Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!oliveb!amdahl!dwl10 From: dwl10@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Dave Lowrey) Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm Subject: Re: Review: Adventure Construction Set Message-ID: <960SUb8pfj10109AH/A@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> Date: 11 Jul 88 19:07:07 GMT Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Houston TX Lines: 71 ------------------------------------------ As the author of the original review of Adventure Construction Set, I'd like to respond to these comments. [By the way, "I" am Doug Pardee... I can't post from my site, only read, but I've convinced Dave to post my drivel to the net for all to see. Don't blame Dave, he's just the messenger]. ---- I read the following complaint as, "The C-64 is a dog of a computer, and thus (through no fault of its own) ACS on the '64 is a waste of time. What you need is a REAL computer." > The problems I encountered centered around > the general slowness of the machine ... > ... The problem is not that the game is not well > designed, but rather the limitations of the machine make any user interface > very clumsy to use. I simply don't have the patience to invest that kind > of time in a game, when the same concept put into another machine would > obviously cut the task in half. My review was posted only to comp.sys.cbm. I presume that my readers (if I have any) are interested in C-64 software because they have a C-64, and that they're not particularly interested in how much better any given program might be on "another machine". That information belongs in the infamous high-flame newsgroup comp.sys.my.computer.is.better.than.your.computer. I also presume that my readers are generally aware of what performance can be expected of a C-64, and that I would be insulting their intelligence to point out that the IBM-PC and Amiga versions of ACS would certainly be faster than the C-64 version. Except for the movement on the World Map (which I called "surprisingly sluggish") and the disruption caused by having to go to the disk for any 3-line messages associated with special effects, I didn't find ACS to be slow at all -- WHEN COMPARED WITH OTHER C-64 GAMES. >It is amazing to see ACS >construct adventures on it's own given a rule set, but the resulting game >is not usually worth playing. This is (obviously) going to be a matter of taste, and one of the most difficult parts of writing a review is to provide the information that is needed for each reader to be able to decide if the product will agree with his personal taste. Apparently I missed on this point, so I'll try again. Although the computer-generated adventures can't be "tricky" with ingenious puzzles to solve, I feel that they *can* be interesting when treated as the basic hack-and-slash quest-for-an-object style of adventure. For the more sophisticated adventure players who prefer intriguing puzzles rather than computer-generated hack-and-slash, the ACS Club library has over 75 C-64 titles, each priced at a measly $5. Although I haven't tried any of them myself, I've read the documentation on three of the games which were rated "four stars", and I think most adventure players would be impressed. -- Doug Pardee {ames,hplabs,sun,amdahl,allegra}!oliveb!edge!doug Edge Computer Corp., Scottsdale, AZ uunet!ism780c!edge!doug -- ------------------------------------------------------------------- "This isn't Heaven, this is Cleveland!!!!" Dave Lowrey Amdahl Corp. Houston, Texas (713)-850-8828 ...!{ames,sun,decwrl,uunet,....}!amdahl!dwl10 [ The opinions expressedbe those of the author and not necessarily those of his most eminent employer. ]