Tag Archives: AtariST

Upgrade, next chapter

Yesterday I was thinking of a game I used to play and it left me a little underwhelmed. It was not the fault of the game maker, the game was awesome. It gave me the thought that I was in the deep with the dodo’s of the Kremlin, or the White House. The game did what they promised, but I was thinking what this game could do with current technology and settings of DMS and some LLM. There is also the thought that the game was originally a little 2D. It all fitted on an 800KB disk so I am not surprised. But consider the idea what the current settings allow for.

The idea that they had with the political tables of then (1987) and what Mindscape was able to achieve. It started as a game of geopolitics during the Cold War, created by Chris Crawford and published in 1985 on the Macintosh by Mindscape, followed by ports to a variety of platforms over the next two years and I got the AtariST version in 1987. And as sources reveal, takes the role of the President of the United States or General Secretary of the Soviet Union. The goal is to improve the player’s country’s standing in the world relative to the other superpower. During each yearly turn, random events occur that may have effects on the player’s international prestige. The player can choose to respond to these events in various ways, which may prompt a response from the other superpower. This creates brinkmanship situations between the two nations, potentially escalating to a nuclear war, which ends the game. It is my advice not to ‘antagonise’ the opponent in the Pink Kremlin, or the Black House to avoid the nuclear holocaust that follows. And why leave it there, the complications of a EU could be added, so you can see how likely little you can do as as King Gustav on charge of that small sided Sweden (population 10.5 million) and we can build on this, we can evolve this with corporate powers and the influence they hold with the likes of Strawberry, Hippolytics, Smallsoft, and a whole range of power players. See what happens when you tweak that power (or nationalise their goods) then we get to the impact of social media like SnoutTome, QuickOunce, MyTransistor, DingDong, Toucan, Connected, ScryingStone and a whole range of other groups. You could see the direct impact that trolls have when they are clearly exposed and optionally with scenarios to solve. I would recommend to leave the intelligence groups to a later date (or a DLC) to properly test the settings you have there. It could be the first simulator for audiences and students of geopolitics and social standings later. That is before you add the mess that (WatchMyGrey, AmiSix, and their offspring in France, Germany as well as Mossad does to the worlds chaos (under their tutelage) 

I wonder how no one enacted this setting, it seems to be a decently solid training and educational simulator giving students to study multidimensional settings that geopolitics present in todays industry. I’ll bet you you can’t fit that on a 800KB diskette, but there is every thought that it can be done, the social sciences tables still exist and they can vouch for the until recent messes and they are basically ready for deployment. And now that we see the world for what it is, we might also include global religion as an influence and show you why the Catholic Church doesn’t have as much as it used to be.

It is merely a small snag that escaped my brain this morning, but I reckon that the old software settings could still apply to settings of today, you merely have to upgrade the setting and there is plenty of options here and as they were solidly stated on those basic settings of Social sciences, in todays world they could be used through Deeper Machine Learning to a much more powerful extend. See what some see and what you are not supposed to know (sorry Blaise Metreweli) but that is also the next challenge. Instead of shouting at Toucan, you could investigate the trolls on Toucan and see what the expected result is and who the culprit behind these pretentious stages are, not to be coy, but using that Strawberry Studio to see it on the big screen, or even as a user of the Hippolytics Moon streaming service get a new lease of opportunity. An educational simulator for students and investigators of humbug gets a new side of life.

Well anyway, that was my thought I had this morning. And the names have been changed to avoid  the guilty and make me less liable, a decently appreciative setting

Have a great day. I wanted to take a nice walk, but it is 34 degrees celsius out there, bit much for a long walk. Oh and Strawberry, fix your DoDo Dos version Hawaii 26.1, when you switch off your router before you switch off your wireless, the wireless keeps on scanning the ether, even AFTER you switch of the WiFi. Sloppy programming. 

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The missing gap

I woke up this morning (03:15) and I started to realise what I had been missing (no, not a gorgeous woman, but yes, that too). I have been a gamer for the longest of times and I have been active going back to the Commodore Vic-20 (1982). Over the span of 40 years I have seen a huge collection of games spanning the Vic-20, CBM-64, AtariST, CBM Amiga, Megadrive, Playstation, Dreamcast, Playstation 2, Xbox-360, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox One and Playstation 5. I am not counting the PC and Mac Games but yes I had them too. My mind suddenly wandered on certain titles and the one that woke me up was an old PS1 game, Kula World. 

I suddenly realised what I missed. Game makers are all about the achievements, the progress and the hardship. Yet, when was the last time you set down relaxed and just played to have fun? I reckon that most of you had with Minecraft, but with what other game? Do not get me wrong, Skyrim is heaps fun, but it is a game with missions, a game with targets and I do not oppose them. Sometimes we just want to have fun, either alone or with friends. I reckon that is why Mario Party is such a success. Gaming just for fun. When was that?

It is almost a setting that gaming is now intended to push artsy people into a business degree. It is OK for some and ok for some all of the time, but not for all people all of the time. The new games (even the ones I designed) are about targets, populations and getting to a point, but what if there is no real point? Kula World was a game with a target in the distance, but oddly enough, when you were playing it was about the fun and I actually miss that. 

Don’t get me wrong, I still love hours and hours of Elite Dangerous, I still enjoy my Skyrim time and at times even Watchdogs: Legion. Yet the stage of focussing on fun is dwindling down in gaming and I think that is a shame and it is a loss for all gamers. I get it, some want to get contracts done in Grand Theft Auto, some what to get their team to the cup (NHL) and some want to survive (Last of Us) and there is nothing wrong with that. Yet at times it merely needs about the fun of playing and that is gone in too many places. And even I am guilty of that, all the designs I created, my mind created was about going somewhere, and for moments I forgot the feeling I had in Oblivion to just look at the scenery. Why is that, what did the game makers forget? What were we made to forget? 

I do not know how it happened. Perhaps people (game makers) were too intent on staring at Ubisoft and their one AC a year, perhaps they all forgot what the fun of playing was or perhaps the makers hired Business degree people to get them a money making game. Yet I feel that something is being lost and I hope that some will rectify this sooner rather than later. I reckon that if I looked back to the last 3 years, playing Minecraft and losing time and the sense of time there is the most fun I have been having playing a game, which is a shame. I had that feeling a lot in the Amiga and CBM64 time and I miss that feeling, I suddenly realised that I missed feeling that way. There is no way in hell that I am the only gamer feeling that way, but there it is. The gap I am missing and it makes sense, after all that school, who took a gap year? Where is our console gap year? Even now as we marvel on the sanctity of new titles, new challenges and new horizons, where is the gap that allows us to sit and just have fun?

Think back, when was the last time you had actual fun playing?

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