R.i.p.

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by okblacke
Infocom!

Scott Adams!

Synergistic Software (the '70s one, not these modern upstarts)

Strategic Simulations, Inc! (Well, I guess they're still around.)

Broderbund (they made the great Galactic Empire/Galactic Trader games back '80)!

Bill Budge!

Bob Bishop!

Silas Warner!

Don D. Worth!

Who stole my walker? Where's my social security check?!

well i remember some of them - and i'm not that old, although my knee gets a bit stiff in winter

The good ol days when the designer/programer actualy had control over the output - ah sweet memmories, those were heady times of no frontiers

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by ADG
Worms 3D is actually better than expected... only the bots sucks

ADG......please, how fun is it compared to the origonals?(i have played a demo of it).

And its me coT - its got 3D in the title........its just my biased opinion

[duke o' york]

okblacke meant zimmer frame when he said "walker"!
I thought he may have been some kind of stormtrooper destroying Ewok villages, or so rich and lazy that he employs somebody to walk for him.

I absolutely agree that anything with 3D in the title usually turns out to be part of the 90% already mentioned in the disrespectin' thread. I'm having trouble thinking of games with superlatives in the title that were good too. (I hated Supercars, for example)
Does Multiplayer Gold Edition count?

[Adagio]

Originally posted by child of Thor
And its me coT - its got 3D in the title........its just my biased opinion

I have the same oppinion... but this took me by supprise... It's just annoying I can't play it because:
1) The AI sucks... very boring and very annoying
2) I only know one person who has the game installed, but he doesn't want to play it if it's just 2 player
3) I only know VERY few people who actually like Worms... I can count them on one hand, and still have fingers left
4) Online gaming doesn't work

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Noone mentioned Looking Glas Studios

Thief games

[Footie Mad]

There was this company named Tsunami that made a game called Protostar, which I played endlessly on my old 66 Mhz. Maybe it was just an Elite ripoff but I had never heard of that game when I played Protostar and man that game just sucked me in, free space exploration, trading, fighting and building your ship. A simple recipe that worked.

[gjramsey]

Sir-tech Canada Ltd. Wizardry 8 (for sure) and other RPGs (I think)

[lord of the mark]

a quick search of USENET confirms that SSI is dead. Apparently bought by Sierra, sold to UBISoft, consolidated out of existence.

[lord of the mark]

oh and Talonsoft of course, swallowed by Take2, though i dont think there was much left at the end.

[okblacke]

Originally posted by child of Thor
well i remember some of them - and i'm not that old, although my knee gets a bit stiff in winter

The good ol days when the designer/programer actualy had control over the output - ah sweet memmories, those were heady times of no frontiers

Bill Budge was a 3D GOD! Yeah, y'all turn your noses up at 3D but seeing a wire-frame X-wing fighter on your Apple ][ back in 1981 was pretty hot stuff. It was so taxing that the arcade game Bill made with it one type of enemy ship, and it could only follow one of two paths.

Silas Warner's Castle Wolfenstein had disguises, sneaking, wrapped around a "Berserk" style arcade game. The play mechanic was in some ways more sophisticated than id's 3D remake. (The id guys are fan of that era, too.) He also did a first person shooter-type game--the first, IIRC.

Bob Bishop did a scrolling Pac-Man clone called "Dung Beetles". On the Apple ]['s demo disk, he had a little demo program of a figure dancing to "Turkey in the Straw" called "Applevision".

Don D Worth invented "Beneath Apple Manor". It was Nethack--but pre-Nethack.

Strategic Simulations had a WWII simulator called "Computer Ambush". Awesome game. You'd put in your orders, your opponent would do the same, and then, six hours later, you'd come back and the computer would tell you the results.

I was about nine back then but a bud of mine was 3-4 years older and wrote literally hundreds of games.

[Urban Ranger]

Nobody mentioned Chris Crawford yet?

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Nobody mentioned Chris Crawford yet?

but he's not a dead! - not last time i looked, he still works on his erazamatron and other projects.
One guy who saw the future of games way before it went a bit bad(IMO).his site

He has huge ammounts of interesting reading material here

[vovan]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Nobody mentioned Chris Crawford yet?

Speaking of whom... What's up with Chris Crawford? Many people seem to think he is like a god, and so when I saw his book on game design, I jumped on it, yet... It quite frankly sucked. Save two-three good chapters, everything is full of arrogant crap. His whole damn book boils down to praising himself, calling himself that greatest designer in the universe, and bashing the gamers for not buying his games. He talks about three-four of his games that totally sank, and claims that they were like the greatest things ever, and nobody bought them, 'cause they didn't (or couldn't because they were stupid) appreciate his genius! WTF?

[Adagio]

And who exactly is this Chris? I've never heard of him....

[vovan]

Originally posted by ADG
And who exactly is this Chris? I've never heard of him....

Exactly!

Seriously though, he made games back in the bad old days: from mid-eighties to the early nineties. About the only game of his that did well was the Balance of Power. Everything else nobody's ever heard of because his genius was underappreciated.