Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
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From: adam@owlnet.rice.edu (Adam Justin Thornton)
Subject: Re: Scott Adams games
Message-ID: <C2B8Mz.IBx@rice.edu>
Sender: news@rice.edu (News)
Organization: Milo's Meadow
References: <110143@bu.edu> <C2B63r.9rF@news.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1993 00:42:35 GMT
Lines: 45

In article <C2B63r.9rF@news.cso.uiuc.edu> wogg0743@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (William Shakespeare) writes:
>Actually, I do think there would be something wrong with rewriting Scot
>Adams games in Alan, especially charging for them.  It is one thing to
>copy ten-year-old games written for ten-year-old (or older) platforms,
>versions which are not now nor will ever again be available from a
>distributer.  It is another to take someone's game plot and bring it up
>to current day standards of parser technology and distribute it for
>contemporary machines.
>
>Why?  Because Scott Adams himself might want to do that some day, whereever
>Mr. Adams is now.  You might deprive him of income which would rightfully
>be his, because revamped versions of his games could be sold, potentially,
>in stores.

I'm not necessarily diagreeing with you, but I think you're probably wrong.
The reason why is simple.  After Infocom, Scott Adams games are dead.  They
are historical curiosities.  Why?  Well, even if you revamp the very limited
parser, you will find--as I did when I went home over Christmas and played them
on my Apple--that the games, by current standards, suck.  The plots are usually
"Get all the Treasures, NOW!", and the puzzles simply cannot compare with,
say, Enchanter or Deadline.

Note that I am not saying "the games suck".  Not at all.  The games are a 
marvelous example of pushing the limits of 1980 Microcomputer technology.  When
you think that these things fit in (I think) a 4K TI 99/4a (certainly within
16K), they are nothing short of amazing.  But after Infocom and the Unkuulian
series, face it, they are not very good games.  Not that I wouldn't love to
play them.  But I'd be playing them for the same reasons I still like to fool
with my Apple--not that they are, _ipso facto_, neat, but that they represent
really clever exploitation of limited technology.

Thus, I fear that whoever writes them into Alan is going to be very
disappointed.  The games are linear and, even with a better parser, cheezy.
I'd love to play through "The Count" one more time.  Or even "Adventureland".
But I suspect that after that, the fun part would be reverse-engineering the
code (which, in Alan or TADS, wouldn't be any fun).  On the other hand, if
someone wants to write a TRS-80 Model I emulator, and then write the games
for IT...

Adam
-- 
"And in the heartbreak years that lie ahead, |++| adam@rice.edu |++| Cthulhu
 Be true to yourself and the Grateful Dead." --Joan Baez  | 64,928 | fthagn!
"Very often, a common stone, thrown away and despised, is worth more than
 a cow." -- Paracelsus | If these were Rice's opinions I'd shoot myself.
