Uncle DT's Random Image Thread

[Kruger]

Hiding only works if someone isn't looking for you....

[Blaze]

I found some additional items to go along with your towel...

[Kruger]

Besides the games themselves, the extra feelies is something else that Infocom did right...

[Blaze]

I still remember my first "extra" in a game I bought...

[Kruger]

Ooooh, now that you mention it, that would have been my first feelie as well...

[Blaze]

The only one I couldn't throw away was this one. I think I landed the shuttle only once. I think I'll have to play this again...

[Kruger]

The book I'm currently reading dives into the 2600 and the hoops that the programmers had to jump through to get it to do their bidding.  A couple of the chapters cover some of the Activision games.  One thing that consistently stands out is how much they had to do to cram the code into the space they had available.  One example (I think it was David Crane) found that he could save one byte in one of his games because a block of data started with a 0x60 and that happened to also correspond with opcode RTS.  So he could place the subroutine to end with that byte of data also acting as the return.  One other bit of trivia (pun intended) is that the 2600 doesn't have a random number generator.  So that safe zone static in Yar's Revenge and the explosion at the end of the level is actually the code of the game represented as video...

[Blaze]

That's pretty cool. I had no idea about that one, but it makes perfect sense. I still think Pitfall! is probably one of the biggest marvels to ever have been created on that console...

[Kruger]

Yeah, from reading the book it's obvious that there are a real limited number of cycles that you can use.  The bulk of your program has to generate and send the video data to the screen...

[Blaze]

Nice find. I downloaded and started playing with it. I'm almost there, maybe a driving Pitfall! hybrid game...?

[Kruger]

Make it two player and you may have a winner...

[Blaze]

Alright, snowball fight it is...

[Kruger]

Hmmm, you already have something pretty close to model after...

[Blaze]

Outlaw... Alaskan Adventures. Also tried to find something on topic for this one...

[Kruger]

Thanks, man...