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So a fun fact about the Cliffs of Logic, depending on I think what version of the game you get and how fast your computer is, the game will cause Alexander to wobble on every. single. solitary. step, which was demonstrated inadvertently in the old Steam Train playthrough of the game by Ross and Danny of the Game Grumps, starting at about 5 minutes in this video (doesn’t cover anything that hasn’t been seen in the thread yet!) https://youtu.be/7qvuK245IYk
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Jan 3, 2021 05:57
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 03:17 |
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bladeworksmaster posted:So a fun fact about the Cliffs of Logic, depending on I think what version of the game you get and how fast your computer is, the game will cause Alexander to wobble on every. single. solitary. step, which was demonstrated inadvertently in the old Steam Train playthrough of the game by Ross and Danny of the Game Grumps, starting at about 5 minutes in this video (doesn’t cover anything that hasn’t been seen in the thread yet!) https://youtu.be/7qvuK245IYk Whoa, wait a minute! 
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Jan 3, 2021 06:29
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 Well tonight I learned that Dan Avidan was part of the Grumps.
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Jan 3, 2021 06:32
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 XI - Hand-to-Hand Combat with a Minotaur DoubleNegative fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Jan 5, 2021 |
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Jan 3, 2021 16:35
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DoubleNegative posted:This is a map that my mother made way back in the day, back when this game first came out. Each green mark is an exit, each orange mark is a skeleton in the wall. I'm not sure why we marked them, but whatever works! Marking the skeletons makes sense, often times games with mazes used some recurring element as a way of hiding information in plain sight. For example, the horrible dark forest maze in Secret of Evermore. As a kid I only got through it by hand drawing a map. Years later, I learned that goblins hiding in tree signpost the correct way though.
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Jan 3, 2021 17:06
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DoubleNegative posted:This is just mean. You can get past all of those puzzles on the top floor, fall down, and find that you don't have the tinderbox from the pawn shop. I remember helping my friend out with this game back in the 6th grade, and forgetting to let him know he needed the tinderbox at this point. He's never been able to forgive me and we haven't spoken since 
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Jan 3, 2021 17:38
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I seem to recall a point in my life circa middle school when I could complete the entire catacombs with no deaths and no incidental saves. I was *proud* of this at the time.
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Jan 3, 2021 18:18
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I think the death by not having the hole in the wall is the same death you were thinking of, or at least, I've never been caught by the minotaur while I had the hole on me. You can conveniently get rid of it by using it on the wall with the tapestry, if you want to see what happens when you get caught without it for yourself.
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Jan 3, 2021 21:49
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Huh, the labyrinth is a hell of a lot bigger than I remember.
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Jan 3, 2021 22:07
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I think why this maze puzzled me as a kid was that I always managed to enter without the brick, so I'd try to use the skull in the collapsing ceiling room, and wonder what I was doing wrong as the skull for crunched up by the gears and I got splatted.
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Jan 3, 2021 23:32
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Is it possible to skip the Maze Floor / copy protection room? Looks like you could go around, but not sure if there's something hidden about it that I missed. Of course, there's no drat way you'd get through the Cliffs of
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Jan 3, 2021 23:44
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MagusofStars posted:Is it possible to skip the Maze Floor / copy protection room? Looks like you could go around, but not sure if there's something hidden about it that I missed. I think you're misreading the map. You have to pass through that room to get to the shield room and beyond.
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Jan 3, 2021 23:50
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Walrus Pete posted:I think you're misreading the map. You have to pass through that room to get to the shield room and beyond. As someone who was a kid in this era (old enough to remember stuff, but too young to really understand stuff about business/etc), I've always wondered whether this copy protection actually had value though. Disks were obviously easy to copy, you could borrow software from friends, and I vaguely remember you could even rent software from the library. So from a technical aspect, I understand why you'd want some kind of way to prevent theft or 'borrowing'...but in all these cases you have a physical copy in your hands at some point, so wouldn't you also just be able to copy the protection sheet from the manual?
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Jan 4, 2021 00:34
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MagusofStars posted:As someone who was a kid in this era (old enough to remember stuff, but too young to really understand stuff about business/etc), I've always wondered whether this copy protection actually had value though. Disks were obviously easy to copy, you could borrow software from friends, and I vaguely remember you could even rent software from the library. So from a technical aspect, I understand why you'd want some kind of way to prevent theft or 'borrowing'...but in all these cases you have a physical copy in your hands at some point, so wouldn't you also just be able to copy the protection sheet from the manual? Copy protection varied a lot over time. Some companies used things like code wheels, so if you wanted to copy them, you'd have to pull them apart, copy each part, cut them out, and pin them together (and reassemble the original). Others spread the information throughout the manual, so you'd need to copy the entire book to have all the necessary information. (The King's Quest and Space Quest collections included sheets with all of the words that could be asked for - because the lists they printed in the collection manuals were missing some.) I've seen sheets that required a red filter to read, which would require you to copy the whole thing by hand. The funny thing is that King's Quest VI was well into the CD era, when copy protection started to go out of style again, because there were no practical CD copying devices for consumers. At this point, I don't think putting required information in the manual was as much a deterrent to copying as it was the style of the genre. Space Quest 6 wasn't supposed to have copy protection, as I understand it - the clues to solve a puzzle were removed in an editing pass, so the information had to be added to the package as a separate item. I just liked reading the guidebook, and then seeing those puzzles and recognizing them as something I'd seen was really neat. I never noticed the map - I just mapped it myself by hand.
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Jan 4, 2021 03:21
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Nidoking posted:The funny thing is that King's Quest VI was well into the CD era, when copy protection started to go out of style again, because there were no practical CD copying devices for consumers. Heh. I remember being on Mac OS 9 and being able to use Disk Utility to turn CD-Roms into a .dmg file. Then you could just use the .dmg file in place of the original disc...
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Jan 4, 2021 03:24
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Quackles posted:Mac OS 9 Yes, six years or so after this game came out, that kind of technology existed. Technology is funny in that people keep making more of it. That's why copy protection started to make a return, this time using the Internet and online registration of CD keys. Then came the DVD era, and another round of well, maybe we can get by without copy protection, because these discs are not copyable, then the DVD burners came, and we got on-disc DRM. But I think Sierra was entirely gone by then.
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Jan 4, 2021 04:51
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Nidoking posted:Yes, six years or so after this game came out, that kind of technology existed. Technology is funny in that people keep making more of it. That's why copy protection started to make a return, this time using the Internet and online registration of CD keys. Then came the DVD era, and another round of well, maybe we can get by without copy protection, because these discs are not copyable, then the DVD burners came, and we got on-disc DRM. But I think Sierra was entirely gone by then. Sorry. I didn't mean that to sound like a counterargument or gotcha. I was just fondly reminiscing.
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Jan 4, 2021 05:01
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Nidoking posted:Copy protection varied a lot over time. Some companies used things like code wheels, so if you wanted to copy them, you'd have to pull them apart, copy each part, cut them out, and pin them together (and reassemble the original). Others spread the information throughout the manual, so you'd need to copy the entire book to have all the necessary information. (The King's Quest and Space Quest collections included sheets with all of the words that could be asked for - because the lists they printed in the collection manuals were missing some.) I've seen sheets that required a red filter to read, which would require you to copy the whole thing by hand. The funny thing is that King's Quest VI was well into the CD era, when copy protection started to go out of style again, because there were no practical CD copying devices for consumers. At this point, I don't think putting required information in the manual was as much a deterrent to copying as it was the style of the genre. Space Quest 6 wasn't supposed to have copy protection, as I understand it - the clues to solve a puzzle were removed in an editing pass, so the information had to be added to the package as a separate item. I never ran into any that needed a filter, but some games went the other way: the copy protected info was visible to the naked eye, but printed on low contrast backgrounds that black & white copiers would render illegible. The old Wizardry games used dark red paper for the list of what the nonsense spell names actually did, for example (you could figure them out by trial & error, but there were a couple that had disastrous effects if you blindly tried them in the wrong context.)
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Jan 4, 2021 05:10
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I remember entering entering the word sword as a correct guess on two different games.
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Jan 4, 2021 05:31
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Back in the days before things like Steam, the vast majority of sales occurred in the first two months after release. Copy protection didn't need to be fool proof, just inconvenient enough to circumvent that potential customers would pay during that critical window.Nidoking posted:At this point, I don't think putting required information in the manual was as much a deterrent to copying as it was the style of the genre. Space Quest 6 wasn't supposed to have copy protection, as I understand it - the clues to solve a puzzle were removed in an editing pass, so the information had to be added to the package as a separate item. Infocom games were famous for their "feelies", creative extras included in the box with the game that helped to establish the setting. They were so much fun that people frequently didn't notice they doubled as copy protection.
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Jan 4, 2021 06:55
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how the heck did that faces code wheel thing work for Monkey Island anyway? I played Secret and Revenge through one of the Lucasarts Greatest Hits collections, so they were both together on 1 cd but I don't recall either of them featuring any copy protection, but now whenever people talk about old copy protection they always talk about The Secret of Monkey Island having a unique code wheel included.
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Jan 4, 2021 08:26
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Aces High posted:how the heck did that faces code wheel thing work for Monkey Island anyway? I played Secret and Revenge through one of the Lucasarts Greatest Hits collections, so they were both together on 1 cd but I don't recall either of them featuring any copy protection, but now whenever people talk about old copy protection they always talk about The Secret of Monkey Island having a unique code wheel included. Here's an interactive version along with instructions on how it's supposed to be used quote:Once you've started a program. a screen will appear displaying pirate's face (actually a combination of two faces). You will be prompted to enter a date that was significant in the pirate's life at a given geographical location. Use your Dial-A-Pirate wheel to match up the top and bottom halves of the pirate face you see on the screen. Then, locate the window on the wheel that matches the geographical location mentiones on the screen. Using the keyboard, type the date you see in the window. I've never seen the copy protection when playing the first Monkey Island either, so I guess they removed it in the CD-ROM version or something?
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Jan 4, 2021 08:41
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Whenever I think back on copy protection on old games, I think of this game and the cliffs, Pool of Radiance/Curse of the Azure Bonds/Hillsfar's code wheels, and The Colonel's Bequest's tinted plastic magnifying glass for fingerprint identification.
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Jan 4, 2021 08:48
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Ashens had a talk about game piracy in the 80's, and he capped it off by showing some types of present copy protection. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFd60nCBygg&t=1772s The copy protection talk starts at 29:32 but the whole thing is worth a watch.
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Jan 4, 2021 18:46
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Space Quest 6 wasn't (originally) intended to have copy protection from what I recall. Roger was supposed to be able to read an on-disk multimedia magazine while he was being held at the apartment on Polysorbate LX, and one of the articles was supposed to be "this month's puzzle-- turn a datacoder into a homing beacon!!" Then someone either never completed the art, or forgot the art, or removed the art, and one collective round of "Oh poo poo" later, they threw the puzzle into the manual as a last-minute fix. (Throwing the then-current periodic table of elements in the manual for the shuttle fuel tank puzzle, though? I got nothing on that.)
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Jan 4, 2021 19:36
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I was digging through some boxes in my attic recently and came across an old Fodor's USA guide book, which accompanied the original "Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego?". I can't remember if it was actually copy protection or just gave hints about the clues in the game, but it sure takes me back to this era of gaming. As for the labyrinth, man it was tense playing this part as a kid. The goofier bits did lighten the mood, but it's very grim when compared to the rest of the game (so far). Straight White Shark posted:Huh, the labyrinth is a hell of a lot bigger than I remember.  I remember it being something like a 6x6 grid. I didn't even remember the drop to the lower floor!
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Jan 4, 2021 19:40
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It wouldn't be the first time in Sierra's history that a generally lighthearted game had one horror-themed area in it. Space Quest 4 comes immediately to mind, which is especially a problem for that game because its bleakest section also happens to be the start of the game. I never got very far in SQ4 as a kid.
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Jan 4, 2021 20:26
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Bregor posted:I was digging through some boxes in my attic recently and came across an old Fodor's USA guide book, which accompanied the original "Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego?". I can't remember if it was actually copy protection or just gave hints about the clues in the game, but it sure takes me back to this era of gaming. Carmen Sandiego was something else again. That's one of the early versions of an ARG. It was supposed to be educational - you'd talk to people to get information about a place, look up the places in an almanac, and then find the one that matched the information you'd been given. I never remembered anything beyond the point where I picked which airport to fly to, though, so I'm not sure how good a job it did. Really, though, any reference book with the necessary information would work, so it was almost anti-copy protection.
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Jan 4, 2021 23:39
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Space Kablooey posted:Ashens had a talk about game piracy in the 80's, and he capped it off by showing some types of present copy protection. 
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Jan 5, 2021 00:50
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Ah that map, it reminds me of the map my mom made to get though the maze.
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Jan 5, 2021 04:06
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Space Kablooey posted:Ashens had a talk about game piracy in the 80's, and he capped it off by showing some types of present copy protection. You wouldn't download a car...
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Jan 5, 2021 11:36
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Quackles posted:You wouldn't download a car... Hey, in the world of 3D printing, that could actually become a thing.
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Jan 5, 2021 11:40
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 XII - The Shape of a Black Cloak DoubleNegative fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Jan 7, 2021 |
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Jan 5, 2021 13:42
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I would have been very Sierra to give you a chance to offend the oracle and be killed by her.
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Jan 5, 2021 13:50
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Speaking of the guards' poor equipment, whose idea was it to give them only one spear and one shield to share between them? Someone really needs to talk to this kingdom about their defense budget.
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Jan 5, 2021 13:55
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Blastinus posted:Speaking of the guards' poor equipment, whose idea was it to give them only one spear and one shield to share between them? Someone really needs to talk to this kingdom about their defense budget. They've got brittle bird bones, maybe they can't fly carrying both at once.
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Jan 5, 2021 14:17
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Bregor posted:I was digging through some boxes in my attic recently and came across an old Fodor's USA guide book, which accompanied the original "Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego?". I can't remember if it was actually copy protection or just gave hints about the clues in the game, but it sure takes me back to this era of gaming. It was both. IIRC the game asked for specific words from pages and paragraphs when you caught the crook.
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Jan 5, 2021 15:27
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DoubleNegative posted:Heck of a cliffhanger, huh? They say, being uncermoniously dumped in front of the logic cliffs.
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Jan 5, 2021 15:48
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DoubleNegative posted:
Jeez, don't get too excited Alex friggin' saved your kid from a horrible death! But enough about that, here come the druids!
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Jan 5, 2021 16:38
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I see you have proven yourself the 'hero' of the prophecy. Well, I am expected to thank you for saving my daughter's life, so I thank you.
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Winged Ones are just really, really tsundere
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Jan 5, 2021 23:38
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