comp.sys.acorn.games Google Group

Re: RISC OS Christmas Games Proposal

2009-12-20T16:24:24Z

Well, the suggestions didn't all make it, but here is the result:
[link]
Enjoy.

Re: Zarch for the Archimedes

2009-12-19T13:44:28Z

Perhaps this can help: [link]
John.

Re: RISC OS Christmas Games Proposal

2009-12-19T12:42:51Z

In message <slrnhfu5gg.54...@realh.co.uk>
I think a new Wesnoth port will be interesting.
Boswars seems quite good as well, like TEK.
Andrew

Re: Zarch for the Archimedes

2009-12-18T19:47:47Z

So I finally FOUND the original Zarch floppy. Is there ANY way I can
image this to play on an emulator? It's protected, so standard
archivers don't work -- Arcimg would not read it.
Now that I have the orig, I'd not mind finding a broken copy to play
(imaged) - but there seems none out there.
Oy.
bp

Re: Zarch for the Archimedes

2009-12-13T16:57:11Z

Nope. It doesn't wait before or after flipping the screen buffers
either, so on faster machines you get horrible flickering. Not the
best bit of coding...
Tom

Re: Zarch for the Archimedes

2009-12-12T19:25:43Z

In message <59a64f65-deba-49bd-a1ad-cbecb 2c8b...@k4g2000yqb.googlegrou
ps.com>
You might be right, I have a vague recollection of something like
that, but I'm not that sure. You could try turning the cache off
(*CACHE OFF) and see if that slows it down enough to be playable.

Re: Zarch for the Archimedes

2009-12-12T01:47:28Z

On Dec 11, 7:31 pm, Simon Challands <simon_use...@helvellyn.plus.c om>
wrote:
Hm. There wasn't a screen-sync to keep the framerate constant? Is
there a slow-down util for the A4000/A5000?
I wish the game existed as an image somewhere. At least Arculator has
a ARM2 mode. :-(
bp

Re: Zarch for the Archimedes

2009-12-12T00:31:45Z

In message <38bb539a-d982-4cde-bf10-6e9b5 bb50...@r13g2000vbb.googlegro
ups.com>
From what I recall of trying to play it on the A5000 it was rather on
the fast side. It was written when ARM2 machines were the only
Archimedes there were (nearly said RISC OS, but it predates RO2).

Re: Zarch for the Archimedes

2009-12-11T20:12:21Z

Lander (at least) was written in 1987 when the Archimedes 300 and 400
machines were circulating, with 8MHz ARM2's (or so). Lander under
Arculator (emulator) set to ARM2 or ARM250 plays fine, but when set to
ARM3 25 or 33, it's rather fast. Does the commercial Zarch handle
more horsepower a bit more gracefully, or is it, like Lander, a

Re: Zarch for the Archimedes

2009-12-10T09:05:32Z

Expect to pay >£20 s/h when one next comes up on ebay!
[link]

Zarch for the Archimedes

2009-12-09T12:15:37Z

So I've setup an Archimedes A5000 for the express purpose of playing
Zarch. But I can't find Zarch.
Is there a place I can get the image (has it been released freely?) or
a place I can buy the floppy? Thanks. (I do have Lander.)
bp

Re: xjig

2009-12-04T13:02:25Z

I've had a look at the source code and done some experimentation and
my
conclusions are:
1. The RISC OS port doesn't support the PPM image format.
2. It will support jpegs, but you need to give it a unix style file
name with
a jpg or jpeg extension.
In my test I successfully loaded a jpeg by using the following for the

xjig

2009-12-03T19:43:05Z

The 'jigsaw' game xjig (port from
[link] ) states in its
help file that 'Any image-file in GIF, JPEG, or PPM format can be used
as the source for the puzzle' - however in practice it only seems to
accept GIF files. Every JPEG I've tried produces the error "not a GIF,

Re: N-body shooter game name

2009-11-27T22:10:59Z

The game was called Stellar on the Archimedes.

Re: Spheres of Chaos for A-Models?

2009-11-24T07:19:20Z

Hello!
Rob White schrieb:
I have now this file and the game works on my A3010. :-)
Regards
Amin

Re: Spheres of Chaos for A-Models?

2009-11-23T22:59:59Z

[link]
I did email him about the original Archimedes version, but didn't get a
response as yet.
Alex.

Re: Port of Freeciv released

2009-11-22T19:40:37Z

On 7 Nov 2009 as I do recall,
I can confirm that this works (a pretty steep learning curve for anyone
who hasn't played the Sid Meier versions!)
It does apparently need a Wimpslot of over 28Mb, so presumably
RISC OS 5 only? (At any rate, it died silently on start-up until I
quit Aemulor....)

Re: Spheres of Chaos for A-Models?

2009-11-22T12:23:27Z

I had it. When I had an A5000 I bought the first retail version when it
first came out, and then upgraded it whenever Iain McLeod brought out a
newer version. Some of the upgrades were paid for, but I didn't mind as
it was well worth it.
I have just recently downloaded it for the PC so I can relive the many

Re: Spheres of Chaos for A-Models?

2009-11-22T11:18:25Z

In message <2853dfbd50.harr...@blueyonder .co.uk>
I remember playing it on (I think) a 2mb A3020. Might need to free up
as much memory as possible - Setting the screen mode to 0 for those
extra precious few kbs.
Has anybody else got the newer version of SoC? I got it years ago at
the Epsom Downs show but it seemed to have quite a muted launch. It

Re: Spheres of Chaos for A-Models?

2009-11-21T21:52:13Z

[Posted and mailed]
On 17 Nov 2009 as I do recall,
I have this freebie version, which works perfectly on an A5000. I
don't know if it would work on a 2Mb machine.

Re: Spheres of Chaos for A-Models?

2009-11-17T18:44:18Z

In message <d58d80bb50....@aqus02.dsl.pip ex.com>
I only recall seeing a demo version.
A full version of Interdictor was released. However if memory serves
it had a rather annoying colour chart protection system included.
Regards

Re: Spheres of Chaos for A-Models?

2009-11-17T07:24:39Z

In message <00f436bb50.P...@phawfaux.co.u k>
I'm pretty sure that a full version of SoC appeared on an Acorn User
coverdisk....
Cheers,
Rob

Re: Spheres of Chaos for A-Models?

2009-11-16T18:00:44Z

In message <hd24gt$8o...@news.albasani.ne t>
CJE micros will probably be able to sell you a copy.
Alternatively there was demo version done for one of the magazine
cover disks.
Regards

Re: RISC OS Christmas Games Proposal

2009-11-14T20:41:52Z

In <hdn1dh$ja...@news.eternal-sep tember.org>,
I reckon fillets-ng (Fish Fillets) would go down well.

RISC OS Christmas Games Proposal

2009-11-14T19:45:53Z

In case you haven't seen it yet, riscos.info is again offering to port
games to RISC OS in time for Christmas. More details here:
[link]

Re: BAABE - new text adventure interpreter for RISC OS

2009-11-12T18:38:06Z

[...]
READ WRITING should have worked, unless I did something really stupid to
prevent it.
The way the "WORDS" is that the first word on the line is the keyword that
is used in the script for recognising what the player has entered, with the
rest on each line being seen as synonyms for that word.
So for a line in the words file that reads:

Re: BAABE - new text adventure interpreter for RISC OS

2009-11-12T16:30:17Z

The following bytes were arranged on 11 Nov 2009 by Vince M Hudd :
The adventure - I only found one that I know of, that below.
It wasn't so much there only being two of them, it was the fact that one
of them was incomplete! As a result, the only way to read the text was
to type 'READ TEXT', not 'READ WRITING' or 'READ GRAFFITI', etc. - took

Re: BAABE - new text adventure interpreter for RISC OS

2009-11-11T12:55:00Z

[...]

Bugs? Those within the adventure, or those within Trellis? (As I discovered
when I worked on Quicksand - it's absolutely full of bugs and some terrible
programming.)
Probably just down to a lack of imagination or thought on my part at the
time. The game's own history may be a factor as well, since it has origins

Re: ScummVM updated

2009-11-11T08:17:15Z

For a laugh, I thought I'd see how my (kinetic) RPC handled curse of
monkey island (the most complicated game it runs).
I was suprised to see that it is nearly playable. I would expect every
other game to be playable.
I'm considering playing all the Monkey Island games in order, in the run
up to the release of Chapter 5 of Tales of Monkey Island.

Re: ScummVM updated

2009-11-10T18:24:30Z

[snip]
Mine works too!
Just I don't know what to do with it?
Chris

Re: ScummVM updated

2009-11-10T09:19:53Z

In message <5328b9b750.dougjw...@btintern et.com>
And mine too. Many thanks.

Re: ScummVM updated

2009-11-09T23:18:06Z

In message <hda7jt$l5...@news.eternal-sep tember.org>
Peter, setting it to 13000K now lets it work
Thanks for the updated port

Re: ScummVM updated

2009-11-09T23:11:57Z

You can assume I put that in there to test that anyone was using it ;-)
I think I forgot to increase the Wimpslot in the new version - you'll
need to bump that in the !Run by 1-2MB.

Re: ScummVM updated

2009-11-09T21:23:25Z

In message <hd759q$cm...@news.eternal-sep tember.org>
Many thanks for this Peter. The number of games that it deals with has
expanded considerably since the version 0.80.
However, I'm seeing and immediate error on trying to load ScummVM, ie
"no writable memory at this address". I'm using SharedULib v1.11 and

Re: Desktop Repton Plus

2009-11-09T18:13:58Z

404 not found errors
It works fine now :)
Joyce.

Re: Desktop Repton Plus

2009-11-09T15:25:41Z

Seems to working ok here, with Firefox on the PC...
William

Re: Desktop Repton Plus

2009-11-09T14:34:51Z

Seems to work fine for me. What errors do you get?
Cheers,
Ollie

Re: Desktop Repton Plus

2009-11-09T11:39:41Z

In article <0_ednT2z_pSLYhLXnZ2dnUVZ8iydn ...@bt.com>, Gerald
Is this web page still up? I get only errors.
Joyce.

Re: Star Fighter 3000 on BeagleBoard

2009-11-09T01:27:41Z

Great, Chris :-) For anyone who's looking for further details (and
confirmation of Beagleboard compatibility!), check out this piece on
The Icon bar:
[link]

ScummVM updated

2009-11-08T19:14:02Z

I've updated my port of ScummVM to the latest 1.0.0-rc1 version:
[link]

Re: BAABE - new text adventure interpreter for RISC OS

2009-11-08T16:06:54Z

The following bytes were arranged on 8 Nov 2009 by Vince M Hudd :
[big snip]
[snip some more]
Regarding your points above, and your earlier comments on my conversion
of Pyramid...
When I converted Pyramid, I was determined that it should be as faithful
a conversion as possible - even including original bugs if necessary.

Re: BAABE - new text adventure interpreter for RISC OS

2009-11-08T13:26:39Z

[...]
That's largely because you were clearly tackling the _whole_ job. A good
adventure writing system should attempt to take care of as much of this as
possible on your behalf. You'll still need to handle some of this, unless
you want the result to be _very_ basic, because no system can predict what

Star Fighter 3000 on BeagleBoard

2009-11-08T00:13:30Z

Thanks to the assistance and encouragement of Jeffrey Lee, the latest
release of venerable RISC OS flight action shooter 'Star Fighter 3000'
is believed to be compatible with RISC OS on BeagleBoard. As with
other software, this meant tracking down and eliminating unaligned
memory accesses.
You can download a patch to upgrade your copy of the game to version

Re: BAABE - new text adventure interpreter for RISC OS

2009-11-07T17:40:37Z

The following bytes were arranged on 7 Nov 2009 by n...@spam.invalid:
Briefly, yes, it's much, much quicker. And you'll get a more advanced
and user-friendly game for your time as well.

Re: BAABE - new text adventure interpreter for RISC OS

2009-11-07T17:39:19Z

The following bytes were arranged on 7 Nov 2009 by n...@spam.invalid:
Oh, right - in that case, it sounds as if BAABE was pretty much designed
for you! The entire thing - script included - is written in
bog-standard BASIC, but all the complicated stuff is already done for
you in the interpreter - player input parsing (with provision for

Re: BAABE - new text adventure interpreter for RISC OS

2009-11-07T16:26:15Z

In message <9b1d7db650.mar...@blueyonder. co.uk>
I'm not, I was hoping you could give an idea whether its worth using
or whether its better to spend the same amount of time and effort
writing a BASIC adventure yourself. All I found I had to get around
was the concept of moving around within a map and then realised even

Re: BAABE - new text adventure interpreter for RISC OS

2009-11-07T16:29:55Z

In message <01077eb650.mar...@blueyonder. co.uk>
I wrote the game from scratch in BASIC for the BBC Micro. The
"interpreter" was just breaking down text entered into component parts
and updating the players location and objects status. Another
complication was dialogue with game characters.
e.g. object can be taken: bit in object properties variable set as 1,

Re: BAABE - new text adventure interpreter for RISC OS

2009-11-07T13:46:05Z

The following bytes were arranged on 7 Nov 2009 by n...@spam.invalid:
'Indicators whether specific events have occurred': I'm not quite sure
how you plan to write any sort of adventure without using those.
'Variables to hold all the data': Sort of. All game-relevant ones are
taken care of for you; the variables you have to worry about are the

Re: BAABE - new text adventure interpreter for RISC OS

2009-11-07T13:56:03Z

The following bytes were arranged on 7 Nov 2009 by n...@spam.invalid:
Did you write the interpreter part yourself, or did you use an existing
system?
Without a doubt, the only complicated code required is that in the
interpreter. Most of the script is simple, and even repetitive; an
average line goes, "If the player hasn't done this yet, don't let him do

Re: BAABE - new text adventure interpreter for RISC OS

2009-11-07T11:42:30Z

In message <gemini.ksqkyz003rpga0420.s... @softrock.co.uk>
I've only written one but found the hardest part having to keep track
of all the flags for objects, tasks etc. The story you can just flesh
out along the way provided you have a basic set of locations.
This is what I mean by becoming bogged down with flags etc.