After 35 Years, Classic Shareware Game 'Cap'n Magneto' Finally Fully Resurrected (statesman.com) 23
A newspaper in Austin, Texas shares the story behind a cult-classic videogame, the 1985 Macintosh shareware game "Cap'n Magneto."
It was the work of Al Evans, who'd "decided to live life to the fullest after suffering severe burn injuries in 1963" at the age of 17. Beneath the surface, "Cap'n Magneto" is a product of its creator's own quest to overcome adversity after a terrible car crash — an amalgamation of hard-earned lessons on the value of relationships, being an active participant in shaping the world and knowing how to move on... "Whether I was going to survive at all was very iffy," Evans said. "The chance of me living to the age of 28 or 30 was below 30% or something like that." Regardless of how much time he had left, Evans said he refused to let his injuries hold him back from living his life to the fullest. He would live his life with honesty, he decided, and do his best to always communicate with others truthfully. "I wasn't going to spend the next two years of my life dorking around different hospitals. So I said what's the alternative?" Evans said...
To float his many hobbies and interests, however, Evans knew he had to make money. In addition to doing work as a graphic designer and a translator, he picked up computer programming, which opened his eyes to a digital frontier that allowed for the creation of new worlds with the stroke of a keyboard. When he realized the technical capabilities of the Macintosh — the first personal computer that had a graphics-driven user interface and a built-in mouse function — Evans said he set out to build a world that could marry storytelling and graphics. With the help of his wife Cea, Evans created his one and only computer game: "Cap'n Magneto."
"I really wanted to write a good game, and I definitely think it was that," Evans said...
Australia-based gaming historian, author and journalist Richard Moss says, "What really marked it as different, though, was that the alien speech, once ungarbled by a tricorder item that players had to find, would be spoken aloud through the Mac's built-in speech synthesizer and written on-screen in comic-style speech bubbles," Moss said. "And unlike most role playing games of the time, every character you'd meet in the game could be friendly and helpful or cold and dismissive or aggressive and hostile — depending on a mix of random chance and player choice...."
With "Cap'n Magneto," Evans said he wanted to make sure that players could befriend the non-playable alien characters that the hero encounters. Though the game is beatable without their help, it is significantly easier with the help of allies. A reality in which everyone was an enemy, to Evans, was simply dishonest.
"That doesn't reflect the game of life, you know? Some people, well, most people actually, are probably pretty friendly," he said.
35 years after its release, Evans — now 75 years old — received a message on Facebook informing him that the game was still being played — but no one could finish it because the built-in "nagware" required payments that couldn't be completed.
That problem has finally been fixed, and long-time Slashdot reader shanen now shares the web site where the full game can finally be downloaded.
It was the work of Al Evans, who'd "decided to live life to the fullest after suffering severe burn injuries in 1963" at the age of 17. Beneath the surface, "Cap'n Magneto" is a product of its creator's own quest to overcome adversity after a terrible car crash — an amalgamation of hard-earned lessons on the value of relationships, being an active participant in shaping the world and knowing how to move on... "Whether I was going to survive at all was very iffy," Evans said. "The chance of me living to the age of 28 or 30 was below 30% or something like that." Regardless of how much time he had left, Evans said he refused to let his injuries hold him back from living his life to the fullest. He would live his life with honesty, he decided, and do his best to always communicate with others truthfully. "I wasn't going to spend the next two years of my life dorking around different hospitals. So I said what's the alternative?" Evans said...
To float his many hobbies and interests, however, Evans knew he had to make money. In addition to doing work as a graphic designer and a translator, he picked up computer programming, which opened his eyes to a digital frontier that allowed for the creation of new worlds with the stroke of a keyboard. When he realized the technical capabilities of the Macintosh — the first personal computer that had a graphics-driven user interface and a built-in mouse function — Evans said he set out to build a world that could marry storytelling and graphics. With the help of his wife Cea, Evans created his one and only computer game: "Cap'n Magneto."
"I really wanted to write a good game, and I definitely think it was that," Evans said...
Australia-based gaming historian, author and journalist Richard Moss says, "What really marked it as different, though, was that the alien speech, once ungarbled by a tricorder item that players had to find, would be spoken aloud through the Mac's built-in speech synthesizer and written on-screen in comic-style speech bubbles," Moss said. "And unlike most role playing games of the time, every character you'd meet in the game could be friendly and helpful or cold and dismissive or aggressive and hostile — depending on a mix of random chance and player choice...."
With "Cap'n Magneto," Evans said he wanted to make sure that players could befriend the non-playable alien characters that the hero encounters. Though the game is beatable without their help, it is significantly easier with the help of allies. A reality in which everyone was an enemy, to Evans, was simply dishonest.
"That doesn't reflect the game of life, you know? Some people, well, most people actually, are probably pretty friendly," he said.
35 years after its release, Evans — now 75 years old — received a message on Facebook informing him that the game was still being played — but no one could finish it because the built-in "nagware" required payments that couldn't be completed.
That problem has finally been fixed, and long-time Slashdot reader shanen now shares the web site where the full game can finally be downloaded.
Time to boot up a REAL Mac then (Score:2)
Since a REAL Mac has a 68k processor.
And I have access to one as well. With a 68040.
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Al had a real Lisa, too. I think it was still working when I last saw him in the '90s. But he started with the Apple II.
Just listened to his "Some Folks" song again after a while. So many memories I wound up listening several times...
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A real Mac has a 68000 processor. My 3 SE/30s don't qualify. But I have a regular SE that does.
Re: Time to boot up a REAL Mac then (Score:1)
So they patched out the nag screen? (Score:2)
Oh wait it looks like rather than making the 35-year-old game free or at least DRM-free, they've simply fixed the payment system, for now...
Remember when BattleZone 2 had the DRM officially patched out of it just a few years after it was released? Good times...
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I should ask Al about that, but the story will have expired here... But the download site may be obsolete even if it looks like it's working again. Since the source has been released, I don't know if there's any commercial value in it now. I do know he's been retired for a long time and remember he also did a song about paying off his mortgage... (Now memories of the fireflies in his backyard...)
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No, the guy posted a registration code on the main page you're supposed to use.
The payment and registration system company is long gone and not coming back. They're dead. So instead the guy probably found a registration code he used for testing and made it public.
Not the cleanest website, for sure, and you'd think he'd post it on the download page, but it's on the first
Humanoid caca! (Score:1)
Al posted a registration code (Score:5, Informative)
For those that missed it, Al has posted a registration code on the home page of the Cap.n Magneto site. And to all the haters out there, no, Al is not still trying to earn money off this 35 years later.
Got to http://www.capnmagneto.com/ind... [capnmagneto.com] and look at Al's most recent posting.
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Thanks for checking up on that. My main link to Al these days is via Facebook, and I do not like Facebook.
Something I should have noted when I submitted the story is that I regard Al as a wise man. I cannot say whether I am qualified to make such an assessment, but my "working theory" is that there are various courses to wisdom. Going through extremely bad times is one of those paths. I don't think anyone ever chooses such a path to wisdom, but I should ask Al what he thinks about it...
The Mac user jokes pretty much write themselves. (Score:5, Funny)
PC users: Create and release cracked version of game utilizing ten different methods of copy protection two weeks before it's released.
Amiga users: Do the exact same thing, but port the whole thing to Amiga, and add an eleventh method of copy protection which restricts userbase to denizens of a single obscure Amiga BBS still running on dial-in in 2021. Eleventh method of copy protection still uncracked as of Stardate 1312.4, though current quantum computers are approximately 72.8% of the way to finding a solution.
Taylor had decided to search for Evans after finding a video on YouTube that said "Cap’n Magneto" had been re-released in color in 2005 – but the new version was unbeatable because the company that processed payments for the game had gone out of business.
"The person who made the YouTube video was saying, 'Al Evans, you have to release the code, free Cap’n Magneto,'” Taylor said.
Taylor reached out to Evans and told him that a small, yet loyal group of "Cap'n Magneto" fans had not been able to play through the game in its entirety.
Mac users: Still stymied by decades-old shareware nag screen.
Baubles! (Score:3)
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I'm high on your life.
All sipids are liars.
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Cult classic? (Score:3, Informative)
The reason most people haven't heard of this game was because in 1985, the Macintosh was friggen expensive. $2.5k, in 1985 dollars, or about $6.1k in today's dollars. The "cult" you had to be in, was the cult of the relatively wealthy.
"fully resurrected" only on PPC macs? (Score:2)
not sure it warrants the title "fully resurrected" if you can't play it on your current computer.
seems it requires a PPC mac or emulator in order to run?
so... i would have been interested... but now, not.
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The website has a version for modern Macs and I give someone (though I don't think it was Al) credit for making the effort to make sure it works with an emulator for Windows.
I'm quite concerned about intruding on Al's privacy, notwithstanding that he obviously just agreed to be featured in an article in the local newspaper. However we did talk about the game a couple of times. Never managed to interest me enough to want to play it. Still haven't decided if I want to give it some time now. Al has a remarkabl
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> The website has a version for modern Macs
if there's a link i couldn't find it.
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I looked at the description of the first download link and was confused:
Cap'n Magneto 2.1 CARBON: This version runs natively under MacOS X, and under MacOS 8.6-9.2 with CarbonLib installed in the System Folder.
Download Cap'n Magneto 2.1 CARBON! (version 2.1, 424k Stuffit Archive)
I am obviously not the right person to figure this out. I didn't even realize that Big Sur was numbered 11. I thought it was all OS X, so the "runs natively" was sufficient. But I did try the obvious and installed the latest Stuffit Expander (and confirmed it was supposed to support Big Sur), but got no joy. Other files can be expanded, but Cap'n Magneto is grayed out and untouchable...
I may take another swing at it later when I have mo
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Most DOS games require an emulator to run, DOSbox is a popular one. Others run DOS in a VM (which on modern machines has to emulate the entire thing because you're stuck in 16 bit mode).
What's the big deal? 68K Mac emulation has been a think for a while, and there's even a DOS based emulator that's a clean
Played this on my old mac SE (Score:5, Interesting)