[ Hacksterpiece Theatre is a regular column devoted to fun, odd, and interesting retro game hacks. ]
Hello, friends. Welcome to my new regular column on VC&G, Hacksterpiece Theatre, where I hope to profile for you the best, worst, and most interesting retro game hacks in existence.
Back in March on Vintage Computing and Gaming, I profiled what I called “The Best NES Game Hack of All Time,” Mario Adventure. Shortly after the hack exploded across the Net, I tracked down the author of that masterful piece of SMB3 modification and conducted an interview with him. He goes by the name “DahrkDaiz” in the online retro hacking community, and it is my belief that he is likely the most talented NES game hacker out there today. After many conversations with him about hacking, he agreed to send me some of his earlier NES game hacks that have been relatively “lost” as of late. And by lost, I mean that they were once available for download on his site, but have not been for quite some time. In this inaugural column of HT, and the first in a series of “Lost Hacks of DahrkDaiz,” I’ll be profiling one of his earliest hacks, Mario Seasons.
[ Continue reading Hacksterpiece Theatre: The Lost Hacks of DahrkDaiz, Part 1 (Mario Seasons) » ]
If you prick Bill Cosby, does he not bleed JELLO?
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Søren Ladegaard recently sent me news of his new Commodore-related website. Sure, there are plenty of Commodore-dedicated sites out there, but this one has a twist — it’s geared exclusively towards Apple Macintosh users. He writes:
I have created a website called Think Commodore. It’s about everything Commodore 64 & Amiga such as emulation, games, demos, music etc. from a Macintosh perspective. While there are tons of sites about Commodore emulation for Windows users you’ll be surprised of the amount of sites along the lines of “last update 2002, Mac OS 8.5 required etc.” That’s why I decided to do a Commodore emulation site that’s 100% up-to-date.
I’ve created a real nice and active forum too. I was fed up with posting “Any Mac users out there?” on all the popular Commodore forums. Here’s your chance to join a Commodore forum where every user is a Mac user.
After poking around the site myself, I find it quite nicely designed and very informative. If you’re a Mac user and you love Commodore computers, be sure to check it out (www.thinkcommodore.com).
My absolute favorite Sega Master System game is Enduro Racer. It’s based on a Sega arcade title of the same name, but the play style is completely different. Instead of the “behind the rider” view of the arcade, you get a 2/3 overhead view of the action. The coolest thing about the SMS version Enduro Racer are the bike upgrades — there’s something really satisfying about souping up your motorcycle with an improved “suspension” and watching it soar over the strategically placed ramps on the course. And who can forget “engine,” which makes your bike run so fast that it can be hard for your brain and fingers to keep up (Note: if you get that upgrade you should avoid the ramps). 
I always play the game with the Sega Control Stick, which I feel makes quick maneuvering around obstacles easier. It also somehow adds to the motorcycle feel of the game. That’s about the only time my Sega Control Stick ever gets used.
The biggest bummer regarding Enduro Racer is the fact that there are only five tracks. In the course of the game, you play the tracks twice: once with only one opponent (a car or another motorcycle), and again with two opponents at a time. But when it’s all over, there’s quite a surprise treat at the end. Think of it as a little philosophy, Enduro Racer-style. Let’s take a look at what happens when the credits roll.
[ Continue reading Lessons from the Master: The Zen of Enduro Racer » ]
Dude — I’ve not seen this much attitude in years.
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No, this is not a Photoshop job. Midwest Scientific Instruments really wanted to make your computer more boring, presumably by making you have to do less work to load a program into system memory. If this is the standard of “boring,” then I suppose my current computer is about 2000% more boring than the average computer in 1977. In fact, according to Moore’s Law of Boredom, this trend should continue well into the future. Moore famously postulated in 1968 that the Integral Boredom Factor (IBF) of computing devices will double every 12-24 months. So far his postulate has impressively held true. Only time will tell if bloated software companies such as Microsoft can complicate things enough to reverse the trend.
[Scanned by VC&G from Byte Magazine, February 1977]
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[Editor’s Note: Apologies for not getting this up sooner. Johnny had it ready a few weeks ago, but as you all probably know, I was busy moving. Anyway, here it is.]
(This’ll be a short read.)
I hope you’ve all saved your coupons. After an epic battle with the foul beast known as Procrastination, I’ve completed WPfADs: The Game, my first stab at the text adventure genre. To the best of my play-testing knowledge, it’s bug-free and entirely playable. And because I like you, I’ll give the link to download it right at the top of this article:
Weekend Projects for Armchair Developers: The Game
From my experience writing the game, I’ve learned a few things. First of all, Weekend Projects for Armchair Developers is an agonizingly clunky name. It’s really just something I made up for the first article because I thought it sounded funny. Although it could be worse — my first idea was “Programming for Fun and Non-Profit.” Let’s just make a mutual agreement right now to call the thing by its slightly less ridiculous acronym, “WPfADs.”
Secondly, Inform is a great programming language, and one that I’ve barely scratched the surface of with the game and Part I of this writing. With considerable time and effort (and patience), you can create a truly epic, sprawling work, with plenty of polish. My game isn’t that expansive, as I wanted to complete within a reasonable deadline (say, within the year), but I’m now itching to learn some of the finer points of the language and make something more ambitious.
The thing that makes Inform such a good programming language is that it’s actually quite cathartic at times. It has a leisurely learning curve, and games-without-reasonable-deadlines can be built up at your own pace. Also, did I mention that it’s very easy to learn? I’d encourage anybody reading this to try their hand at their own text adventure, and let me know how it turns out.
Speaking of comments, as always I’m putting the requisite “I’d love to hear some feedback” line at the end. If you find any bugs with the game (I’m sure there’s probably one or two small ones that escaped me), tell me.
That’s all. Try Inform for yourself. You’ll probably enjoy it.
I’m sure many of you are also familiar with the Epyx Fast Load Cartridge, which is also on this catalog page. Feel free to share and discuss your memories of your C64 past…while I unpack more computers.
