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From: dplatt@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA (Dave Platt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Games on a Mac II?
Message-ID: <16288@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 2-Sep-87 12:48:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: teknowle.16288
Posted: Wed Sep  2 12:48:26 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Sep-87 06:36:40 EDT
References: <808@newton.physics.purdue.edu>
Organization: Teknowledge, Inc., Palo Alto CA
Lines: 48
In-reply-to: cca@newton.physics.purdue.edu's message of 2 Sep 87 00:22:03 GMT


Funny you should ask.  I spent several hours last night installing
about 5 megs of public-domain and shareware stuff from my diskette
library onto a co-worker's brand-new Mac II.  Naturally, we tried out
the games.

Results to date: about half of the games I tried bomb on launch, bomb
when displaying the first game screen, or display sludge on the
screen.  I imagine that games in this class are trying to manipulate
the screen buffer directly, and/or are trying to use the alternate
screen buffer (which just ain't there in a II).  Most of the rest run
OK, but use only the upper-left portion of the screen.  These games are
apparently using QuickDraw in the approved way, but have hard-coded
window sizes/offsets.  A very few (one!) uses the whole screen.

Here's the summary to date:

Game				Status

Ashes to Ashes			Partial screen
Asteroids			Bombs
Banzai				Gibberish
Bomber				Partial screen
Brickles, version 4		Partial screen, very fast
Crystal Raider			Bombs
Daleks				Bombs
Dungeons of Doom		Bombs
MacBugs!			Partial screen
MacHeads			Partial screen (I think)
Megaroids			Bombs
Missile Command			Full screen
Orion v1.0			Gibberish
Social Climber			Partial screen
Solitaire			Partial screen
Space Bubbles			Gibberish
Space War			Bombs
The Adventures of Snake		Bombs
ThinkAhead+			don't remember
Wheel				Partial screen
Wizard's Fire			Partial screen

My hat's off to those game designers who followed the rules re
Quickdraw, didn't hard-code timing loops, and still managed to produce
snappy-looking animation... their games run well on a II, even if they
don't use the whole screen.

[Most of the games on this list should be available via your local
 public-domain-software trading group, Mac-oriented bulletin board, or
 information-services network (GEnie, Compu$erve, Delphi, The Source)]