Tuesday, April 10, 2007

How can someone so young sing words so sad?

Apparently the emo kids are freaking out the peeps in North Dakota. Death Cab kills.

From the earlier days of feared subcultures, check out this history of computer role playing games (1985-1993). Relive those Bard's Tale, Wizardry and Ultima memories.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

What? No mention of Castle Wolfenstein? Or did that predate this segment.

Anonymous said...

I remember playing Zork on a Commodore 64. Ah, those were the days.

Sven

Tripp said...

HLK, that shining beacon of glory would fall into the action category. Role playing games have a statistical element in which you gain power through experience. This is then used to permanently increase skills or attributes.

Action games provide temporary boosts through various items found throughout the game.

RPGs are lengthy and are designed to be played once, while action games are short and designed for replay.

Tripp said...

Sven,

This link has Zork and other games by the same publisher for free.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~pot/infocom/

T

Anonymous said...

Tripp - Of course, of course. I remember them well, particularly the holy triumvirate for TRS-80: Raaka-Tu; Madness and the Minotaur; and Bedlam.

In general, all my games pretty much went like this:

[You are standing at the north edge of a deep crevasse]
Go Left
[You are standing at the east edge of a deep crevasse]
Look
[you see a wall]
Climb Wall
[you have no rope]
Hit Wall
[ouch my hand]
Hit Wall
[ouch my hand]
[you have falled into the deep crevasse. You are dead]
. . .
. . .
. . .
[You are standing at the north edge of a deep crevasse]

Tripp said...

Ah HLK, I think you would enjoy Strong Bad's
Thy Dungeon Man and Thy Dungeonman 2
http://homestarrunner.com/dungeonman.html

http://videlectrix.com/thydungeonman2.html

Anonymous said...

Truly wonderful. I've thrice-died.

Tripp said...

Dare you then face Peasant's Quest?

http://www.homestarrunner.com/disk4of12.html