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The book scan thread.

 
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Cycle
Mac daddy
Mac daddy


Joined: 08 Sep 2006
Posts: 2767

PostPosted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 7:47 pm    Post subject: The book scan thread. Reply with quote

I have a few books on the topic of videogames! I'm going to scan some here.

The first one is SPOOKY COMPUTER GAMES, which I bought off ebay for a dollar. I thought it would have interesting things to say about horror themed games, but instead it teaches you how to program your own ones! I like that apart from the great artwork in the book, there is nothing spooky about these games. Most of them even teach you math! I guess that's scary!

I wouldn't mind actually trying to program a couple of these one day.










The following are all the interviews found in The Macintosh Games Bible, a brilliant, thick book full of Mac gaming goodness. These interviews are quite old, and in most cases, interesting.

Chris Crawford, creator of BALANCE OF POWER, founder of the CGDC and is still working on Storytron (due this year). In this interview he says that SimCity was the last innovative game!



Joe Williams, the man behind the (then recent) Dark Castle remake, which is a brilliant game and a brilliant remake. I still play it on my emulator. This interview is all about the process of remaking the game.



A Will Wright interview! He's always interesting! Sometimes!



Interview with Eric Parker, a flight sim creator (he made the technically groundbreaking Hellcats), about... flight sims. Remember when these were still made?



Mark Payne, director of an online gaming network. Things sure have come a long way since the days of this guy! 14.4k modems, woo! He probably works with one of the bigger companies now.



Interview with Andrew Welch, CEO of the most over-rated Mac shareware company.



Joe Williams, CEO of Delta Tao (I'm pretty sure these guys died out a long time ago) on the topic of Copy Protection and why it's silly. Perhaps that's why died out, oh ho!



Finally, a massive interview with the Miller brothers, prior to the release of Riven.



When we first got the internet, we bought a book called the MACINTOSH INTERNET STARTERS KIT, a nice BIG book which I read from front to back. It had a few bits and pieces about gaming, but unfortunately I have no idea where the book is now. Fortunately, the author put the whole thing up on his site, so I'll just post links to the revelent chapters.

TurboGopher VR! A gopher client combined with the hit game Spectre! This looked so awesome when I first read about it and I really wanted to try it. It was the cyberspace I saw in all those tacky sci-fi movies!

A little bit about MUDs. Has a little bit about people destorying their lives by getting addicted. Some things never change, I guess! I tried a few MUDs thanks to this book. Good times.

A more interesting bit about MUDs (or MUCKs in this case) and... furries. Yes, the author and his friend dive into a Furry muck and talk to some of the people who inhabit it. This was before anyone knew what a Furry was, of course.

Finally, the actual GAME chapter. Mostly MUDs again, but also has bits and pieces on other types of games, including BOLO (FUDGE YES).

WARNING: Reading this book is not unlike watching this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEAkChFGhVI

I'll EVENTUALLY post one or two more things at a later date.
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Last edited by Cycle on Sat Aug 02, 2008 8:03 pm; edited 3 times in total
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dessgeega
loves your favorite videogame
loves your favorite videogame


Joined: 16 Jun 2005
Posts: 6563
Location: bohan

PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 7:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

is this thread finished yet

i think that creepy computer games book is adorable. i am wholeheartedly behind encouraging children to learn how to program by tinkering with easy-to-read code. but i also love how most of the games wouldn't be creepy at all if it wasn't for the LAVISH ILLUSTRATION. and helpful coding ghosts!
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ApM
Admin Rockstar
Admin Rockstar


Joined: 14 Oct 2004
Posts: 1210
Location: Ottawa, ON

PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 11:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I loved these books so hard as a kid. I had a photocopied-from-the-library version of Computer Battlegames, and well-thumbed half-destroyed copies of Computer Monsters and Computer Olympics. Just looking at the cover of Computer Monsters gives me powerful waves of nostalgia.

God, there was even one book that had a text adventure at the end. I think you were a mouse or a cat or something, and you had to wander around and not get eaten. I think I read the source code for that more than I played the game, just working out all the different possibilities.

There ain't no language quite like BASIC for learning the fundamental concepts of imperative programming. Working through "Creepy Computer Games" is probably better than a first-year Java course.
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dessgeega
loves your favorite videogame
loves your favorite videogame


Joined: 16 Jun 2005
Posts: 6563
Location: bohan

PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 11:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i think programming logic is the most important thing to learn, more than any technical knowledge or platform. understanding programming logic prepares you to work on any platform.

this is an interesting project (not the first of its kind) which is designed to teach school-age girls basic programming logic. and there's hackety hack. i think we're going to see more stuff like this, and we better.
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