Flash Version of Adventure 331
chefmonkey writes "Of course, everyone remembers the old Atari 2600 game "Adventure." While you've been able to play it on a wide variety of emulators for a while, now playing in your web browser is just one click away. Yes, that's right, someone has gone and created a flash version of Adventure." I haven't checked it yet to see if you can get the "dot".
Finally..... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Finally..... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is mostly because the performance of Flash scripting is just so incredibly poor that you're pretty much constrained to make games that would have been state of the art 10+ years ago.
Atari 2600 games are great candidates for Flash games, but once you move forward in time to the 8-bit nintendo and, god forbid, the 16-bit super nintendo, you have a really difficult time trying to even muster up even enough processing power to replicate those.
For kicks I spent some time trying to write a Flash port of the original Legend of Zelda (8-bit) [nwu.edu], and ran into all kinds of performance issues. I've pretty much given that up - partially because of no time to work on it, but mostly because trying to replicate someone else's work (including the idiosyncratic bugs) got boring.
Lastly, don't take my comment to mean that great games can't be made in Flash - they certainly can, but it takes a great deal of cleverness to get around the constraints of the environment.
sonic the hedgehog flash (Score:4, Interesting)
not sure how possible it would be to make something nice out of it, though.
Re:sonic the hedgehog flash (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Not many moving sprites/creatures on the screen at once. In the sonic game, I think there was you (Sonic) and pretty much one other autonomous enemy on the screen at any given time. Flash has a lot of trouble handling many moving objects at once, because it needs to run behavior/movement code for each one. In contrast, it can draw lots of objects like there's no tomorrow.
2) The collision / tile code usually isn't quite right. Flash has some built-in collision methods, but they're not very robust and can suck up lots of the available processor very quickly. Doing a tile-based game is tricky because Flash doesn't really give much support for tiles and tile collisions. In the Sonic game you can jump up on a platform and walk on it, but the Sonic sprite is actually 1/2-1 tile below the ledge. I've seen that kind of thing a lot. It's very hard to do.
Re:Finally..... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Finally..... (Score:5, Interesting)
- Andries's isometric car game [wireframe.co.za]
- Stuart's Polar Rescue [www.dpi.nl]: an excellent engine by the master of the Flash physics engine
- Roadies [bbc.co.uk]: Very fun lemmings-like game, though when lots of Roadies are on the screen at once you'll take a big performance hit.
I consider all of the above to be triumphs in Flash games. (I just wish I had more time to work on my own personal isometric tile-based rpg engine with a-star pathfinding - a mostly functional work-in-progress).
Re:Finally..... (Score:2)
My first thought was "OK, this is actually worth rebooting into Windows." [from the website: "Note: Allow One minute to download. Requires IE5."]
Back on topic:
One of my friends in elementary school (I'm 31 now) told me there was an easter egg where you could see the credits for the designers of the game.
If i remember correctly there was this room where you started, and on the east side of the room there was some way to get through the wall. Anyone know anything about that?
I'm remembering this from like 20 years ago, so i could have some of it wrong. At any rate, this is some of the coolest news I've read on slashdot in a long time.
Re:Finally..... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Finally..... (Score:2)
Yep. I tried it out in Linux after posting. Works just great in gentoo with the latest mozilla & flash ebuilds.
(hint: click on the 'reset' switch to get it started.)
Re:Finally..... (Score:3, Funny)
Finally.....The End (Score:2)
This problem began only a few months ago. Anyone know if it's because a recent version of Flash is not friendly to slow CPUs, or is it just that some artists aren't testing their pretty creations on a system which is slower than their graphics workstation?
Re:Finally..... (Score:4, Funny)
jerkcity (Score:4, Funny)
An Age-Old Question (Score:4, Funny)
"How do I get this freakin' duck away from me!?"
Kudos to those who get the reference. IN any case, this game's getting bookmarked. It'll be fun to tinker with.
Re:An Age-Old Question (Score:2, Funny)
Re:An Age-Old Question (Score:2)
Re:An Age-Old Question (Score:3, Funny)
too young (Score:5, Funny)
Re:too young (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:too young (Score:2)
I played this (and "dam busters") way too much on my C64. "public domain software," as the banner said when started the program:
LOAD "LEMONADE",1
RUN
Yes, that's device "1" not "8" since these were the tape drive days...
Re:too young (Score:2, Funny)
LOAD "LEMONADE",1
Go see a movie. Play with your dog. Have lunch.
RUN
hydlide? (Score:2)
Copyright? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm all about beating down the RIAA and MPAA and such, but I'm a little uncomfortable at such a blatant disrespect for copyright law that's been around for far longer than the Internet.
Re:Copyright? (Score:5, Informative)
Peace.
Re:Copyright? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Copyright? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Copyright? (Score:3, Informative)
"Play Adventure.
Adventure can be run nowadays on a PC using an Atari 2600 emulator (such as PCAE or Stella) and a ROM image file ( here or here) of the Adventure cartridge.
To have the right to play the game, you should own an Adventure cartridge. You can buy an Adventure game cartridge (and an Atari 2600 console, if you want) at a web auction site, such as eBay (Top > Computers > Games > Atari). Atari game carts go for a few dollars each, and for $20, you can get an Atari 2600 console and a dozen game carts. "
Re:Copyright? (Score:2)
Re:Copyright? (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand there could in theory be trademark problems with copying images from the original game.
You insensitive clod! (Score:5, Funny)
What is a clod anyway??
Emulators (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Emulators (Score:2)
Not that a Flash game of it is different by the law, but it SEEMS different and doesn't have the ominous nature of roms attached to it
Play it offline (Score:5, Informative)
Flash emulator (Score:4, Insightful)
If someone actually managed to write an actual emulator with Flash -- believe me, it could be done, as one was even written in QBasic [emucamp.com] a few years back -- then that would definitely be qualified for front page news. In fact, I'd hope it would be in the running for story of the year.
It's probably nice work, but c'mon, editors -- it's not worth slashdotting some guy's homepage.
Yes but this is **ADVENTURE** (Score:3, Interesting)
Slashdot is news for nerds and this is...
1] eclectic
2] stuff we did before nerds became "cool"
3] just plain fun!
This counts as news in my book -- it counts as a bookmark too
Re:Yes but this is **ADVENTURE** (Score:3, Funny)
Someone please conjugate the verb with the infinitive "to bonify"...
Re:Yes but this is **ADVENTURE** (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, I remember the days when nerds were outcasts in society, nowadays, since nerds are cool, I'm invited to party with hot co-eds and cheerleaders all the time!
All for only $19.95 a month
It's no wonder ATARI went out of business (Score:5, Funny)
They sold a game cartridge that just displayed
Click here to get the plugin
Re:It's no wonder ATARI went out of business (Score:2)
Download time (Score:5, Funny)
"Note: Allow One minute to download. Requires IE5."
After Slashdotting:
"Note: Go to bed and have a nap. Still requires IE5".
Re:Download time (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Download time (Score:2, Informative)
That's crazy! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh
how about "classic porn" in ascii?? (Score:2)
Re:how about "classic porn" in ascii?? (Score:2)
Re:That's crazy! - here you go... (Score:2)
all you had to do was ask..
My character is a what? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My character is a what? (Score:2)
The lack of DTS sound and super high speed 3d acceleration in old games made the creative team work extra hard to create a game that not only was playable but also fun. Ive shown my atary to a bunch of kid (from 9 to 12 years old), they all loved the games. They found they were much easier to start plaing and understand then the newer ones and also funnier.
Adventure? (Score:5, Funny)
You are in the hall of the mountain king, with passages off in all directions.
A huge green fierce snake bars the way!
] OPEN CAGE
(releasing the little bird)
The little bird attacks the green snake, and in an astounding flurry drives the snake away.
Oops, wrong Adventure.
Re:Adventure? (Score:3, Interesting)
You know... (Score:2)
Now if I could just get the bird in the cage...
Text RPG better than silly graphics (Score:2, Insightful)
Crappy graphics, but at least you could move with the keyboard and still type
"look under bridge"
"take ball"
No, you can't get the dot (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, the green and yellow dragon speeds are switched. The line wall don't change to the color of the object you're carrying. And you can't switch to the harder levels, such as the one with the white castle.
You can tell I spent WAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY too much time playing adventure as a kid. Hey, it was 20 years before counterstrike!
Re:No, you can't get the dot (Score:3, Informative)
The shaped sprites could appear once, twice or three times on the screen, or once double-wide.
Even stranger, the "background" was only 20 pixels wide, and that filled half the screen. The other half was the same 20 pixels, either repeated or mirrored. And, like the sprites, you needed to change the pattern every few scan lines to actually get shapes.
In adventure, you were the missile/ball (probably the only game that did this), the side bars that kept you from going off the side of the screens (the ones that you needed to go through to get to the easter egg) were paddles, and everything else was a shaped sprite. The bridge, I think, was a double-wide sprite.
Given these constraints and 128 bytes(!) of RAM, it's amazing that you could actually write games at all, much less something as intricate as Adventure.
Re:No, you can't get the dot (Score:2)
Straight to the black castle, first try.
I miss the harder levels, though.. With the catacombs and the white castle.
And where's the bridge?
Two reasons why old tech is better than new tech.. (Score:3, Funny)
2. The Atari version won't suffer from the slashdot effect like this flash based version will two minutes from now.
Re:Two reasons why old tech is better than new tec (Score:2)
You forgot:
3. The old Atari didn't suck 3 amps of electricity like your computer does.
My memory of that game... (Score:2, Insightful)
Was that it was fairly complex to solve it. Good times.
Well, I was just playing Baldur's Gate II earlier this evening, and to see how the level of complexity has risen in "adventure games" is just amazing. I solved Atari's adventure in about two minutes just a second ago. I have been playing Baldur's Gate for about 80 hours and I'm not done with it yet.
Flat5
Re:My memory of that game... (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, the original remake... (Score:4, Informative)
IIRC, Indenture was written in assembly and it requires a DOS-like system to run. Not sure if it'll work correctly on newer Microsoft systems, like WinXP, but you might get lucky.
Future projects (Score:2, Interesting)
...or, worse even, the original (Atari) version of Pac Man, which may go down as the worst console port in history.
Atari Pac-Man, Adventure (Score:2)
But Adventure was tres cool; I spent many an hour playing that game. Combat was a favourite, but the coolest was Defender - the first game I flipped a million on. For the console, of course.
Slowdown! (Score:2)
The "Dot" (Score:5, Informative)
Interestingly enough, the creator of Adventure, Warren Robinett [warrenrobinett.com] apparently also co-created my absolute favorite Apple II game, Rocky's Boots! [warrenrobinett.com] Ah, the memories of building the ultimate death machine to tackle that little aligator at the end...
It's only level 1 (Score:2)
For Adventure there where 3 difficulty levels:
1 - smaller map - only the blue maze, gold and black castles
2 - full map - all items started in a preset location(though the bat would move things around during game play)
3 - full map - all items started in random locations
The scarry duck thing known as Fhqwhgads (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The scarry duck thing known as Fhqwhgads (Score:2)
well there goes another fond videogame memory.. (Score:5, Funny)
For a COMPLETE remake, check out (Score:5, Interesting)
Adventure Clone for PC [mindspring.com]
Not a complete copy (what a geek I am) (Score:2, Funny)
I even still have the maze memorized, and I was 6 years old when I played this?
I gotta go grab an Atari emulator for OSX [versiontracker.com]. Grundle, Yorgle, and Rhindle, here I come!
Turning Flash on and off (Score:5, Informative)
First, you must install flash on your system.
Second, mark the "Downloaded Program Files" directory as read only. This can be found by clicking on Tools->Internet Options. Then click on Settings then View Objects. This will show you where the folder is. Normally it's under C:\Winnt\Downloaded program Files. So mark is as read only.
Third, you need a back of the Flash.ocx file. So find it (normally c:\winnt\system32\macromed\flash) and copy it to a file named flash.ocx.bak.
Fourth, you now setup two bat files to run simple cmds. I've called them enable.bat and disable.bat.
Here's enable.bat:
pause
c:
cd "c:\winnt\system32\macromed\flash"
copy Flash.ocx.bak Flash.ocx
You are able to run this program when IE or Mozilla is open. To see the Flash file, just hit refresh.
Here's disable.bat:
pause
c:
cd "c:\winnt\system32\macromed\flash"
del Flash.ocx
Obviously nothing special. This command can only be ran if IE is closed. It'll say "File in Use" if IE is open and on a flash site.
For Mozilla, just goto Help and About Plugins. You find the Flash plugins and create similar bat files that copies and deletes it.
Now, someone needs to create a toolbar plugin that can automate this with the ability to disable flash while IE is still open. Anyone up to the task?
Re:Turning Flash on and off (Score:4, Informative)
easier (Score:2, Informative)
enable:
%windir%\System32\regsvr32.exe %windir%\System32\Macromed\Flash\swflash.ocx
disable:
%windir%\System32\regsvr32.exe %windir%\System32\Macromed\Flash\swflash.ocx
Glory Days (Score:3, Insightful)
and I'm going to drink till I get my fill
And I hope when I get old I don't sit around
thinking about it
but I probably will
Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture
a little of the glory of, well time slips away
and leaves you with nothing mister but
boring stories of glory days
Seriously... things like Stella and MAME are cool. Stella is cool for about 5 minutes and MAME is cool for about 10 minutes.
The best way to honor the good old arcade games is to recreate them under modern specifications. The authors of the classics pushed their available technology to the limit as today's programmers should.
Consider Arkanoid(Breakout)... that game was unbelievably addictive. Unfortunately, playing the emulated version just isn't the same feeling that those feelings of nostalgia promised to bring.
Then Reflexive Entertainment came out with Ricochet Extreme and I can't think of a more honorable remix of the original Breakout/Arkanoid games. Grab the demo off Cnet and you'll see what I mean.
While everyone else is trying to recapture the original Arkanoid, Reflexive gave it a new life.
The old games should be remembered for how hardcore they are in terms of programming. In every other respect, they should either be updated or left in the past.
Very nice, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
IE 5, We don't need no stinking IE 5 (Score:5, Informative)
Most modern browsers should run it just fine, I personally use Opera and it works just fine (I just had to enable popups for a second) I also know mozilla can handle flash as well as opera.
As a side note whenever browsing with these "alternative" browsers make sure to set it to identify as what it really is. I am sure if web sites more visiters using other browsers, statements like "IE 5 required" will start to disappear.
Zork 404 (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't forget the Quake 3 Arena mod of this classic (Score:2)
Arrrrgh! (Score:2)
Re:Arrrrgh! (Score:4, Informative)
I played this game tonight for the first time in twenty-some years. Amazing how it all comes back!
Re:Arrrrgh! (Score:2)
And case it's not clear, you're trying to get the chalice back to the gold castle. Yep.
Woo, what fun.. time to NITPICK!!! (Score:2, Informative)
The yellow dragon isn't afraid of the yellow key. He's supposed to run away if you've got it, hehehe...
Don't get me wrong though, I'm just kidding- This is great. I support anything even on the subject =)
Check out www.digitpress.com for more classic gaming stuff.. I'm not affiliated with them or anything, but it's a great 'zine / site.
Strong Bad said it best... (Score:2)
My favourite quote (Score:4, Funny)
Macromedia Director, which is my native language.
Imagine trying to strike up a converstaion with this fellow.
Crap (Score:2)
Now I'd play the real Adventure.
Quake 3 Mod (Score:2)
Quake 3: Adventure [ataritimes.com]
Goddamit (Score:3, Informative)
And nobody has posted a manual yet. For those of you who are young whippersnappers like me, here's the manual: http://www.atariage.com/manual_html_page.html?Sof
Naturally only young people are allowed to follow that link.
Adventure Mazes Burned into Memory (Score:2, Interesting)
Cheats for Adventure (Flash version) (Score:3, Informative)
God I'm sad.
hmm (Score:2)
Indenture (Score:2, Informative)
You can get v1.7 here [kandyneko.mine.nu].
Chris
Re:This is a Great Game! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This is a Great Game! (Score:2, Funny)
Thanks,
Joel.
Re:Requires IE5 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Requires IE5 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Requires IE5 (Score:2)
And also in Konqueror 3.0.x, with the plugin.
Re:Requires IE5 (Score:2)
it 's an incredible achievement.... but sad that someone so talented in flash doesn't know that other browsers and Operating systems exist...
I'll bet my left kidney that it works on a Macintosh and in mozilla or netscape.
Re:Requires IE5 (Score:2, Funny)
I guess I missed that one, thankfully.
Re:20 years later... (Score:2)
Re:The other Adventure game? (Score:2)
Daniel