers doesn't want it? | Fine, it's shareware. | PAUL MEYER: | I don't know about companies that have folded, but I wouldn't | agree with a law making the Risk version PB turned down into public | domain... It's their game... | I think the only way to get game companies into the Mac market is | to make it worth their while. Buy game software, stop pirating it... | If we can broaden the user base, especially at the low end, there | will be a much larger market for Mac games, and we'll see some new | entrants into the mac gaming arena. No one can deny that Risk belongs to Parker Brothers. It would be interesting to see legislation passed that made copyright and trademark nothing more than a "first shot at it" sort of thing. Interesting, but probably not in the long term interests of the economy. I am not big on intellectual property rights myself, but they do serve a purpose. More to the point, the reason the Mac game market is pretty damn barren is not because of pirating. That is a factor in any game market, but certainly much more of a factor in the PC world than the Mac world, and I don't see Jet Fighter coming out for the Mac any time soon. I suspect that copy protection itself is more to blame for poor game sales that piracy. And of course, that is not the primary reason, either. The truth is, programming a Mac to do any serious gaming requires devotion and time. Lots of it. It is a far cry from the micros of the early Eighties, and to do anything with offscreen worlds has been a roller coaster ride to Hell until recently. HyperCard was meant to soften the blow, I think. Perhaps this current crop of HyperCard games will go on to put out a lot of good products. (Eeesh. I'm scaring myself.) The best thing being done for the Macintosh game market today is 32-Bit QuickDraw and the low-cost machines. orpheus@reed
francis@arthur.uchicago.edu (Francis Stracke) (11/17/90)
In article <15713@reed.UUCP> orpheus@reed.UUCP (Aaron Semplers) writes: > No one can deny that Risk belongs to Parker Brothers. It would be >interesting to see legislation passed that made copyright and trademark >nothing more than a "first shot at it" sort of thing. Interesting, but >probably not in the long term interests of the economy. I am not big on >intellectual property rights myself, but they do serve a purpose. That's how it works in the music industry! The original composer has the right to decide who first records/markets his song (i.e., if I write a song, & show it to somebody, they can't record it & market it before I do. In fact, if I write a song, and give it to my record company, then they get me mad for something--say, advertising it obnoxiously-- I can deny them the marketing & go to somebody else. [Note that "I" here should be taken as a general pronoun; I am not a composer. :-)] Contract law probably modifies this; I'm not sure.) Not sure why it's different for music... | Francis Stracke | My opinions are my own. I don't steal them.| | Department of Mathematics |=============================================| | University of Chicago | Non sequiturs make me eat lampshades | | francis@zaphod.uchicago.edu | |
carl@udwarf.tymnet.com (Carl Baltrunas & Cherie Marinelli 0.1.9) (11/18/90)
In article <969@inews.intel.com>, pmeyer@ecocd7.intel.com (Paul Meyer) writes: > > In article <26904.2740520a@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> mlab2@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes: > >In article <15687@reed.UUCP>, orpheus@reed.UUCP (Aaron Semplers) writes: > >> Apparently, Engel wrote it as a proposal to Parker Brothers. They had > >> some gripes about the user interface and the deal fell apart. He said > > > >Has it occurred to anyone else that situations like this ought to inspire some > >sort of law. What I mean is, if a game was offered to a company that could > >perhaps sue if it is released w/o their approval, then said company ought to > >have its rights over the program denied. So, Parker Brothers doesn't > >want it? Fine, it's shareware. > > I don't know about companies that have folded, but I wouldn't > agree with a law making the Risk version PB turned down into public > domain. Perhaps Parker Brothers is going to develop their own version, > or they think a computer version will cut into the sales of the board > version. Who knows? It's their game. We don't have a "right" to have > a Mac version unless they feel like selling one or licensing it. > Maybe if you really like something like "Risk", whether it was a demo or bootleg, you can all write to Parker Brothers and tell them you like the version you've seen written by Tone Engel and you think they should contact Tone and market it. It is a good implementation and with support from PB it could have additional battle scenerios added (making the computer more difficult to beat) and/or multi-user versions could be made that run over a lan or appletalk network. Tell them you would buy it if they distributed it. (Of course someone in the Boston area should call Tone and ask him if he'd be willing to work on it again if PB contacted him. His program may not be public domain, or even able to be sold due to trademark, but it is his intellectual property and he does have a copyright on his source code.) [[Climb on soapbox]] It seems to me that a lot of companies look for making a profit first and what kind of market a potential product has. Much less often will the market go to an existing company and say: "We want you to produce this existing product in this medium." i.e. We want Parker Brothers to provide a computer version of their Risk game with a nifty interface, say like on a Macintosh. One reason for this is it costs to diversify. If you make board games, your production is in designing artwork for the boards, printing cards, directions and manufacturing game pieces. Designing computer software to play the same games is a completely different business. The packaging part may be similar but you have to hire a different type of people, and you can't just expect to sell a game on it's own merits. You have to remember the platform it run on (and the platforms keep changing... PB can sell the exact same game board they developed years ago and people would buy it... you can't do that with software). [Climb off soapbox] By the way, I have a version of Risk written in Basic for the PDP-10 and a copy that I ported into Fortran to run on the same machine 15 years ago. Bet no one would want to port that to the Mac. The interface has changed so much that it would NOT be worth the bother to port it. Better to rewrite it from scratch with maybe a few hints on the strategy code from reading the Basic or Fortran. It even draws maps of the world and the continents on the hardcopy terminal that it was designed to run on. Of course, I almost never use the PDP-10s any more since I'm now mostly working with SunOs (Unix) and my Mac, so digging out the sources is non-trivial. Anyway, that's my $0.02 worth... maybe someone from Parker Brothers IS on the net and they are listening and reading comp.*.*.games or rec.*games. Anyone know? (or maybe they just use computers for process control and billing? :-) -Carl Carl A Baltrunas - Catalyst Art Cherie Marinelli - Bijoux {sumex, apple}!oliveb!tymix!atlas!udwarf!{carl or cherie} {carl or cherie}%udwarf@tardis.tymnet.com
rose@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Dan Rose) (11/18/90)
francis@arthur.uchicago.edu (Francis Stracke) writes: >In article <15713@reed.UUCP> orpheus@reed.UUCP (Aaron Semplers) writes: >> No one can deny that Risk belongs to Parker Brothers. It would be >>interesting to see legislation passed that made copyright and trademark >>nothing more than a "first shot at it" sort of thing. >That's how it works in the music industry! The original composer has >the right to decide who first records/markets his song (i.e., if I write >a song, & show it to somebody, they can't record it & market it before >I do. There seems to be some confusion here. According to copyright law (which applies to any work that can be "fixed in a tangible medium of expression," including music, lyrics, and many aspects of games), the "author" has the sole right to decide if, when, and how his/her work can be reproduced. If Parker Brothers is the owner of one or more copyrights for Risk (probably for the board, the appearance of the cards and pieces, and the rules), they are under no obligation to license it to anyone. On the other hand, they would have trouble stopping anyone from marketing a game with similar ideas but a different division of territories and a different name. Think of all the clones you see after a really successful book or movie comes out. As far as their trademark goes, I imagine they could sue anyone who tried to use the name, pass off a game as being connected with Risk, or generally corrupted the value of the name (e.g. X-rated Risk, whatever that would be). Dan Rose UCSD -- Dan Rose {ucbvax,decvax,akgua,dcdwest}!sdcsvax!beowulf!rose.uucp UC San Diego rose%cs@ucsd.edu
jsp@key.COM (James Preston) (11/20/90)
Regarding why Parker Bros. might not be too interested in marketing the existing Mac version of Risk: Owning a Mac and no PC's, I normally pay no attention to what exists in the PC world, but I was thumbing through a catalog from Egghead yesterday and couldn't help notice that there is a Parker Bros. authorized version of Risk for the PC. Since there seem to be a lot of folks here who play this game, I have a question. Is it just me, or are all the variations of the computer opponents just plain DUMB? I have played many times, against many different numbers and combinations of computer opponents, and I have almost never had any trouble beating them. I mean, it's almost embarrassingly easily. None of the computer opponents seem to have the slightest concept of even the most basic of strategies for this game, such as that continents are important to hold for yourself and important to take away from your opponents. At first, I thought it might be because I always go for South America first. But no, I can almost always quickly take and hold North America, or Europe, or even Asia and the stupid computer opponents don't really fight me for them! So I've given up playing; there's just no challenge to it. --James Preston
ccastcr@prism.gatech.EDU (Russo, Chris A.) (11/20/90)
orpheus@reed.UUCP (Aaron Semplers) writes: > More to the point, the reason the Mac game market is pretty damn >barren is not because of pirating. That is a factor in any game market, >but certainly much more of a factor in the PC world than the Mac world, >and I don't see Jet Fighter coming out for the Mac any time soon. I >suspect that copy protection itself is more to blame for poor game sales >that piracy. And of course, that is not the primary reason, either. To tell you the truth, I've yet to see any really good action games for the color Mac. And you know what? I don't think I ever will. The Mac just can't animate worth a damn! I'm really tired of these slow flickery graphics. Those of you in the back yelling 'Solarian', 'Crystal Quest' just sit down again. I said _really_ good action game. The above mentioned games are merely ok. I'm talking _good_ games. Anyone with even a little Nintendo knows what I'm talking about. We'll never have large smoothly scrolling screens, continuous background music, a decent input device. I could cry when I watch even the poorly written Amiga games. > The truth is, programming a Mac to do any serious gaming requires >devotion and time. Lots of it. It is a far cry from the micros of the >early Eighties, and to do anything with offscreen worlds has been a >roller coaster ride to Hell until recently. HyperCard was meant to soften >the blow, I think. Perhaps this current crop of HyperCard games will go >on to put out a lot of good products. (Eeesh. I'm scaring myself.) Dear lord, I hope no one seriously expects Hypercard to provide a decent game platform. What's needed on the Mac is a set of development tools equivalent to those of a NeXT. > The best thing being done for the Macintosh game market today is >32-Bit QuickDraw and the low-cost machines. I agree as far as the LC machines go. (Even though some speed was sacrificed) 32 bit quickdraw? The 8-24GC card perhaps? I spit on the 8-24GC (ptoooeey) ---->Too little, too late, ..............toooooo expen$ive. I wish things were different. There are a lot of non action games that I really enjoy- I hasten to add. -- Russo, Chris A. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!ccastcr Internet: ccastcr@prism.gatech.edu
news@lanl.gov (11/21/90)
Russo, Chris A. <ccastcr@prism.gatech.edu> writes: >We'll never have large smoothly scrolling screens, continuous background >music, a decent input device. * large smoothly scrolling screens: Beyond Dark Castle, Sky Shadow, etc.. * continuous background music: Mission Starflight (and others)... * a decent input device: hmm, take a look at the "gold brick" which allows ANY nintendo device to be used with a mac. - Yossie --- yossie@fnal.fnal.gov; yossie@fnccf.bitnet What did the Caspian Sea? - Saki
orpheus@reed.UUCP (Aaron Semplers) (11/22/90)
| Chris Russo writes: | To tell you the truth, I've yet to see any really good action | games for the color Mac. And you know what? I don't think I ever will. | The Mac just can't animate worth a damn! I'm really tired of these | slow flickery graphics... We'll never have large smoothly scrolling | screens, continuous background music, a decent input device. I could | cry when I watch even the poorly written Amiga games. Its funny that the Amiga, hybrid product that it is, has such good graphics. It seems to me that the Amiga advantage is the number of hacks who have been able to afford it over the years, unlike Macs. I am quite certain that the Mac is capable of the graphics that you describe. I am not familiar with the Amiga, but I do have some degree of experience programming the Macintosh. We have the technology. Have you ever noticed that if a game comes out for the Mac, nine times out of ten, that game is black and white? And probably lame? As far as I can tell, there are three major reasons for it. {1} Most of the tweaks that write really good games are using classic Macs, at school, with no practical color or stereo capabilities anyway. It makes it easy, pretty fast, and lowers the common denominator. {2} Even if you have color and stereo hardware, there are many, many obstacles you have to overcome in order to take advantage of it. The guys at Apple who support developers do a damn good job, but there are still so many little things you have to do right that nobody ever happens to mention. These are little things that take a long time, even for an experienced programmer with a decent development system to figure out on his or her own. And then, you have to write the code necessary to support the classic Macs as well as the latest. So, once you overcome the Mac problems, and whatever problems you have with all the math involved to do sweet graphics and sound, there are secret, undocumented problems in one (or more) of the more popular compilers that take forever to get confirmed long distance. It begins to seem that in writing a game, life has become a game. {3} Assuming that after several months you have gotten this far, you are a well-versed Macintosh programmer with months of notes and a good understanding of the problems you will face as you write the game. If you remember what you set out to write in the first place, the thought of overcoming all of those obstacles again, in the context of the original application, can be mind-boggling. It almost becomes more appealing to write the next Illustrator 88 with everything you have learned or maybe some wild screen savers, anything but assembling it all over again. I set out to top a game for the IBM PC called Jet Fighter a long time ago. Granted, it was an ambitious project, but it turns out that what I thought would be easy was very difficult and vice versa. I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm over the hump with graphics, going into sound once I get the docs for the new Sound Manager, but anybody else would be starting from scratch. By the way, the reason I said that 32-Bit QuickDraw was just as important as the low cost machines is that it can reduce the time it takes to do really hot graphics from a year or more to a month or more. orpheus@reed "It's all becoming clear to me now..." (anyone who sent me mail, the vax was down for a while, please retry)
brendan@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (Brendan Mahony) (11/22/90)
In <2280@key.COM> jsp@key.COM (James Preston) writes: >Since there seem to be a lot of folks here who play this game, I have a >question. Is it just me, or are all the variations of the computer opponents >just plain DUMB? I have played many times, against many different numbers >and combinations of computer opponents, and I have almost never had any >trouble beating them. Have you played against five cautious opponents? If so I'd like to know how you won easily. They react to the taking of one of their provinces by coming from any where to get you. They never fight amongst themeselves. And if you kill one of them they declare holy jihad against you. And as they have spent the entire game doing nothing but build their forces this is tricky. My only strategy in the end was to knock each of them down to one province one at a time. This took forever. -- Brendan Mahony | brendan@batserver.cs.uq.oz Department of Computer Science | heretic: someone who disgrees with you University of Queensland | about something neither of you knows Australia | anything about.
duqu@quads.uchicago.edu (walter bismarck duque de estrada) (11/23/90)
I can defeat the hardest arrangement (5 cautious players, random territories, 5 army bonus always) by letting all countries build up to 99 armies. To do this you have to set your person as a cautious player and build up. THis wil take a few minutes. Once this happens, choose to attack a country that when the opposing man tries to go for you he will have to destroy one or more opponent countries in the way. EXAMPLE: You fortuitously have all of Australia except Indonesia which is owned by Enemy A. Enemy A's nearest country to Indonesia is Ukraine. When you attack and defeat Indonesia, he'll have to run over Afghanistan, China and Siam before getting to Indonesia. This should give you enough time to rebuild your forces, since no one will be attacking you for a long while. -- _____________________________________________________________ Walter Duque de Estrada duqu@quads.uchicago.edu "Peachy!"
taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor) (11/23/90)
James Preston writes: > Regarding why Parker Bros. might not be too interested in marketing the > existing Mac version of Risk: Owning a Mac and no PC's, I normally pay no > attention to what exists in the PC world, but I was thumbing through a > catalog from Egghead yesterday and couldn't help notice that there is a > Parker Bros. authorized version of Risk for the PC. Most likely that game is from Leisure Genius of Florida (distributed, I believe, by Virgin Mastertronics of LA) (as I recall) and last time I talked with them they were planning on coming out with a version of this title for the Macintosh too. They also have a number of other Parker Brothers titles available on computer, including the authorized version of Scrabble, Monopoly, and so on. I have tried both Scrabble and Monopoly and outside of the excellent cover art, I found them both quite lacking (not to mention non-32-bit-QD compatible!!). BTW: I would be delighted to find a well-designed Monopoly game for the Macintosh that had some reasonable strategies that I could play against, but I have yet to even come close...(and writing my own seems like an awful lot of work) -- Dave Taylor Intuitive Systems Mountain View, California taylor@limbo.intuitive.com or {uunet!}{decwrl,apple}!limbo!taylor
ymatsumoto@eagle.wesleyan.edu (11/23/90)
Even against five cautious opponents, winning is not necessarily too hard. With card redemption values at the highest, it would probably take me about fifteen minutes to win a game... The key is to indeed strike one opponent at a time; however, there are several other tricks. 1) Try to knock down countries so the enemy will have to go through several other opponents' countries to get it back (ie make your opponent go against innocent other countries on the way). However, beware: The computer will always try to go through YOUR countries. 2) Sometimes, after you attack 5 or so adjacent countries of one opponent, take a sidestep and leave the 5 countries you just occupied unmanned. I would assume that the opponent will immediately take these five countries back at once. Of course, all you have to do then is to get them back one country per turn to get five times as many cards. 3) In the beginning of the game it might also help to allow the computer to redeem their cards, just to quicken the game a little bit. (Max # of men you can get when you turn in cards is 50) 4) And of course, don't eliminate just one country; others will declare jihad on you. Try to keep all the countries alive until you're sure you can sweep the board within a turn. It's also helpful if you make sure every country has at least 2 cards when you eliminate them. I found that trying to win at 5,5,5,5,... takes forever, though. It's possible, but it took me hours and hours -- simply takes too long to be enjoyable (it was just tedious). -Yoshi Matsumoto ymatsumoto@eagle.wesleyan.edu
pascal@CAM.ORG (Pascal Gosselin) (11/23/90)
jsp@key.COM (James Preston) writes: >Regarding why Parker Bros. might not be too interested in marketing the >existing Mac version of Risk: Owning a Mac and no PC's, I normally pay no >attention to what exists in the PC world, but I was thumbing through a >catalog from Egghead yesterday and couldn't help notice that there is a >Parker Bros. authorized version of Risk for the PC. >Since there seem to be a lot of folks here who play this game, I have a >question. Is it just me, or are all the variations of the computer opponents >just plain DUMB? I have played many times, against many different numbers >and combinations of computer opponents, and I have almost never had any >trouble beating them. I mean, it's almost embarrassingly easily. None of >the computer opponents seem to have the slightest concept of even the most >basic of strategies for this game, such as that continents are important to >hold for yourself and important to take away from your opponents. At first, >I thought it might be because I always go for South America first. But no, >I can almost always quickly take and hold North America, or Europe, or even >Asia and the stupid computer opponents don't really fight me for them! So >I've given up playing; there's just no challenge to it. >--James Preston A friend of mine bought the PC version of Risk and said that it is 100 times more powerful that the Mac software. Mac Risk uses blind luck (conservative, cahotic, warrior). It is unfortunate since I love Risk, but also find it embarrassingly easy to win at Mac Risk. If you play two players or more with the computer playing the other opponents, the only strategy involves nuking the computer at the right time to get his Risk cards !!!!! -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Pascal Gosselin | Internet: P.Gosselin@CAM.ORG Applelink: CDA0585 | | Gest-Mac Inc. Apple VAR | Voice (514) 767-4444 Fax (514) 767-7337 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
ccastcr@prism.gatech.EDU (Russo, Chris A.) (11/23/90)
news@lanl.gov writes: >* large smoothly scrolling screens: Beyond Dark Castle, Sky Shadow, etc.. >* continuous background music: Mission Starflight (and others)... >* a decent input device: hmm, take a look at the "gold brick" which allows > ANY nintendo device to be used with a mac. >- Yossie I said for the _COLOR_ mac. I've never seen Sky Shadow, but I'd bet big money that even if it is in color, it has some deficiencies in scrolling. -- Russo, Chris A. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!ccastcr Internet: ccastcr@prism.gatech.edu
ccastcr@prism.gatech.EDU (Russo, Chris A.) (11/23/90)
brendan@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (Brendan Mahony) writes: >In <2280@key.COM> jsp@key.COM (James Preston) writes: >>Since there seem to be a lot of folks here who play this game, I have a >>question. Is it just me, or are all the variations of the computer opponents >>just plain DUMB? I have played many times, against many different numbers >>and combinations of computer opponents, and I have almost never had any >>trouble beating them. >Have you played against five cautious opponents? If so I'd like to know >how you won easily. They react to the taking of one of their provinces >by coming from any where to get you. They never fight amongst >themeselves. And if you kill one of them they declare holy jihad >against you. And as they have spent the entire game doing nothing but >build their forces this is tricky. My only strategy in the end was to >knock each of them down to one province one at a time. This took >forever. >-- I'm afraid I'd have to agree with James on this one. The computer is ridiculously easy. I do everything I can to give the computer a break. I play against all aggressives. I usually only start with one country(rather than protect a bunch during initial play). One thing that _sometimes_ will give me a good game; set the armies recieved for a card set up to the maximum increasing rate. Sometimes the computer will get lucky and storm all over you forcing you to make a comeback. -- Russo, Chris A. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!ccastcr Internet: ccastcr@prism.gatech.edu
carl@udwarf.tymnet.com (Carl Baltrunas & Cherie Marinelli 0.1.9) (11/24/90)
In article <2280@key.COM>, jsp@key.COM (James Preston) writes: > > > Regarding why Parker Bros. might not be too interested in marketing the > existing Mac version of Risk: ...couldn't help notice that there is a > Parker Bros. authorized version of Risk for the PC. > > Since there seem to be a lot of folks here who play this game, I have a > question. Is it just me, or are all the variations of the computer opponents > just plain DUMB? I have played many times, against many different numbers > and combinations of computer opponents, and I have almost never had any > trouble beating them. I mean, it's almost embarrassingly easily. None of > the computer opponents seem to have the slightest concept of even the most > basic of strategies for this game, such as that continents are important to > hold for yourself and important to take away from your opponents. At first, > I thought it might be because I always go for South America first. But no, > I can almost always quickly take and hold North America, or Europe, or even > Asia and the stupid computer opponents don't really fight me for them! So > I've given up playing; there's just no challenge to it. > > --James Preston > I can't speak for the PC versions, but there are 3 variants of computer play on the risk version and at least one of them seems to know about continents. If I take a continent, they take it away. They know that their production goes up if they have a continent... etc. I can still beat the computer pretty easily, (one human, 5 aggressive computer players) if I set the number of armies from cards to 4,6,8,10,15,20,25,... But if the card setting is 5,5,5,5,... it's not easy at all. In fact I don't always win in this mode. Even the board game against human players, certain strategies seem to work as long as everyone doesn't gang up on you. If the Mac version requires strategy changes, the major change should be to allow temporary alliances and make them based on strength or position on the board between the computer players. Maybe add an "alliance" option, setting up an alliance for n moves, permanent (until only you two are left), etc. And the computer should take into account broken alliances. Some other strategy types could be added too: Continent grabbers (grab continents at all costs), card grabbers (take a country just to get a card, regardless of position), player killers (try to take a player out of the game, regardless of position, usually the player with the least number of countries/men)... It's hard for the computer to be the winner when it is playing all-out for 5 players without alliances. True, it has more chances, but it's loyalty is very divided. I don't know if the computer remembers past aggression the way human players do, or looks at the game progress and decides that a particular player needs to be stopped. Again, alliances would bite into this and make for a more interesting game. I play the Mac version when I want to take a break and want to kill 15 minutes or so. A big difference to the 2-4 hour games among 6 humans, but the attack dice rolls go a LOT faster with the computer. -Carl Carl A Baltrunas - Catalyst Art Cherie Marinelli - Bijoux {sumex, apple}!oliveb!tymix!tardis!udwarf!{carl or cherie} {carl or cherie}%udwarf@tardis.tymnet.com
rlwald@phoenix.princeton.edu (Rob Wald) (11/26/90)
In article <15722@reed.UUCP> orpheus@reed.UUCP (Aaron Semplers) writes: > Its funny that the Amiga, hybrid product that it is, has such > good graphics. It seems to me that the Amiga advantage is the number > of hacks who have been able to afford it over the years, unlike Macs. I don't think anyone wants to get into a discussion, so I won't ask about how the Amiga is a hybrid product. But the reason it has good graphical games is because it has some co-processors to handle graphics that provide advanced features which aren't really available on the Mac. 104% of all statistics are wrong.
jsp@key.COM (James Preston) (11/27/90)
Ok, many people have suggested playing against five neutral opponents as a way to make this game harder. I agree that it makes it more difficult to win, but it is also completely unrealistic. The neutral setting does not play like any person I've ever known. It doesn't try to win, it only wants to keep it's original territory. And therefore, it will NEVER wipe me out! Because it's always satisfied when it gets its own territories back, it will leave me alive in two countries with one army in each, when it borders me with countries containing ten or twenty armies! I don't want a game that is a challenge to win because it's totally artificial, I want a game that is a challenge because the other players are trying to win too! Without the possibility of my being wiped out, it just becomes an endurance test. And by the way, it still isn't that hard to win against five neutrals, if you have the patience. Basically, you just need to do two things. 1) Maneuver them into fighting each other. Do this by taking player A's territories such that he will have to go through some of player B's territories to get them back (and leave only one army in the taken territories). 2) While you're doing the above, get yourself into a position so that you will have the connectivity and resources to wipe out player A. Also try to make sure that you kill him when he has three or four cards. Usually getting to this point takes sufficient time so that the card values are high enough (even in the middle progression) so that the combination of killing one player and getting those bonus armies from his cards gives you enough advantage to win. I have yet to actually lose a game like this. I have, however, given up from boredom. --James Preston
ccastcr@prism.gatech.EDU (Russo, Chris A.) (11/27/90)
orpheus@reed.UUCP (Aaron Semplers) writes: > I am quite certain that the Mac is capable of the graphics that >you describe. I am not familiar with the Amiga, but I do have some >degree of experience programming the Macintosh. We have the technology. I hate to be negative about a machine I love so much, but this just isn't the case. The Mac doesn't have a little thing called a graphics coprocessor. The Amiga does.(not to mention a sound coprocessor. well, I guess I just did, but anyway) I recall this one game for the amiga called 'Airborne Ranger', I think. I didn't watch too much of it, but what I did see looked more like a movie than a game. The sounds were rich, smooth and stereo. And the graphics! In one part of this game, your character is practically the height of the screen. While he's running, the _entire_ screen show's a campground that scrolls by. > {1} Most of the tweaks that write really good games are using classic >Macs, at school, with no practical color or stereo capabilities anyway. >It makes it easy, pretty fast, and lowers the common denominator. That's not true either. I've tried to do some serious animation on my color mac. I know what I'm doing, and I've gotten my bit copying algorithms down to a minimum(more or less). And yet, these algorithms just aren't enough to manipulate large objects. On one game I wrote, only 4 objects are animated at a time(4 pixels a jump). This looks smooth enough, but when I play a sound, everything slows down a slight bit. > I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm over the hump with graphics, going >into sound once I get the docs for the new Sound Manager, but anybody >else would be starting from scratch. BTW, I hate the sound manager routines. I haven't seen if they've fixed the bugs in it since 6.02, but I do know that my game NeXTman crashes like a big dog because of apple's screwing around. I know, some of you are saying "If this guy loves the Amiga so much, why doesn't he just sell his II, buy an amiga, and (u)nsubscribe to this newsgroup?" But, as I said before, I love this machine. I feel that its overall advantages are better than any machine out today. NeXT's are cool, but they have no user nor software base. Same also applies to the Suns. IBM? Hahahaha, I crack myself up, really. I just think that it's a shame that a graphics based machine has gone so long without a graphics coprocessor. Kind of like submarine based missiles without a submarine. Powerful, but not all of it's capabilities are being utilized. -- Russo, Chris A. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!ccastcr Internet: ccastcr@prism.gatech.edu
orpheus@reed.UUCP (Aaron Semplers) (11/27/90)
| Chris Russo writes: | The Mac doesn't have a little thing called a graphics coprocessor. | The Amiga does. Granted. We are at a disadvantage until the machine we both adore gets a graphics coprocessor, and gobs of other gear and code. Of course, there'll be that large user base out there with no such luck... When I said we had the technology, I was hedging a bit. Notice, I did not say hardware. I just meant that we can do scolling panoramas and moving characters, like maybe some molasses in January or some snails racing postmen or something. The momentum is definitely against us on this one. I suppose the number of really interesting simulations, like the SimGames and Balance of Power, does create something of a mystique for the Mac, but then they get ported to hell and back. | I just think that it's a shame that a graphics based has gone | so long without a graphics coprocessor. Kind of like submarine | based missiles without a submarine. Powerful, but not all of it's | capabilities are being utilized. The Question of the Hour: How can we, as Macintosh developers, put out games that can compete with the impressive array of games for the Amiga? Like you, I found that the graphics routines were the slowest part. The code used shaded surfaces, drawn in an offscreen world, copied to the screen as quickly as possible. The math was blindingly fast. I mean, it was really fast. I had trouble timing it, it was so fast. It was the graphics, both vector and raster, that took time. The time the drawing took was proportional to the number of final line segments, and somewhat to the area of the polygons to be filled. No matter how many there were or how fast they were drawn, I could only crank out and copy so many frames per second. I tried drawing the objects from a series of angles, storing them, and using the appropriate picture whenever necessary. Sadly, it ran into the frame rate problem. How can we compensate for the lack of speed? We have graphics routines. They are glacial, but present. And we have sound. So what if we don't have MIDI, NTSC, and a coprocessor to brush our teeth for us when we forget? So what? The Amiga games are basically just programs looking for approval. They show what can be done with an Amiga. Our programs cannot attempt to be what they are, any more than Amiga could develop a standard graphics format. {Jab, jab.} We ought to stay at it, I guess, finding other saving graces... Like totally localizable, device independent games... | I know, some of you are saying "If this guy loves the Amiga so much, | why doesn't he just sell his II, buy an amiga, and (u)nsubscribe | to this newsgroup?" But, as I said before, I love this machine. | I feel that its overall advantages are better than any machine | out today. I gotta admit, it really looks like the Amiga is the better machine. At least, until you ask around about the reliability of their hardware. {Jab, jab.} Really, if nothing else, it has made us think critically about the machine, and how we need to be using it. You know, now that I think about it, maybe we should do a game with the snails and postmen and molasses and such. It's just so sarcastic, it might work. orpheus@reed "...visions of 'bright young men' with their mathematical models and automation taking over..."
jmunkki@hila.hut.fi (Juri Munkki) (11/28/90)
In article <2301@key.COM> jsp@penguin.key.COM (James Preston) writes: >Ok, many people have suggested playing against five neutral opponents as a >way to make this game harder. I agree that it makes it more difficult to >win, but it is also completely unrealistic. The neutral setting does not >play like any person I've ever known. It doesn't try to win, it only wants >to keep it's original territory. And therefore, it will NEVER wipe me out! >Because it's always satisfied when it gets its own territories back, it will >leave me alive in two countries with one army in each, when it borders me >with countries containing ten or twenty armies! I don't want a game that is >a challenge to win because it's totally artificial, I want a game that is a >challenge because the other players are trying to win too! Without the >possibility of my being wiped out, it just becomes an endurance test. In the copy of Risk that I have, if you destroy a nation completely, all neutral opponents suddenly think they have lost territory from totally random spots. This makes winning the game even harder. When you wipe out one country, everyone starts fighting. The trick is not to let any single country to become too strong. ____________________________________________________________________________ / Juri Munkki / Helsinki University of Technology / Wind / Project / / jmunkki@hut.fi / Computing Center Macintosh Support / Surf / STORM / ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ccastcr@prism.gatech.EDU (Russo, Chris A.) (11/28/90)
orpheus@reed.UUCP (Aaron Semplers) writes: > Like you, I found that the graphics routines were the slowest part. > How can we compensate for the lack of speed? Well, I do most of my graphics calls in machine language _without_ toolbox calls. When you think of all the things thatCopyBits() does before it even moves a byte, you realize that cheating is the only way. > I gotta admit, it really looks like the Amiga is the better machine. >At least, until you ask around about the reliability of their hardware. Well, the Mac has more than just hardware durability going for it (although that is something to consider, I had my Apple II forever, and never had any problems.). The Mac also has more applications of a serious nature. In my EE classes, I can always find some program or another to aid in modeling or analyzing. Not so for this friend of mine with an Amiga. Another thing you have to like about Apple is that they started it all. Yes, we all know about PARC, but it was Apple who really made the committment and gave us a computer with a good user interface. -- Russo, Chris A. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!ccastcr Internet: ccastcr@prism.gatech.edu
matt@pacvax.UUCP (Matt Kingman) (11/30/90)
In article <1990Nov27.195330.12819@santra.uucp> jmunkki@hila.hut.fi (Juri Munkki) writes: > In the copy of Risk that I have, if you destroy a nation completely, > all neutral opponents suddenly think they have lost territory from > totally random spots. Not exactly true. Neutral opponents work as follows: 1) They try desperately to hold on to anything they own. 2) Once they occupy a country, even if it's for 1 turn, they consider it theirs. 3) If a fellow neutral is wiped out, the other neutrals inherit the territories and protect them. That's a neutral's basic strategy. There's a few other parts to the algorithm (like how it decides who to inflict pain on first) that I won't bore you with. /Matt --- Matt Kingman - Macintosh Software Engineer Pacer Software Inc. - Westboro, MA 01581 Disclaimer: I speak only for myself.....