So it looks like the Empire type of BBS game I'm looking for is based off of another game: Dukedom. I was going through my collection of Apple II games and I ran across a text adventure disk that had a copy of it in Basic. I printed it out and created a Java port of the game. It's not exact, but it does allow you to control the game through input. My Empire App only allowed a key press to advanced turns, so not much there but number crunching.

The port is pretty true, but I set some numbers higher so the game can be played a little longer, the orginal game is over pretty quickly, talk about a casual game! I also dropped the other dukes attacking. Guess I just got lazy but I figure that the game is focused on over throwing the King, so why even bother with the others. Also, winning the game is taken straight from the code, so you're going to need a lot of grain to pay off those merceniars. Make sure you don't go to war too earily.

Dukedom is just a fun little applet to play through a few times to see if you can overthrow the King. It reads key presses, deals with different pages, and handles number crunching. Not a lot there. But it's pretty neat to think that we can still keep the 80's alive through something like Java.

Enjoy - D

Currently Playing: Eve Online

Over the weekend I had a chance to finish Dungeons & Desktops, a book written by Matt Barton about the history of computer role-playing games. It covers most of the major games in the genre, everything from the Temple of Apshai (1979) and Wizardry (1981) to Diablo (1996) and World of Warcraft (2004). The section about SSI and the Pool of Radiance (1988) was awesome.

Each game is introduced with who made it and when, as the author goes into what influenced the game, its impact, and any new or improved upon features. He also covers parts of the plot, reveling some of the storyline but never giving too much away, and he goes into what the critics were saying about the game when it came out at the time.

It’s a great book that shows the impact of major games over the years, though every game out there isn’t in it. He skipped over Shadowrun (1994) for the Genesis, but covered Interplay’s Neuromancer (1988), so it really had to be breaking ground in some new way for the him to critique it.

If you’re a fan of CPRGs, or a designer, this book is a must have. Not only does the author show how and why each game is impacting, but he’ll show you games that I’m sure you’ve never heard of before. There are screenshots throughout the book, making it a quicker read, and he doesn’t go on about any one game for more than a few pages. For over 400 pages you can see how he’s easily covered over a 100 games. There are some grammatical mistakes, but if you can over look these this book is an enjoyable read.

- D

Currently Playing: Eve Online