Re: Apple II Classic Games

[exuhag@exu.ericsson.se (James Hague)]

Teh Kao Yang writes:
>
>I'm sure everyone's played Archon and Skyfox,
>but does anyone remember these?: Captain Midnight, Black Magic, Minit Man,
                                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^

This has got to be one of my all time favorite Apple II games.  A
"run around, get to the end, use objects" scrolling game, yes, but
before such games were beaten into the ground.  And I really think
it still holds its own; IMO it is *much* better than any of
Apogee's stuff on the PC and similar games on the Genesis, et al.

Something Black Magic has which almost all of its successors 
neglected is *randomness*.  The game is different every time; you
can't just memorize patterns.  It is also very non-linear; you can
go after the eyes in any order you want.  And the difficulty ramps
nicely, being dependant on the number of eyes you have obtained.
Probably the best thing about BM is that underneath all the
exploration and wandering around there is a solid game.  All too
many similar titles are simply sequences of trivial obstacles.
BM requires skill and practice and is just a whole lot of fun.

I had a flakey analog joystick (and I can't stand analog joysticks)
and a green monitor, and I *still* played this game into the
ground.  Sorry to ramble, but Peter Ward deserves a little
praise for his efforts.

(What's amazing to me is that such a high quality game, a game
which still holds up today, with top notch graphics was pulled
off on an Apple II in pure assembly language.  No source level
debuggers, etc.  Incredible.  Modern games have the benefit of faster
processors, fancier tools, high-level language compilers, etc.,
and the overall quality seems to have _declined_.)

--
James Hague   
exuhag@exu.ericsson.se