|
Questron (video Game)
''Questron'' is a 1984 game from Strategic Simulations, the first fantasy title from a company known for computer wargames. It was written by Charles Dougherty and Gerald Wieczorek and released for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, and Commodore 64. A sequel, ''Questron II'', was released in 1988. After aout-of-court settlement the structure and style of the game were both officially licensed from Richard Garriott, author of ''Akalabeth'' and '' Ultima''.From Questron in-game menu screen, Apple II and Commodore 64 versions. Gameplay In the first ''Questron'' game, the player takes on the role of a young serf who tries to make a name for himself by traveling the realm in order to gain the power and experience necessary to defeat the wicked "Mantor", ruler of the "Land of Evil". The view is mostly in top-down style for the world maps and town encounters, but switches to a first-person style in the dungeons of the Land of Evil. Some features were novel for a game of its type a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strategic Simulations
Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) was a video game developer and publisher with over 100 titles to its credit from its founding in 1979 to its dissolution in 1994. The company was especially noted for its numerous wargames, its official computer game adaptations of '' Dungeons & Dragons'', and for the groundbreaking ''Panzer General'' series. History The company was founded by Joel Billings, a wargame enthusiast, who in the summer of 1979 saw the possibility of using the new home computers such as the TRS-80 for wargames. While unsuccessfully approaching Avalon Hill and Automated Simulations to publish wargames, he hired programmers John Lyons, who wrote '' Computer Bismarck''—later claimed to have been the first "serious wargame" published for a microcomputer"Titans of the Computer Gaming World"''Computer Gaming World'', March 1988 p.36.—and Ed Williger, who wrote ''Computer Ambush''. Both games were written in BASIC as were many of SSI's early games. Although Billing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gemstone Warrior
''Gemstone Warrior'' is a video game written by Canadian developer Paradigm Creators for the Apple II and published by Strategic Simulations in 1984. It is a 2D action-adventure game where the player controls an armored figure searching for treasure and the pieces of the stolen Gemstone. ''Gemstone Warrior'' was SSI's first game to sell over 50,000 copies in North America. The game was ported to the Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit computers, and Macintosh. It was followed by a 1986 sequel, '' Gemstone Healer'', also created by Paradigm. Plot The player has to recover the Gemstone, a relic of incredible power forged by the gods and focusing the natural magic of the world. This, they entrusted to Man alone and for a time, there was great prosperity and peace. But the Demons, led by Nicodemius, had managed to boil to the surface and take the Gemstone. Unable to destroy it, Nicodemius fragments it into five pieces and hides them in the Labyrinth, buried deep within the Netherworld. Goi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1984 Video Games
Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). * January 10 ** The United States and the Vatican City, Vatican (Holy See) restore full diplomatic relations. ** The Victoria, Seychelles, Victoria Agreement is signed, institutionalising the Indian Ocean Commission. *January 24 – Steve Jobs launches the Macintosh 128K, Macintosh personal computer in the United States. February * February 3 ** Dr. John Buster and the research team at Harbor–UCLA Medical Center announce history's first embryo transfer from one woman to another, resulting in a live birth. ** STS-41-B: Space Shuttle Challenger, Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' is launched on the 10th Space Shuttle mission. * February 7 – Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered spac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Family Computing
''Family Computing'' was a U.S. computer magazine published during the 1980s by Scholastic It covered all the major home computer platforms of the day including the Apple II, VIC-20, Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit family, as well as the IBM PC and Macintosh. It printed a mixture of product reviews, how-to articles and type-in programs. The magazine also featured a teen-oriented insert called K-Power, written by Stuyvesant High School students called the Special-K's. The section was named after a former sister magazine which folded after a short run. This section was discontinued after the July 1987 issue as part of the magazine's shift toward home-office computing. History and profile The first issue of the magazine appeared in September 1983. It was notable in the early days for the wide variety of systems it supported with type in programs, including such "orphaned" systems as the Coleco Adam and TI 99/4A long after other magazines discontinued coverage. There was also a spi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ANALOG Computing
''ANALOG Computing'' (an acronym for Atari Newsletter And Lots Of Games) was an American computer magazine devoted to the Atari 8-bit family of home computers. It was published from 1981 until 1989. In addition to reviews and tutorials, ''ANALOG'' printed multiple programs in each issue for users to type in. The magazine had a reputation for listings of machine language games–much smoother than those written in Atari BASIC—and which were uncommon in competing magazines. Such games were accompanied by the assembly language source code. ''ANALOG'' also sold commercial games, two books of type-in software, and access to a custom bulletin-board system. Originally the title as printed on the cover was ''A.N.A.L.O.G. 400/800 Magazine'', but by the eighth issue it changed to ''A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing''. Though the dots remained in the logo, it was simply referred to as ''ANALOG'' or ''ANALOG Computing'' inside the magazine. While the program listings were covered under the m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commodore Power/Play
''Commodore Power/Play'' was one of a pair of computer magazines published by Commodore Business Machines in the United States in support of their 8-bit home computer lines of the 1980s. The other was called ''Commodore Interface'', changed to just ''Commodore'' in 1981, ''Commodore Microcomputer'' in 1983, and finally to ''Commodore Microcomputers'' in 1984 and for the rest of its run. The two magazines were published on an alternating, bimonthly schedule. History and profile ''Power/Play'' was started in 1982 as a quarterly publication. The magazine was targeted at the home computer user, emphasizing video games, educational and hobbyist uses of the Commodore 64/128 and VIC-20 models. ''Commodore Microcomputers'' initially served Commodore's business customers using the PET and CBM lines but as the business market segments standardized on CP/M and later MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electronic Games
An electronic game is a game that uses electronics to create an interactive system with which a player can play. Video games are the most common form today, and for this reason the two terms are often used interchangeably. There are other common forms of electronic game including handheld electronic games, standalone systems (e.g. pinball, slot machines, or electro-mechanical arcade games), and exclusively non-visual products (e.g. audio games). Teletype games The earliest form of computer game to achieve any degree of mainstream use was the text-based Teletype game. Teletype games lack video display screens and instead present the game to the player by printing a series of characters on paper which the player reads as it emerges from the platen. Practically this means that each action taken will require a line of paper and thus a hard-copy record of the game remains after it has been played. This naturally tends to reduce the size of the gaming universe or alternatively to req ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Legend Of Blacksilver
''The Legend of Blacksilver'' is a fantasy role-playing video game developed by Charles W. Dougherty and John C. Dougherty of Quest, Inc. and published by Epyx in 1988. It is an indirect sequel to the game ''Legacy of the Ancients''. Originally designed for the Commodore 64, the game was ported to the Apple II. Plot The principal character in the game is first contacted by Princess Aylea in a dream-vision, she wakes the player by telling that that she needs a hero wher others have failed and when the player askes "Why me?" and she begins to tell the player a story. They are told that the evil Baron Taragas from the Kingdom of Maelbane has discovered the legendary material "Blacksilver" and has conspired with a local baron, Baron Mantrek. Supposedly in the hands of evil, Blacksilver could be used to create weapons of mass destruction. Princess Aylea instructs the character to rescue her father, King Durek, who was leading an army on Baron Taragas but was then captured by the evil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legacy Of The Ancients
''Legacy of the Ancients'' is a fantasy role-playing video game published by Electronic Arts in 1987. Gameplay The player takes on the role of a young shepherd who finds and loots a recently dead body while on a first trip to the city, taking a black disk, a bracelet, and a leather scroll. The Galactic Museum mysteriously appears to the player after collecting these items. The player learns that by taking these items, he has become the next in a line of adventurers attempting to destroy the Wizard's Compendium, the leather scroll the player picked up. The museum has various display cases that require the insertion of special coins of various types to access. Some coins can be bought in random encounters with NPCs, some can be found as loot after combat, and some coins can only be found at the bottom level of various dungeons, meaning the player cannot proceed beyond a certain point until that dungeon is finished. Unlike many RPGs, the game does not use an experience point syste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Casus Belli (magazine)
''Casus Belli'' is a French magazine about role-playing games, published in different formats since 1980. It contains news, reviews, interviews, features, and role-playing game materials. The magazine was published by Excelsior Publications until 1999, by Arkana Press in 2000–2006, and by Casus Belli Presse in 2010–2011, and has been published by Black Book Éditions since 2011. Since 2020, it also has the online video companion ''Casus TV'', which is produced in collaboration with ''Tric Trac''. History ''Casus Belli'' has been released in different forms since 1980, originally under editor-in-chief François Marcela-Froideval and published by Excelsior Publications; for its first few issues, it was a short, black-and-white publication, before changing to a larger format printed in color. In this incarnation, it became the leading role-playing game magazine on the French market. The artists working on this edition included the cartoonist Tignous. The magazine ended publicat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ahoy!
''Ahoy!'' was a computer magazine published between January 1984 and January 1989 in the US, focusing on all Commodore color computers, but especially the Commodore 64 and Amiga. History The first issue of ''Ahoy!'' was published in January 1984. The magazine was published monthly by Ion International and was headquartered in New York City. It published many games in BASIC and machine language, occasionally also printing assembly language source code. ''Ahoy!'' published a checksum A checksum is a small-sized block of data derived from another block of digital data for the purpose of detecting errors that may have been introduced during its transmission or storage. By themselves, checksums are often used to verify data ... program called ''Flankspeed'' for entering machine language listings. ''Ahoy!'s AmigaUser'' was a related but separate publication dedicated to the Amiga. It was spun off from a series of columns in ''Ahoy!'' with the same title, and the first two issu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scorpia (journalist)
Scorpia is the pseudonym of a video game journalist who was active from the early 1980s through the late 1990s. She wrote for ''Computer Gaming World'', performing reviews on role-playing video games and adventure games. Scorpia was known for harsh criticism of video games she disliked. She was fired after ''CGW'' was sold to Ziff-Davis in 1999 and subsequently retired from games journalism. Her pseudonym is based on a character she created in a role-playing game. Career Scorpia became interested in computers after attending a computer expo. Her initial intention was to become a programmer, and she said she bought her first computer games to learn how to program. In November 1982, while working as a data processing consultant, Scorpia co-founded an early gaming-related Special Interest Group on CompuServe. It became the eighth most popular forum on CompuServe, and Scorpia received free access to the subscription service in return for maintaining it. As a system operator, sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Strategic Simulations")
