Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!super!udel!princeton!njin!rutgers!ucsd!ucsbcsl!hbo@sbphy.ucsb.edu
From: hbo@sbphy.ucsb.edu (Howard B. Owen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Games That Multitask (Was piracy for some reason)
Message-ID: <1044@hub.ucsb.edu>
Date: 11 Dec 88 21:26:06 GMT
Sender: news@hub.ucsb.edu
Organization: UC, Santa Barbara. Physics Computer Services
Lines: 53

In article <12449@cup.portal.com>, Sullivan@cup.portal.com (kevin lee smathers) writes...

>Here are some examples of enjoyable games.  With all of the programming
>expertise that went into DM, please don't tell me that they *couldn't* have
>left it unprotected even if they had wanted to:
> 
>Bard's Tale
>Moria
>Shanghai
>Infocom Adventures (all of them)
>(Moria is listed above, and is somewhat *more* complex than DM.  It is 
> absurd to claim that programs such as DM can't be made to coexist with
> the operating system when something as complex as Moria does, and
> doesn't have a paid staff for development.)
>

   Let me add Empire to the above list. A very Amiga-friendly effort that.
It multitasks just fine, and you can install it on your hard disk.

   In the latest AC, there is an article by Randy Linden on the porting
of Dragon's Lair to the Amiga. In it he mentions the developers considered
adding hard disk support to the game, but rejected the idea because they
would have had to write new driver code for each brand of controller! These
guys used the WCS on A1000's for their own code; so much for running on
an A3000! The point is, fitting Dragon's Lair onto 6 floppies was quite
a trick. I have mixed feelings about the bypassing of the operating system
in this case. On the one hand, it sure would be nice to load a game like
that on my HD, on the other hand the game MAY not have been possible with
that feature. 

*LOW-TEMP-FLAME-ON*

   What upsets me are the games that clearly could be made to coexist in a
multitasking environment. 75% of such games I've seen apparantly have no good
reason to take over the system, they just do it for copy protection or for fun.
The European games are particularly bad in this regard. I will allow the
occasional exception, like Dragon's Lair, but I'm convinced that game
developers in general do not consider issues like multi-tasking when it comes
to game design. Why should they when the Amiga game market largely consists of
stock Amiga 500s? Two reasons that I can see: first, since the A500's may not
stay stock forever, the "average" Amiga could change drastically in coming
years, and second, us A2000 owners have bigger software budgets, AND WE ALMOST
ALWAYS PAY FOR THE SOFTWARE WE USE! 

*FLAME-OFF*

   So, what other games besides the ones we've mentioned are good Amiga
citizens?

Howard Owen, Computer Systems Manager           internet: hbo@sbphy.ucsb.edu
Physics Computer Services                       BITNET: HBO@SBITP.BITNET
University of California, Santa Barbara         HEPNET/SPAN:   SBPHY::HBO
"I am not a pay TV service!"                    uucp:{The World}!ucbvax!hub!hbo