Yeah I tried that too, Nigel. I like the first one cos there was always a counter move against any one move. I played alot with a cousin of mine and it was like a mind game towards the end.

My best C64 memory is when I was 9 and one day I came home to see my dad and my uncle play Missile Command in my room! I just stood there stunned in disbelief.

-tek

Well, I must say... this is all very exciting. Who would've thought that one of the guys behind Exploding Fist II would be here in our midst???

But, before I start basking in the glory of Nigel's past life... there's something I have to get off my chest;

This Melbourne House gang- they were the ones behind Classic Adventure- the game that consisted of plain white text on a blue background. The goal in this game was to type in stuff and make your way through the different vibes.

Anyway, I spent months (maybe years!) playing that game and time after time I found myself getting trapped in a "twisting maze". It was a nightmare!!!!

And then... there was this other bit that freaked me out where it said "a shadowy figure is waving". What was the deal with that????

I must have tried everything with that shadowy dude. I tried typing "wave back", "help figure", "kill figure", "eat figure", "fight figure", "love figure", "hate figure" ...and a BILLION other variations. But every time, he just waved back at me as if hadn't done anything.

I know you weren't in on that particualar game Nigel... but after all these years I wonder if you (a guy from Melbourne House) can shed on light on any of this stuff.

Oh yeah... I almost forgot- the vending machine!!!! What in the name of Sam's Hill were you meant to do with that????

I am not really sure which game you mean when you say "Classic Adventure" ? Melbourne House may have done a number of games I am not familiar with.

The adventure game that Melbourne House was famous for in the 80s was "The Hobbit" which came out for most platforms around at that time. It was programmed by a very clever programmer Phillip Mitchell. He no longer works in the game industry any more as far as I know.

I am currently working 16-24 hour days trying to finalize a new game on the PS2 for Sierra called Metal Arms : Glitch In The System. See http://www.gamechronicles.com/qa/metalarms/glitch.htm for a description of the game.

Never thought that when I was almost 50 I'd still be working around the clock programming video games. Pays the bills I guess But it has been a very cool career for the past 20 years. I certainly don't regret all those coins I pumped into arcade video machines between band rehearsals back in the 80s. I used to play Pacman a lot back when it first came out and then Namco paid for me to put it on video game consoles for almost 2 years. What goes around comes around I guess.


[This message has been edited by Nigel (edited 08-29-2003).]

Well... it certainly sounds better than typing out invoices in some crappy office all day.

"Classic Adventure", for what it's worth, was an adventure game that was created by Melbourne House. As far as I'm aware it one one of the very first games that came out for c64. The cover for the game shows a picture of a skull and a chest full of treasure (just incase that jogs any memories).

But I can dig what you're saying. Some of the original arcades are amazing. I know a guy who used to play the original Star Wars game (the X-wing one) for literally about 8 hours a day. Instead of going to school in the morning, every day he'd go straight to the arcade and would stay there all day playing the thing. He ended up so good at the game that one shot would last him for literally the whole day! He kept this routine going for years until eventually the arcade boss gave him a tenner and told him never to come back again!

I recently asked the X-Wing dude what his high score was for that game and he said with a totally serious face, "80 million".

-now *that's* dedication for you!!!!

C64....
That brings back a lot of memories. I miss the games, but none of the games that you guys mentioned ring a bell. I was more into music software I guess...

And you're both right - back in those days computer games were more interesting. I don't think there's anything cool nowadays besides Grand Theft Auto 3 or "Vice City". . Nowadays it seems that game manufacturers are focusing on graphics and music more then they care about the actual game itself. And being visually impaired I don't care about the details and complexity of graphics - The simpler the better.
ED

What software did you use for sequencing on the Amiga ? I saw a few sequencers on the Amiga but the only one I felt comfortable with was Australian software called CQuin (I think that was its name as it was a long time ago ). MusicX always seemed too clumsy. I never got to try Bars & Pipes so I don't know about that one.

The Atari ST seemed have a lot more MIDI software written for it mainly because of the inbuilt MIDI ports it came with. Funny thing is that the MIDI ports were a last minute addition to the ST. They were having a chip set developed much the same ( identical actually according to their lawyers ) as the Commodore Amiga. A company called Lorraine were commisioned to design the chips. They then brought out the Lorraine Amiga ( with the audio chips ) and told Atari it didn't work out with their chips ... funny about that. Lorraine sold out to Commodore so then Atari sued Commodore over the use of their money that was used to develop the Amiga chips. Anyway Atari had to use what was available which was not capable of more than simple bleeps. To compensate for the lack of digital audio on the ST they threw on the MIDI ports to make it more attractive to musicians who were starting to use computers for music production. While it was just an afterthought it turned out to be one of the best features of the Atari ST and resulted in lots of MIDI commercial and freeware software being developed for it. Emagic's Logic started life on that platform then developed by CLab. Steinberg sequencers first appeared on the C64.


[This message has been edited by Nigel (edited 08-29-2003).]

Yes that image does seem familiar, I remember seeing boxes like that around the office. I would imagine that this was one of Phillip Mitchell's adventure games leading up to the Hobbit as he developed the language parser over time. So you may never know the answer to your dilemna.
Such is life ....



[This message has been edited by Nigel (edited 08-29-2003).]

Nice to read all this stuff about the C64. Never had one though - just a Sinclair and a TI99. Unlike Nigel I spent my programming career writing boring stuff like operating systems, compilers and communications. Still, I kept it up until my 60s (there's hope for you yet Nigel) and as Nigel points out, it brings in the money.

Bryan

Hi Nigel,

I was using Dr.T’s Keyboard Controlled Sequencer along with X-oR for patch editing. Great package as both programs ran together. Sure it was available for the Atari ST as well.
I’m running with emagic’s Logic and SoundDiver hoping it would be as good as the Amiga integration, it nearly manages it, but not quite as smoothly as the Dr.T’s system.

Music X promised so much, but never delivered. Bars & Pipes was ok (ish) but I didn’t get on with the graphic interface. KCS for me, I still use it for roughing out tracks….
I believe KCS started life on the C-64 as well, but I’m not 100% sure, so don’t quote me on that.

Amiga was being designed by the team behind the Atari 8 bit micros, Commodore’s CEO Jack Trammel (not sure on the spelling) left Commodore, and bought Atari.
So as you said Commodore bought Lorraine Amiga, no doubt to give Jack a bit of a corporate headache. The ST was knocked up quite quickly, and was a pretty darn good machine, and I did give it a serious look when I was buying my 16-bit machine. The Amiga won, just!



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The Sonic Energy Authority - a sound investment

Someone metioned about game programming like ps2, xbox, N64 and GameCube. I always have interest of doing this. Where should I start and what hardware and software should I use? I know a lot of friends who has Commodore, Amiga and Atari stuff. Thanks.

Dan