I dunno, I think it was pretty important back then to have something that ran WordPerfect, not something that did word processing. And to have something that ran Lotus 1-2-3, not had a spreadsheet program. And maybe the base model Amiga 500 costing $1600 had something to do with it. (Well, $1600 includes the RGB monitor, but that seems pretty fair...)
Ther King's Quest II remake greatly expanded on the original game, and it was the original elements that made it really feel like an early to mid 90s adventure game, not the elements that were in the original game... but you have a point, something entirely original would be really cool. A solid 2D adventure game. It would be amazing to see something released for a console, because you could make an incredibly immersive 2D game in a DVDs worth of space, and the Monkey Island remakes have shown how well a console controller works for those sorts of games.
Oh, and based on further research, the first Sierra engine that appears to use more than 16 colors on the Amiga is the SCI 2 interpreter used in King's Quest 5, which looks WORSE on the Amiga as compared a VGA DOS version... so even once you start using more of the avaliable Amiga technology, IT'S STILL not as good as it was on other systems. Not necessarily DOS (Although for SCI 2, DOS is almost certainly the best), but other systems nonetheless.
It was square waves. That was it. Have you even PLAYED KQ3 on an Amiga? Are you sure you aren't thinking of a different KQ game? KQ3 runs on the AGI interpereter, which doesn't shift pallettes ever. It uses 16 colors. The same 16 colors for the entire game. The same 16 colors for EVERY AGI game. They didn't re-write the game for the Amiga, they took exactly the same resources, and shipped them with an interpereter for a variety of platforms. That is, until they released it for the Apple II GS when they slightly tweaked the music.
So you're wrong. Flat out wrong. I know that the Amiga as a platform was capable of those things, but it did not do those things for King's Quest III, at least not on the Amiga I had at school, and you won't find a screen shot or an Amiga emulator that will prove you correct.
AGDI provides awesome nostalga in different ways, including slightly reworking the games (massively reworking in the case of KQ2) - ways that hint every so often not only at the game they are remaking, but giving a nod to other games in the series, and bringing back people like Josh Mandel who voiced King Graham in the Sierra KQ5 and KQ6, and now the AGDI KQ1, 2 and 3. There is something really cool about hearing the original voice of King Graham brought back to games originally written before voice acting existed.
Not to mention that he's wrong, AGI games had the same features on all computers - the only distinction being that the sound was slightly better on some computers by virtue of being 3 voice with an "effects" track in some game - essentially designed to take advantage of the IBM PCjr.
Yes, the Amiga was technically superior. But not for Sierra AGI games. The best platform for those was actually probably the Apple II GS.
I think you'll find that all AGI games were 16 color maximum. The pallette may have been different on different platforms, but it wasn't 4000 colors. Nor was it "CD quality sound"
Maybe you should go grab your Amiga, your Amiga copy of KQ3, and play it again. Refresh your memory.
You could read into creating a game compatible with ScummVM.... it's open source and cross platform... and supports quite a few interpereters I suppose, given the games it already supports... it might be over or underkill depending on your needs though...
http://www.scummvm.org/
I actually prefer the Sierra point-and-click adventures - at least compared to the AGI Sierra games. The AGI parser wasn't very intelligent, and the point-and-click interface pretty much covers everything you could do in those games except get killed every time you enter a typo into the KQ3 spells... Games like SQ3 were a bit different I suppose, the SCI parser was better than the AGI parser at least... but even then, Sierra's games were never much more than verb-noun games, with a very limited set of verbs that the icons pretty much cover completely. They took it too far in KQ7, I'll give you that, but in terms of gameplay, you're not really missing anything by the move to the mouse, and you gain the ability to explore the environment in a little more detail, with some entertaining results.
From the game manual "This game is a non=profit production avaliable for download at www.AGDInteractive.com and is not to be sold, rented, or distrubted under any circumstances."
It's not open source. Be happy that they even have official approval from Vivendi and Activision.
Only KQ1 was re-released, and that was using the SCI 1 engine - still 16 colors. KQ2 was never re-released.
Also, KQ4 was released in both an AGI version and an SCI version.
I'll bet you Apple doesn't have 100% of system configurations for Macs. They don't have every possible combination of extensions or third party software installed. As for phones, they may not actually have test versions of every phone at every firmware revision avaliable. Between software and hardware, there is a lot you can do to vary a platform even on a closed system like a console...
But whatever. Go ahead, assume that everything is perfectly testable.
There are already floating point standards for audio. 32-bit, 48-bit, and 64-bit formats. When recording I typically record to 24-bit integer, but everything beyond that runs at 64-bit (all the processing). There's an amazing freedom moving to a well-implemented 64-bit audio stack for mixing, because it lets you go over 0db (ie past the digital clip point for integer level stuff) and drop the level down in a bus (like a collection of all 12 - 16 mic tracks), instead of having to carefully level all of those tracks (and every track really) so that at no point does the audio signal ever get too hot, checking the level between every single plug-in you use. It's a wonderful freedom that makes making music easier. But as a commercial distribution format, that would seem to be really REALLY overkill. Those formats, to my knowledge, are pretty much exclusive to the recording world (though Windows uses floating point audio for mixing everything in Windows Vista and Windows 7)
In my experience, Microsoft does a lot of testing of their products actually... but they don't have test labs or even beta testers with 100% of system configurations. No one does. They do a lot to fix the problems that their testers find. SP1 for Windows 7 was in public beta testing for 6 months, and avaliable for beta test to MSDN subscribers for longer than that. That's not exactly rushing something.
You don't actually understand common use cases for Adobe CS suites when used for design work do you? Because not only are the products superior, including the fact that there are plug-ins developed for those products extending functionality that doesn't exist in other projects, but there is an attempt by Adobe to integrate the workflow across the suite in a way that makes sense. This is about end to end solutions, including having things like Pantone pallettes that are updated regularly so when you send your work off to get printed, it comes out the right color.
Easy. USB wireless sticks. Those tend not to be nearly as generically supported on OSX as they are on Windows.
Why would you want one? Well, some allow for external antenna connections, etc., or maybe you just want to boost your computer that has 802.11b to 802.11n for range or speed reasons.
You're absolutely right.
MPEG 2 is defintiely NOT exclusively CBR. Any software DVD player worth it's salt should offer some display as to the current bit-rate - watch it change as you watch a DVD...
Heck, my really terrible (but really cheap) first 5.1 home theater system was a Yahoo! branded system that had a bitrate needle on the front. It broke early on, but initially it displayed (gasp) a variable bit rate.
I mean, yeah I have a few DVDs that are CBR. I authored those myself, and they were free staff presents for a camp I worked at... and I was fitting something like 7 or 8 hours of video content no a DVD-5, quality be damned:p
It would be interesting if they hid the bar once you started scrolling the page... My BlackBerry does something failry similar. I would suggest doing this ONLY on user interaction. So, scroll wheel, or using the keyboard to scroll, or using the scroll bar with a mouse. As in - not scriptable, ever, so that the URL bar ALWAYS appears on the top of a screen, if you click any link and just let the page load. Also, have it appear if you scroll to the top of the page. Knowing the URL of the page you just landed on is useful, but once you start consuming the page, yeah, it isn't so necessary.
Season 4 on I think.... though feel free to revoke my geek card if I'm off by a few episodes.... I've been watching other stuff lately, not much time for trek these days when I could be watching Doctor Who....
Any operating system where the user knows how to get themselves root access is vulnerable, because the fundamental problem exists between the chair and the keyboard. If EVERY ONE grew up using Linux, there would be millions of people who could be exploited by simple social engineering. "What, I need to sudo run this script in order to see the naked boobies my e-mail is promising me? OK..." - Heck - how many people currently running Ubuntu could be exploited by a website simply listing shell commands to solve some sort of common problem that also compromise the user...
Given, it is easier to do explot Windows. But it is even easier to exploit stupid users than it is to exploit Windows.
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However, there are authoring tools avaliable for AGI games and SCI games... http://www.agidev.com/
No it hasn't. There are multiple actions, selected by the user, that use different cursors. This isn't King's Quest 7.
I dunno, I think it was pretty important back then to have something that ran WordPerfect, not something that did word processing. And to have something that ran Lotus 1-2-3, not had a spreadsheet program. And maybe the base model Amiga 500 costing $1600 had something to do with it. (Well, $1600 includes the RGB monitor, but that seems pretty fair...)
Ther King's Quest II remake greatly expanded on the original game, and it was the original elements that made it really feel like an early to mid 90s adventure game, not the elements that were in the original game... but you have a point, something entirely original would be really cool. A solid 2D adventure game. It would be amazing to see something released for a console, because you could make an incredibly immersive 2D game in a DVDs worth of space, and the Monkey Island remakes have shown how well a console controller works for those sorts of games.
Oh, and based on further research, the first Sierra engine that appears to use more than 16 colors on the Amiga is the SCI 2 interpreter used in King's Quest 5, which looks WORSE on the Amiga as compared a VGA DOS version... so even once you start using more of the avaliable Amiga technology, IT'S STILL not as good as it was on other systems. Not necessarily DOS (Although for SCI 2, DOS is almost certainly the best), but other systems nonetheless.
I had one of those for one of the Space Quest games I think... 4 or 5... I don't remember which... those were classic.
It was square waves. That was it. Have you even PLAYED KQ3 on an Amiga? Are you sure you aren't thinking of a different KQ game? KQ3 runs on the AGI interpereter, which doesn't shift pallettes ever. It uses 16 colors. The same 16 colors for the entire game. The same 16 colors for EVERY AGI game. They didn't re-write the game for the Amiga, they took exactly the same resources, and shipped them with an interpereter for a variety of platforms. That is, until they released it for the Apple II GS when they slightly tweaked the music.
So you're wrong. Flat out wrong. I know that the Amiga as a platform was capable of those things, but it did not do those things for King's Quest III, at least not on the Amiga I had at school, and you won't find a screen shot or an Amiga emulator that will prove you correct.
AGDI provides awesome nostalga in different ways, including slightly reworking the games (massively reworking in the case of KQ2) - ways that hint every so often not only at the game they are remaking, but giving a nod to other games in the series, and bringing back people like Josh Mandel who voiced King Graham in the Sierra KQ5 and KQ6, and now the AGDI KQ1, 2 and 3. There is something really cool about hearing the original voice of King Graham brought back to games originally written before voice acting existed.
Not to mention that he's wrong, AGI games had the same features on all computers - the only distinction being that the sound was slightly better on some computers by virtue of being 3 voice with an "effects" track in some game - essentially designed to take advantage of the IBM PCjr. Yes, the Amiga was technically superior. But not for Sierra AGI games. The best platform for those was actually probably the Apple II GS.
I think you'll find that all AGI games were 16 color maximum. The pallette may have been different on different platforms, but it wasn't 4000 colors. Nor was it "CD quality sound"
Maybe you should go grab your Amiga, your Amiga copy of KQ3, and play it again. Refresh your memory.
You could read into creating a game compatible with ScummVM.... it's open source and cross platform... and supports quite a few interpereters I suppose, given the games it already supports... it might be over or underkill depending on your needs though... http://www.scummvm.org/
I actually prefer the Sierra point-and-click adventures - at least compared to the AGI Sierra games. The AGI parser wasn't very intelligent, and the point-and-click interface pretty much covers everything you could do in those games except get killed every time you enter a typo into the KQ3 spells... Games like SQ3 were a bit different I suppose, the SCI parser was better than the AGI parser at least... but even then, Sierra's games were never much more than verb-noun games, with a very limited set of verbs that the icons pretty much cover completely. They took it too far in KQ7, I'll give you that, but in terms of gameplay, you're not really missing anything by the move to the mouse, and you gain the ability to explore the environment in a little more detail, with some entertaining results.
Give their KQ2 remake a try, they greatly expanded the game, and it's a lot more fun to play.
From the game manual "This game is a non=profit production avaliable for download at www.AGDInteractive.com and is not to be sold, rented, or distrubted under any circumstances." It's not open source. Be happy that they even have official approval from Vivendi and Activision.
They didn't write the engine. Complain to the people that wrote the engine.
Only KQ1 was re-released, and that was using the SCI 1 engine - still 16 colors. KQ2 was never re-released. Also, KQ4 was released in both an AGI version and an SCI version.
I'll bet you Apple doesn't have 100% of system configurations for Macs. They don't have every possible combination of extensions or third party software installed. As for phones, they may not actually have test versions of every phone at every firmware revision avaliable. Between software and hardware, there is a lot you can do to vary a platform even on a closed system like a console...
But whatever. Go ahead, assume that everything is perfectly testable.
There are already floating point standards for audio. 32-bit, 48-bit, and 64-bit formats. When recording I typically record to 24-bit integer, but everything beyond that runs at 64-bit (all the processing). There's an amazing freedom moving to a well-implemented 64-bit audio stack for mixing, because it lets you go over 0db (ie past the digital clip point for integer level stuff) and drop the level down in a bus (like a collection of all 12 - 16 mic tracks), instead of having to carefully level all of those tracks (and every track really) so that at no point does the audio signal ever get too hot, checking the level between every single plug-in you use. It's a wonderful freedom that makes making music easier. But as a commercial distribution format, that would seem to be really REALLY overkill. Those formats, to my knowledge, are pretty much exclusive to the recording world (though Windows uses floating point audio for mixing everything in Windows Vista and Windows 7)
In my experience, Microsoft does a lot of testing of their products actually... but they don't have test labs or even beta testers with 100% of system configurations. No one does. They do a lot to fix the problems that their testers find. SP1 for Windows 7 was in public beta testing for 6 months, and avaliable for beta test to MSDN subscribers for longer than that. That's not exactly rushing something.
You don't actually understand common use cases for Adobe CS suites when used for design work do you? Because not only are the products superior, including the fact that there are plug-ins developed for those products extending functionality that doesn't exist in other projects, but there is an attempt by Adobe to integrate the workflow across the suite in a way that makes sense. This is about end to end solutions, including having things like Pantone pallettes that are updated regularly so when you send your work off to get printed, it comes out the right color.
Easy. USB wireless sticks. Those tend not to be nearly as generically supported on OSX as they are on Windows.
Why would you want one? Well, some allow for external antenna connections, etc., or maybe you just want to boost your computer that has 802.11b to 802.11n for range or speed reasons.
You're absolutely right. MPEG 2 is defintiely NOT exclusively CBR. Any software DVD player worth it's salt should offer some display as to the current bit-rate - watch it change as you watch a DVD... Heck, my really terrible (but really cheap) first 5.1 home theater system was a Yahoo! branded system that had a bitrate needle on the front. It broke early on, but initially it displayed (gasp) a variable bit rate. I mean, yeah I have a few DVDs that are CBR. I authored those myself, and they were free staff presents for a camp I worked at... and I was fitting something like 7 or 8 hours of video content no a DVD-5, quality be damned :p
It would be interesting if they hid the bar once you started scrolling the page... My BlackBerry does something failry similar. I would suggest doing this ONLY on user interaction. So, scroll wheel, or using the keyboard to scroll, or using the scroll bar with a mouse. As in - not scriptable, ever, so that the URL bar ALWAYS appears on the top of a screen, if you click any link and just let the page load. Also, have it appear if you scroll to the top of the page. Knowing the URL of the page you just landed on is useful, but once you start consuming the page, yeah, it isn't so necessary.
Season 4 on I think.... though feel free to revoke my geek card if I'm off by a few episodes.... I've been watching other stuff lately, not much time for trek these days when I could be watching Doctor Who....
Any operating system where the user knows how to get themselves root access is vulnerable, because the fundamental problem exists between the chair and the keyboard. If EVERY ONE grew up using Linux, there would be millions of people who could be exploited by simple social engineering. "What, I need to sudo run this script in order to see the naked boobies my e-mail is promising me? OK..." - Heck - how many people currently running Ubuntu could be exploited by a website simply listing shell commands to solve some sort of common problem that also compromise the user... Given, it is easier to do explot Windows. But it is even easier to exploit stupid users than it is to exploit Windows.