Alley Cat - Epitome of a Timeless Early PC Classic

IBM PC Screenshots on the Left Side of the Page                       IBM PCjr. Screenshots on the Right Side of the Page

Alley Cat from Synapse Software is one of the best examples of a classic game released for the IBM PC. Originally programmed for the Atari 8-bit computers by Bill Williams in 1983, it was soon ported over for the PC by Williams and published by IBM.

Alley Cat is not an overly complex game and is easy to pick up and play.  You play as an alley cat named Freddy who is trying to impress his would-be girlfriend Felicia by doing all sorts of alley cat things that people who live in the alley find to be a nuisance.  The object of each level is to get into one of the rooms of the condominiums above the alley using the windows that open and then complete the challenge in that room. Once you complete the challenge, Felicia will beckon to you through an open window.  There you must dodge her brothers and reach her to get a kiss.  Once you kiss her you will advance to the next level, which is more difficult than the last.  When you start you can select one of four difficulty levels, Kitten (easiest), House Cat, Tomcat or Alley Cat.

You can control the game with the cursor keys or a joystick, but I highly recommend using a joystick.
Moving Freddy is done by pushing left or right and jumping by pressing up.  Pressing down descends off clotheslines, fences and other platforms.  Jumping left and right is done with by holding the up and left or right cursor keys or directionals on the joystick.  Freddy can cover a lot more distance from a running jump than a walking or stationary jump.  The jumping mechanics are a bit stiff in this game, but eventually you should be able to get a feel for the game's mechanics.

Holding down the cursor key down will make Freddy move faster.  The same thing happens with an analog joystick no matter how far from the center the stick's position is held.  Considering that Alley Cat was originally programmed for the Atari 8-bit computers and their digital joysticks, it is not surprising that there is no real analog joystick support.  It seemed to have no problem with a "digital" Gravis Gamepad when run on a real IBM PC.  You can "paws the game" by pressing the Escape key.

You begin in the alley with three lives and can earn up to an appropriate nine.  Your task is to hop on the small or large trash cans, then onto the fence.  You can run on top of the fence but not on the clotheslines.  You must jump onto the clotheselines where there are clothes hanging off them.  From there you can leap or descend into an open window.  This screen is the most lethal between the dog patrolling the ground (helped by the other alley cat that pushes you off trash cans) and the things thrown out of windows.  You can catch the three mice for points, but they can knock you off a clothesline by touching Freddy as he clings to laundry.  The high score is displayed on the left side of the fence and the current score is on the right side of the fence (as telephone numbers) with the number of lives you have remaining.

There are five challenge rooms and when you jump into a window you can encounter any of them :

The first room you may enter is the Aquarium.  Your first task is to hop into the bowl by touching it.  Then the screen will change to Freddy swimming in the bowl.  He needs to catch all twelve fish without touching the increasing number of electric eels or suffocating.  Freddy and the screen border will change color as his oxygen runs out.  You can replenish your air supply by swimming to the surface.

The second room is the Pantry.  Here there is a huge wedge of cheese with multiple holes.  You have to catch four mice in this stage.  You can jump across the cheese or use the action button to crawl between holes in the cheese.

The third room is the Aviary.  Here you must knock the bird cage off the table by touching it several times.  Once the bird cage falls to the floor, it will break and a bird will fly out.  Catch the bird to complete the challenge.

The fourth room is the Library.  Here you must collect all three flower plants on top of the bookshelf without touching the two spiders.

The fifth room is the Kennel.  Here you must drink all the dogs' water bowls (twelve in all) with the action button without waking up the dogs.  You only have a certain amount of time to drink bows next to a dog before he wakes up.  The screen will flash red when one starts to wake up and if he does wake up, he will attack you like the dog in the alley.

In each of these rooms is a mad housekeeping broom that will chase you and fling you about the room with contact.  It will also sweep up your paw prints, which you can use to distract it.  Sometimes, it is helpful to propel Freddy to a hard to reach area.  In each of these challenge rooms, the dog from the alley can run across the screen and the consequences are identical as if you encountered him in the alley.  You can jump out of the window from which you entered, which causes you to lose the challenge room and return to the alley.  You earn points depending on how quickly you completed the challenge room, and on the score screen the background and border will flash green.

Felicia's room is a little different.  No dogs or broomsticks here.  However, there are six levels between you and her, and each one is patrolled by one of her feline siblings who will knock you down to the level below.  Moreover, the cupids shoot arrows that can turn parts of the floor solid or allow you to fall.  If you fall off the lowest level, you lose and must complete a challenge room before you can get to Felicia's room again.  When you enter Felicia's room, you will find one present for each time you have tried the room.  If you drop this present and one of her cat brothers touch it, it will leave the room.  The black colored objects and border will change to blue when you have a present.  All the colors change if you get to kiss Felicia.  If you kiss Felicia you will get a bonus depending on how fast you cleared the level and may also earn extra lives.

You will not lose a life if you fall off the fence, get knocked off a clothesline by a mouse, fall off a clothesline and go behind the fence, jump into the window from whence you came after entering a room or falling below the lowest level in Felicia's room.  You will lose a life if you get hit by an object thrown out of a window, being touched by an awake dog, an electric eel, a spider or drowning in the fish bowl.

Alley Cat is a very fun game, one you can or could have found yourself losing half an hour of time (when you should be working).  The challenge rooms are fun without getting too frustrating at the lower levels.  The graphics are cute and clear, the sound effects are quite appropriately done for the PC speaker.  Getting the noise sound effect when the dog attacks you is pretty impressive.  This game was a product of its time when character control was seen as part of the challenge, but the jumping control is still on par with Mario Bros.  It proves that fast paced, engaging arcade-style games are quite possible on the limited graphics and sound capabilities of the PC speaker.

Many other games from the IBM-dominated PC era (1981-1986) will fail when run at a playable on hardware substantially faster than that in the IBM PC.  One of the most interesting things about Alley Cat for the IBM PC is that it is very speed friendly when it comes to faster machines, something very rare in its day. However, this is not quite as forward thinking as you may believe.  When this port was released in 1984, IBM had no less than three speed classes of PCs on the market during that year.  First there was the 8088 running at 4.77MHz running in the IBM PC, IBM PC/XT and IBM PC Portable.  Second was the PCjr., which had the same CPU and ran it at the same speed as the PC, but system is slower with 128KB due to the sharing of the memory between the CPU and PCjr. graphics adapter.  Third was the IBM PC AT with a 80286 CPU running at 6MHz and up to three times as fast as the IBM PC.  The developer probably had to sign a few non-disclosure agreements and put up with the legendary IBM secrecy in order to gain access to that information or hardware, since the AT was not released until August of 1984 and was incredibly expensive when first released.  The result is a same that runs at a consistent speed regardless of the hardware being used to run it.  It does a speed test prior to loading and uses it to adjust its timing appropriately.

On any system other than a PCjr., Alley Cat is displayed using CGA color limitations.  Alley Cat has better color selections and some 3-voice music when run on an IBM PCjr.  However, this information had to be re-discovered at some point during the 2000s, Alley Cat has some support of PCjr. graphics and sound.  There is three voice PCjr. sound chip music on the title screen.  (The PCjr. can play the PC speaker music by selecting N for the prompt "Are you using a TV or an external speaker (Y/N)?")  However, all in-game music and sound effects use the PC speaker with the PCjr.

For graphics, as with the CGA card, only four colors are used.  However, the PCjr. allows the colors to be selected freely from its 16 color palette. Of course this is not a patch on the Atari 8-bit plaform, which could display 16 colors from a 256 color palette, and on some screens even more can be seen because Alley Cat uses scanline interrupts.  You can see differences in the screenshots posted throughout this blog entry.  CGA screenshots are on the left side of the page, PCjr. screenshots are on the right side of the page.

Outside the PCjr., all later graphics cards should display the colors and effects correctly.  Alley Cat strove for compatibility by avoiding direct hardware access to the CGA card and instead used BIOS functions for its graphics control.  All other graphics cards except for Hercules monochrome are or should be CGA compatible at the BIOS level.  The BIOS functions are more limited than direct hardware access; BIOS functions only allow the programmer to change the palette color in 320x200 Mode 4 to either green/red/brown or cyan/magenta/light gray and to set the background and border color.  It does not allow you to change the palette intensity and emulation of BIOS functions after the Tandy Graphics Adapter tend not to allow you to show the alternate cyan/red/white palette by selectiong 320x200 Mode 5 (which is a side-effect of how the color palettes work on the CGA card). Many other games write to the CGA registers directly to change modes and colors displayed by the card and these tend to fail on the PCjr. and graphics adapters more advanced than Tandy's.  Some cards may show this game using the intense versions of the standard CGA palettes, but you should see both palettes employed.

Very recently, there have been patches made to allow the 3-voice introduction music and the PCjr. colors to be seen and heard on Tandy 1000s.  Also there are patches to allow EGA and VGA cards to display the PCjr. palette colors.  Find them here : http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=45896&view=unread#unread

Retro Kickstarters - Modest Goals Rewarded

I have been fascinated by the concept of Kickstarters geared to classic video game consoles and home computers.  That many have been successful indicates that there are needs that are waiting to be fulfilled.  However, most retro video game Kickstarter campaigns have had reasonable goals.  Few that have required over $100,000 to be funded have been successful.  In this blog entry I will talk about some of the campaigns and give my thoughts on their significance.

First, Kickstarter campaigns with lofty goals targeting the retro video game market will almost certainly fail.  The Retro VGS is a perfect example of a campaign so wrong headed and just plain bizarre that it justifies the trope "truth is stranger than fiction:".  They wanted $2,950,000 to fund a new retro-style cartridge only console built from a plastic mold for the Atari Jaguar shell.  Oh, it may have had an FPGA that could recreate consoles like the NES or the 2600 in hardware.  The Retro VGS campaign's risible failure has been commented to death and has really given far too much attention.

People may be more hesitant to spend their money for big ticket video game projects thanks to the failure of the Ouya console.  The Ouya raised over $8 million on Kickstarter for a $99 game console (the controller was quite a bit extra) that would play games easily ported from Android.  Despite the massive success of the crowdfunding campaign, the Ouya was sold off to Razer and discontinued within two years of its release.

There have been successes with sequels to classic games.  Wasteland 2, Dreamfall Chapters, Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded (a remake), Shadowrun Hong Kong and Shenmue III may never had been possible without crowdfunding.  Also, some designers with classics to their name like Richard Garriott,  Chris Roberts, Tim Shafer, Kenji Inafune and Koji Igarashi have found the resources to back new projects in the vein of their earlier work but which is owned by a large corporation that has turned its back on them.  (Hideo Kojima may be joining them soon.)  These games of course are designed to play on current platforms.

Crowdfunding true retro games designed to be played on classic consoles is a far greater challenge.  Similarly, while there have been successful crowdfunding campaigns for books, documentaries and music albums related to classic video game consoles or home computers, crowdfunding useful hardware for those computers and consoles has been a task that has been a success only to a few.

The NES has had a quite a few successful hardware and software kickstarters.  Hardware successes include the Blinking Light Win : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/113891498/blinking-light-win-resurrecting-your-nes?ref=discovery  For $20 you bought a quality NES cartridge connector replacement that, eleven months after the campaign has ended, they are still having trouble stocking.  It has fulfilled a need for a reasonably priced, quality connector from people who are passionate about what they are doing, not just some Chinese manufacturer endlessly recycling second-rate parts.

There has also been the Chip Maestro, a MIDI synthesizer device that uses the audio channels of the NES' 2A03 APU : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jarek/chip-maestro-an-nes-midi-synthesizer-cartridge?ref=discovery  This is not the first cartridge to allow for the NES audio channels to be controlled via MIDI, the MIDINES was available years earlier, but may no longer be available for purchase.

While you may ask why you need a MIDI controller for the NES when you have FamiTracker and other musical composition programs that allow for full register access to the APU, if you want to use a keyboard directly with the NES in a live performance, you need something that will respond to key presses in real time, hence these MIDI controllers.

Cheetamen II: The Lost Levels (essentially a fixed version of Cheetamen II on a cartridge) is the most successful NES-based hardware Kickstarter I know of : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/343248998/cheetahmen-ii-the-lost-levels?ref=discovery   There is a patch available for the game here : http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/778/ that allows you to complete the game and you can play it on an NES PowerPak and an EverDrive N8 with the MMC1 patch.

Despite the full ALL CAPS and somewhat discursive presentation, the Kickstarter was a huge success.  This must have been helped by the large number of NES collectors who wanted to fill a hole in their collection for $60 instead of $1,000, which is what the original Cheetamen II cartridge was going for at the time.  The promotional video with James Rofle in his Angry Video Game Nerd persona (and his 1.95 million subscribers) must have helped enormously.

Another modestly successful piece of NES software is the retroplayer.nl Championships 2015, which recreates the Nintendo World Championships 1990 cartridge and competition : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1348643050/nintendo-nes-retroplayernl-championship-2015?ref=discovery  Frankly I do not know how this got through Kickstarter because it uses Chip 'N Dale's Rescue Rangers II, Tetris and Excitebike and no authorization from any of those rights holders seemed forthcoming.  Considering that it flew well under the radar, no one may have brought it to their attention.

There are a pair of NES books on Kickstarter, the first is called the Complete NES by Jeffrey Wittenhagen :  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thesubcon3/the-complete-nes-collectors-book-physical-nes-rpg?ref=discovery
The book is being published alongside a game exclusive to the kickstarter called Jeffrey Wittenhagen's Black Box Challenge.  It is being programmed by Sly Dog Studios, no stranger to NES homebrew.  Whether their games are any good I cannot say but graphically they look pretty dull.  This game is an RPG centered around the quest to acquire all NES black-box games.  This campaign requested $15,000 and took in $24,455.  If you wanted a physical paperback copy of the book and the game on cartridge without box or manual, you would have to pledge $90.  For a more impressive hardcover copy of the book and a game with box and manual, the price increases to $170.

Perhaps the price seemed a bit steep to attract more donors.  The second book, the Ultimate Guide to the NES Library by Pat Contri, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/560468638/nintendo-nes-library-guide-and-review-book-of-750?ref=nav_search gets you a physical hardcover copy of the book for $60. Normally I do not mention books without something else, but this book is the most funded NES project ever, expecting to hit the $100,000 mark.  Pat has also had three successful Indiegoogo campaigns for his annual NES charity marathons and has also successfully raised money for four DVD volumes of his Pat the NES Punk series.

There is also documentary called The New 8-bit Heroes with a new NES game called Mystic Searches :  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1316851183/the-new-8-bit-heroes-new-nes-game-and-creation-doc?ref=discovery  The documentary is focused on the homebrew scene and the game will be an adventure game that appears to play in the Zelda vein.  Also, accessible from the cartridge via a USB port will be a modern version of the game and the NES game and the PC game can talk to each other.  Perhaps a bit too ambitious, and the $54,381 pledged is not sufficient for the modern game.

Another gentleman was able to get his NES homebrew game, Lizard, funded : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1101008925/lizard?ref=discovery  There is a homebrew game for the SNES called Syndey Hunter and the Caverns of Death.  A stretch goal enabled it to be ported to the NES : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/439982171/new-snes-game-sydney-hunter-and-the-caverns-of-dea?ref=discovery  It is the only non-NES and non-2600 homebrew game that seems to be crowdfunded.  The only other homebrew game I could find that was funded through kickstarter was Star Castle for the Atari 2600.  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/698159145/atari-2600-star-castle?ref=discovery

The Commodore 64 has seen some hardware kickstarter success.  One gentleman was able to secure the case molds for the C64c and was able to offer new cases with different colors instead of the boring beige of the original :
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1670214687/original-commodore-64c-computer-housing-in-new-coo?ref=nav_search
Unfortunately, the project manager was required to remove all references to Commodore from his campaign because the entity that holds the Commodore trademark threatened to sue for trademark violation.  Fortunately they did not catch it until late in the campaign, so there was sufficient advertisement for the kickstarter to be successful.  I understand it is compatible with any C64 motherboard with proper keyboard support mounts, and I have a nice C64 motherboard that works with a brittle, post-retr0bright failure case. Considering that the creator only wanted a modest $10K, obtaining over nine times that amount was pretty impressive!

The Commodore Amiga has seen similar success with a project (with their second attempt) to make new A1200 molds :  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/a1200housing/new-amiga-1200-cases-made-from-new-molds?ref=nav_search You will note that the name Commodore is not present when describing the project.  Of all the projects discussed here, this one is the only one which has passed the $100K mark.  However, the project managers needed to make new molds, which is incredibly expensive.  I cannot say I am incredibly familiar with the late model Amiga scene (not a lot of gaming potential there), but boy there had to be a need for these cases.  They also have room for a Raspberry Pi or a MiST FPGA board, which would not have been the case with the original cases.

Of course, I cannot leave out a mention of HD Retrovision's Component Video cables for the SNES and Genesis : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hdretrovision/sega-genesis-and-super-nintendo-component-cables?ref=discovery  Even though component video is not the best way to connect a SNES or Genesis to a modern LCD or to stream footage from one, it is still useful for those of us with big screen CRTs with component video inputs.  A hardware project I would have liked to see succeed was the hdmyboy, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/507669971/hdmyboy-a-full-hd-power-up-for-your-game-boy-class?ref=nav_search
which is a HDMI adapter/converter for the original Game Boy.  Unfortunately, 65,000 Euro is an ambitious goal and I believe that people were really expecting not just original Game Boy, but Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance support, especially with the Retron 5 out there.  How much more processing power would have been required to convert 15-bit color instead of 2-bit monochrome?  Also, the hdmyboy lacked stereo output support.

As you can see, this is a very small number of successful projects (14).  Most people who have a product usually rely on pre-orders from internet forums like AtariAge, NintendoAge, VOGONS, Vintage Computing Forums, Sega-16, PCenginefx forums or assemblerforums.  AtariAge has been extremely successful in allowing developers to publish new games for the Atari 2600 in cartridge form.  On the other end of the spectrum, kevtris had to fund development of the Hi Def NES Mod out of his own pocket, for example.  Currently, retro console and computer related kickstarters that keep their funding goals within the five figure mark stand a good chance of success.  Six figures is most likely poison to just about any campaign.

Choices and Tactics for a Successful Pool of Radiance Game

As I am have been playing through Pool of Radiance, I have really come to appreciate its tactical combat and the simple yet intricrate mechanics of a system using the AD&D 1st Edition rules.  Of course, not everyone will be able to just simply pick up the game and those that do can be easily frustrated.  So I will try to discuss strategies for getting through the game in this post.  As I continue to play the game, I hope to be able to expand this blog entry.  It will not be a walkthrough or give specifics of how to defeat this encounter or what items to keep from that encounter.

Maxing your stats

For each character you create, you can and should consider maximize their ability scores and hit points.  You cannot do this after your start a game, and you will need all the advantages you can get to survive the low levels.

You cannot maximize their starting gold, so you should reroll until you get a good result.  Fighters can start with up to 200gp, clerics 180gp, thieves 120gp and magic-users 80gp.

There is a fair amount of tedium in Pool of Radiance, buying and selling, resting and healing and turn based battles with tons of foes

Multi-classing vs. Single-class

Multi-class characters are a defensible choice if all you want to do is beat Pool of Radiance, but you will level up a bit more slowly.  If you want to get through the whole tetralogy, you will want single-class characters to avoid level limits.  This means a human party.  Thieves have no level limits regardless of class, so a fighter/thief is a more justifiable choice than other multi-class characters.  However, multi-class characters have to split their experience between their classes, even if they can no longer progress in one of them, so your characters will gain levels more slowly than a single class character.  They also must adhere to certain restrictions of each class.  Finally, multi-classes halve the HP they receive when they level up, so a level 2 fighter/thief can have a maximum of 16HP as opposed to 20HP for a single class fighter.

Racial benefits

All non-human races should have benefits, unfortunately it is often difficult to tell whether they were implemented in the game. .  Elves get a +1 to hit with short and long swords and bows.  Elves may be immune to Ghoul paralysis.  Elves should also have 90% resistance to sleep and charm spells.  Half-elves should have a 30% resistance.  Elves and half-elves should also have a better chance of finding hidden objects.

Dwarves should get a bonus of up to +5 to their saving throws against wands, staves and spells and poison, based on their Constitution.  They also should get a +1 to hit against goblins, hobgoblins and orcs and ogres, trolls and giants should have a -4 to hit them.

Gnomes should also receive the same benefit to their wands, staves and spells saving throws as dwarves have.  They should get a +1 against Kobolds and Goblins and gnolls, bugears, ogres, trolls and giants should have a -4 to hit them.

Halflings should also receive the same benefit to their wands, staves and spells and poison saving throws as dwarves have.

Taking advantage of terrain

Walls and trees can be vital to your party's survival.  When outnumbered by enemies that are not significantly weaker than you are, you should maneuver your party to take maximum advantage of impassable objects.  You can limit the number enemies that can hit you by utilizing choke points.  Monsters cannot move past each other if there is no room.  With monsters that take up two or four squares, you can often maneuver them so that one will block the rest, allowing your characters to concentrate their attacks on one character.

Characters can move and attack diagonally, so can enemies.  You use this to your advantage with a numeric keypad for the PC version of Pool.  If you place your characters in front of or at the mouth of a gap, the enemy will be able to attack you diagonally on your flanks.  If you position yourself behind the gap, then the situation is reversed.  Consider the following diagrams :

Fig. 1
|          |
|          |
|          |
|          |
|----  ----|
|----  ----|
   OCFFCO
   OOOOOO

Fig. 2
|          |
|          |
|          |
|          |
|----CC----|
|----FF----|
    OOOO
    OOOO

Fig. 3
|          |
|          |
|          |
|    CC    |
|----FF----|
|----OO----|
    OOOO
     OO

Fig. 4
|          |
|          |
|          |
|   CFFC   |
|----OO----|
|----OO----|
    OOOO

Key :
C = Cleric
F = Fighter
O = Orc
| - = Wall

In fig. 1, the party is at a disadvantage because eight orcs can attack the characters.  Fig. 2 may show an improvement because now only four orcs can attack, but the clerics cannot attack back.  Fig. 3 improves on the situation of Fig. 2, now only the two fighters and the two orcs can attack each other.  Fig. 4 shows the best situation, all four characters can attack, but only two orcs can attack.  Note that walls in this game may only take one tile but effectively create a double wall at a horizontal gap.  

Even if the enemy is not a thief, you do not want to be attacked from behind.  The enemy will enjoy a +2 to hit if it attacks your character from behind.

Staggering your characters diagonally gives the enemy more opportunities to attack, but it also gives you more holes to place attackers.  Having a straight line does the opposite.

Having missile weapon using characters behind the front lines can thin out the opposition before they can even get a chance to attack.  You can also kill enemy archers and spellcasters from a distance.

The pathfinding in Pool is decent, but it has its limitations.  If you have an L-shaped or U-shaped barrier between you and the enemy you may be able to get the enemy trapped behind it as the pathfinding algorithm fails to find a path it can use to get to attack your character.

Guarding, free attacks and surrender

Guarding is the classic way of having a character do nothing during his portion of the combat round.  However, it can also be a useful defensive mechanism.  If an enemy advances into the character's melee range, the character gets a free and automatic attack.  Additionally, if an enemy tries to retreat or move past your character, your character will get a free attack on that enemy.  The enemy can also do this if you move into or out of his melee range.  However, if you move into his range before he has a chance to guard, then you will not risk a free hit.

In this game, you do not always need to kill every enemy faced against you.  Typically, once you reduce their numbers sufficiently, often the survivors of the monsters will surrender.  You won't get the experience or treasure from killing them, but this will end a battle sooner than otherwise.  Some monsters like the undead are fanatical and will always fight to the last creature.  However, you may be able to do enough damage to a horde that it will surrender even though it still has the advantage of numbers.

Unfortunately, you cannot surrender once combat starts.  If you feel like you are getting overwhelmed, you may turn your back and flee to the edge of the map.  Depending on how many and how far the enemy is behind you, you may not be able to escape when you reach the edge.  Also, if you are engaged in melee combat you will invite multiple rear attacks as you move.  If you leave a dying character behind when you escape, that character will be dead and lost forever.

Missile weapons

Thieves are limited to slings and magic-users to darts.  Slings have unlimited ammo, darts do not.  Slings can do decent damage and have good range.  Darts are weak and have a short range.  A pure magic-user has a very low THAC0, so the darts may not seem worth the trouble considering how often the magic-user will miss.  Clerics cannot use missile weapons at all in Pool.

Bows can fire twice per round and darts can fire three times per round.  Long bows have a longer range than short bows, but do the same amount of damage.

If you encounter monsters and are able to select the Advance option, you may wish to consider starting combat immediately.  This way you will have a fair distance between you and the monsters.  This could give you one or two rounds where you may be able to attack with missile weapons and the enemy will be unable to respond.

The game will allow you to Ready a new weapon every combat round without penalty.  So you can shoot your bow until the enemy comes within melee range and then switch to your melee weapon and armor and attack that round.

THAC0 and Armor Class

An unamored character has an Armor Class (AC) of 10, and the lower the number, the better protected your character will be.  For your front line fighters, it is essential to maximize their AC if they are to survive.  This means plate armor and a shield and high dexterity.  At the beginning of the game, you won't be able to afford plate, so you will have to make do with chain or split or banded mail.   Even so, your fighters can start the game with a -1 AC, which will make many hits miss.  You lose the ability to use a shield with a two handed weapon, but a lower rate of being hit is a worthy trade off for the few extra points of damage you may inflict.  In the early part of the game, you should have fighters with a high strength score and you will be facing tons of Orcs, Goblins, Kobolds and the like which tend to overwhelm by numbers.  The more attacks you dodge, the longer you will last.  So I would not seek out two handed weapons until you start to find magical weapons.

THAC0 is affected mainly by strength and class.  All 1st level classes have a THAC0 of 20.  This means that you must roll a 20 on a (virtual) 20 sided die to score a hit on an enemy with an armor class of 0.  Male Human Fighters can immediately lower that score to 17 by the maximum exceptional strength score of 18/00.

In this game, regular Kobolds are probably the weakest enemies, with 3 HP and an AC of 7.  With a THAC0 of 17, which is the maximum you can have at the beginning of the game, you will be able to hit a Kobold only 55% of the time.  The hit percentage gets lower for Goblins, Orcs, Skeletons and Zombies. Unless you find some magic weapons, your THAC0 will not improve until your character is at least at level 3.

Specific Class Information - Fighters

Fighters acquire the ability to sweep at the 2nd level.  This allows them to attack more than one enemy in melee range with less than one hit die in a single attack.  So if a fighter is surrounded by Goblins or Kobolds, he can attack as many of them as he has experience levels.  Fighters can achieve up to level 8 and gain 1-10HP per level.  They can use any type of weapon, armor or shield.  They will also gain an extra half of an attack at level 7.

Specific Class Information - Cleric and Clerical Spells

Clerics can only use clubs, flail, hammer, mace and staff for a weapon.  Flails are the best, followed by maces.  They can use any type of armor and can use a shield.  Clerics can only reach level 6 in this game and 3rd level spells.  They gain 1-8HP per level.  They can Turn Undead, which if successful will make some of or all the undead flee, making the job of killing them safer if more tedious. They can turn Skeletons, Zombies, Ghouls and Wights at level 1, Wraiths at level 3, Mummies and level 4, Spectres at level 5 and Vampires at level 6. As they level up, the turning will become more likely to be successful.  Wights, Wraiths, Spectres and Vampires will cause a level drain with a successful attack, so you want to turn them as soon as possible.  If you lose a level to level drain, you cannot get it restored at a temple, you have to earn the level again or find some restoration scrolls.  Even so, the loss of XP can be very painful.

For 1st level spells, Cure Light Wounds is a must, it is the only healing spell a PC cleric can cast in the game.  Bless is also a good spell because it improves the THAC0 of everybody in your party by 1.  Hold Person is the best 2nd level spell because you can target up to three enemies with each casting of the spell. A held person can be killed with one cruel blow and the attack is an automatic hit.  Slow Poison may be necessary when fighting poisonous creatures.  You cannot cast Neutralize Poison in this game.  Prayer is probably the best 3rd level spell. it is a combination of Bless and Curse.

Specific Class Information - Magic-users and Magic-user spells

Magic-users start the game with four spells, read magic, detect magic, shield and sleep.  Each time they gain a level, they can learn one extra spell from any spell level they can cast, but only one spell can be added this way.  Magic-users can only reach level 6 in this game and 3rd level spells.  They only gain 1-4HP per level. At level 3 you can begin to cast 2nd level spells and at level 5 you can cast 3rd level spells.  I would suggest learning Magic Missile, Stinking Cloud, Mirror Image, Fireball and Haste.  Magic-users can only use daggers, darts or staffs and can wear no armor and use no shields, so look for bracers of defense.

Because of the hordes of opponents you will seemingly encounter in every battle, area effect spells are usually more useful than single-target spells.  Sleep is the best level 1 spell because, like Hold Person, it allows you to kill an enemy with a single cruel blow.  However, no saving throw is allowed, and it can affect up to 16 monsters.  Kobolds, Goblins, Orcs, Hobgoblins, Gnolls, Lizardmen and even an Ogre may be affected.  It can affect your characters as well as the enemy, so make sure you do not target the spell at an enemy within a character's melee range.  Anchor the spell to an enemy behind the attacker.

Specific Class Information - Thieves

Thieves can use clubs, daggers, darts, slings, short swords, scimitars, long swords and broad swords. They can only wear leather armor but cannot use a shield.  Thieves can achieve up to level 9 and gain 1-6HP per level.

If a thief successfully hits with a back stab attack, he does double damage at levels 1-4, triple damage from levels 5-8 and quadruple damage at level 9.  A thief gets a +4 to hit with a back stab attack.  A thief can only backstab an opponent already being attacked. He must attack in the opposite direction from the opponent's first attacker.  More importantly, to avoid a monster turning toward the thief and ruining the backstab, make sure that the monster has attacked before the thief does.

The only thief abilities used in this game are the pick lock, find and remove trap and climb wall abilities. What you can pick you can usually bash with a strong fighter and there are not an overabundance of traps in this game.  Climb walls may be used once or twice.

Party composition

You can have six characters you directly control in your party and up to two NPCs or charmed or summoned monsters.  Every party should have two front line fighters, two healers, a character with thief abilities and at least one magic-user.  I have no love for hired NPCs, they cost money to hire, they take an automatic cut of all treasure, you cannot control them in combat and they do not like to give up items.  There are some NPCs that will assist you on a single mission, but that is plot related.

Looking in the Manuals

This game comes with a Rule Book, an Adventurer's Journal, a Quick Reference Card and a Codewheel.  The Adventurer's Journal contains the Proclamations, Tavern Tales and Journal Entries, maps and some tables.  You will need the Codewheel to translate some elven or dwarven runes at least at one point during the game.  Even if you crack the copy protection you should still keep it handy.

If you want to know more about the probable game mechanics, you should have your three volume set of AD&D 1st Edition rulebooks at your disposal.  You can find all the rules and tables not explicitly mentioned in the Pool materials there.  They can be relied upon except where contradicted by the Pool materials or when its obvious that the game does not implement the rules.  You can find more complete statistics for the monsters in the Monster Manual or the Dungeon Master's Guide with a few exceptions.  Statistics for the Drider, Mantis, Quickling, Thri-kreen can be found in the Monster Manual II.  The other 1st Edition Rulebooks do not appear to be used in Pool.

Goofy Things in the Pool of Radiance Gold Box Series

Pool of Radiance was the first time a computer game officially tried to adapt the AD&D rules into a video-game playable form.  It is a great game and hugely influential on later games.  In fact, I would say it is the Baldur's Gate of the 1980s.  It uses the first edition of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rules and adheres to them pretty strictly.  However, for a player brought up on more modern RPGs, Pool has some odd features hearkening back to a time when AD&D was more suited for the tabletop than the desktop.  Let me talk about some of the AD&D features in this game and the series of games it spawned :

Currency conversion.

Trying to keep track of your wealth is a real doozy when you have five different types of coins.  It makes you feel like you have traveled back in time to the United Kingdom pre-decimalization (240 pennies = 20 shillings = 1 pound, let's not get started on farthings, groats, crowns, marks and guineas).  AD&D is slightly less cumbersome, with 200 copper pieces = 20 silver pieces = 2 electrum pieces = 1 gold pieces = 1/5 platinum pieces.  Considering that 1,000 copper pieces = 5 gold pieces, you will want to find a way to exchange currency quickly.  Fortunately you can do so in the shops.  Pool all of your various currencies together on one character and buy something cheap like 10 arrows.  You should see only Platinum and maybe some Gold for change in your inventory thereafter.

Encumbrance in coins

Instead of an intuitive system like pounds, AD&D 1st edition uses coins to note encumbrance.  The idea is that 10 gold pieces (or any type of money piece) = 1 pound.  The amount of encumbrance will slow down your character in combat.  Without any strength modifier, less than or equal to 350gp = 12 squares, 700gp = 9 squares, 1050 gp = 6 squares and anything over 1050 gp and you are down to 3 squares of movement a round.  Consider that a suit of plate mail weighs 450gp and the game treats copper pieces like gold pieces for weight and you are starting to look at some hard choices.

Strength limits for female characters

Do not play a female fighter/ranger/paladin in a Gold Box game.  Even though the sex limit would soon become unfashionable in 2nd AD&D and just about every RPG thereafter, they kept it for the whole of the Gold Box series.   There is no balancing rule benefit to playing a female character in AD&D 1st Edition.

Alignment

All nine alignments of AD&D are here, but the selection is almost useless.  Only if a magical weapon is limited to a certain alignment or one of the two axes (lawful-neutral-chaos and good-neutral-evil) does it really have an effect on the game.

Money Sinks

These games will throw a lot of coin at you, but it has ways of reclaiming quite a bit of it.  Training costs 1,000gp every time you wish to level up and is required to achieve the benefits of a new level.  Note that you cannot acquire more than the experience to put you over a second level until you train up.

Identifying items costs 200gp and you pretty much have to figure out which items are magical based on clues like unusual items in a monster hoard or a large selling price.  Of course you can always expect items like Rings and Bracers to be magical.  Healing gets expensive at the temples and silver items are also not cheap.  However, the taverns offer a simple game of chance to help you out in a short money situation and you have an equal chance of doubling your money as you have to lose it.  Save and reload as necessary, the game will not punish you for it as in Baldur's Gate.

Class and level limits

In Pool, fighters can advance to level 8, clerics and magic users to level 6 and thieves to level 9.  (Why didn't they just name fighters, magic-users and clerics as warriors, wizards and priests.  "Magic-user" just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?  "Cleric" is just a fancy title for a "priest" and "warrior" is far more evocative than the bland, generic term "fighter".)   In Pool, the only demihuman level limit you will hit is the half-elf cleric, who is limited to level 5.

Multi-classing may be a good option for a run through Pool, but your characters will start to feel underpowered if you transfer them to Curse of the Azure Bonds.  However, unless you have the patience of a saint, you should try to level up as quickly as possible to get your THAC0 down.  You will miss a lot early in the game, and having a high strength or dexterity combined with a low THAC0 score helps, so you need to level up.

In Curse you will hit the level limits for almost every class/demihuman combination, but high strength or intelligence will allow you to increase the level limits you can obtain as fighter, ranger or magic-user.  If you import characters to Secret of the Silver Blades, the level limit will seriously start to crimp your style and Pools of Darkness will be a very dark experience indeed.

It seems silly now that no other demihuman other than a half-elf can be a ranger or a cleric, none of them can be a paladin and only elves and half-elves can be a magic-user.  Well, in AD&D 1st Edition, the Player's Handbook acknowledges some additional priestly combinations, but not for player characters. Because the Gold Box series did not implement specialist mages, there are no such things as Gnome Illusionists here.

While Elves and Halflings get a +1 to Dexterity and Dwarves get a +1 to Constitution, it does not seem to have any real benefit unless you do not adjust your scores.  Nor does raising an ability score to 19 or higher in the Pool series (except for health regeneration, see below).

Four basic character classes

In Pool, you can be a Fighter, Magic-User, Cleric or Thief.  Curse, added Rangers and Paladins to the available character classes.  It did not add Druids, Assassins, Monks or Bards.  Nor did it include the additional classes like the Cavalier, Barbarian or the Thief-Acrobat found in Unearthed Arcana.  Nor are Half-Orcs a selectable race and they did not add the subrace choices in the Player's Handbook (halflings) or Unearthed Arcana.  In this sense, the game is closer to the 2nd Edition of the Rules, which did not include most of these options within its basic rules.  Multi-classing is here from the beginning, Curse added Dual-Classing.

Half-elves have the most multi-classing choices, they can be cleric/fighters, cleric/fighter/magic-users, cleric/magic-users, fighter/magic-users, fighter/thieves, fighter/thief/magic-users and magic-user/thieves.  Elves get all those combinations except the cleric combinations, but dwarves, gnomes and halflings only get the fighter/thief option.

Thieves have a wide array of abilities in AD&D, but the the game engine limits them to picking locks, disarming traps and backstabbing.  Mages have four spells in the spell book when they begin the game, one of which is the all-powerful sleep spell and acquire one new spell per level.

One particularly annoying feature is the THAC0 improvement.  Simply put, no character is guaranteed to see a THAC0 improvement upon gaining a level or two or three or even four.  Fighters get an improvement every two levels, clerics every three levels, thieves every four levels and magic-users every five levels.  2nd Edition AD&D had a much better progression rate for most classes, especially fighters who get a one point improvement every level.

Manual inadequacies

Pool comes with a Rule Book, an Adventurer's Journal, a Quick Start Guide and a Codewheel.  The documentation of the actual AD&D 1st Edition rules is rather lacking in Pool's documentation.  The Rule Book contains character race limit and maximum class level by race table.  The Adventurer's Journal contains the money conversion formulas, the spell list, the armor list, the experience tables, the undead turning level requirements, weapons and armor permitted by class and the weapons list.

If you wanted attack and saving throw tables, hit die tables, thief ability and turn undead tables, starting money tables or weapon weights, you had to look to the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide.

Curse's Rule Book contains Pool's tables, updated as need be for higher levels.  It also expands the maximum class level by race table to give higher level limits for high prime requisite scores.  If you want to know the bonus spells clerics get for high wisdom, the table is here, but that is the only major addition. Curse's experience tables now include the useless level titles.

Secret's Adventurer's Journal gives racial ability score modifiers, the ability adjustments for strength, dexterity and constitution (finally!), fighter/paladin/ranger number of attacks per round, and a spell parameters list. Pools' Adventurer's Journal adds no tables.

Variations from the official rules

In Pool, clerics cannot use slings and thieves cannot use short bows.  This is correct according to AD&D 1st Edition rules.  Curse allows thieves to use short bows and clerics to use staff slings.  Pools allows thieves to wear "elfin" chain mail.  This is allowed by Unearthed Arcana.

Pool uses the rules for zero hit points as given in the Dungeon Master's Guide, (death is not instantaneous at 0 HP but you can go to -10HP before true death) but does not have a recovery time.

Weapons and armor that come and go

Armor types available in Pool are Leather, Padded, Studded, Ring, Scale, Chain, Splint, Banded and Plate. In Secret, they simplified the armor by removing Padded, Studded and Splint.  Pools added them back and put in Elfin Chain Mail as well.

Weapons in Pool number 46.  Curse has the same number, but Secret reduces it to 25.  Pools ups the figure to 29.  It has been commented that Gary Gygax had quite the fascination with medieval polearms and included every one he could find in AD&D 1st Edition.  For the first games, if it was in the Player's Handbook, you would almost certainly find it in Pool.  However, if you are looking for a +2 Glaive or Cursed Voulge-Guisarme of Berzerking, you are not going to find one in either Pool or Curse.

Weird Items

In addition to the never-ending variety of polearms, which appear to be completely absent as magical weapons, the other shops sell items that have little to no value in the game.  You do not need a holy symbol to Turn Undead.  Silver armor serves no obvious point, and silver weapons appear to have very limited capabilities (Wights are the only monsters you should face regularly that could require silver, but you should have magical items by that time.)   The jewelry serves no point except as a way to convert heavy coin to a light item you can later sell if you need it.  As there is no bank in this game, you will not be able to keep as much coin as you find.  You will also find items in treasure hoards that look like they serve some purpose, but usually do not.

At one point during the game, you will find a Manual of Bodily Health.  If you use it on a dwarf character with 19 Constitution, his number will not be raised, but he will gain a regeneration ability to restore his health.  This makes healing a lot faster for this character, by the time you finish resting to regain your spells, he will likely be fully healed.  Note that if your characters die and have to be resurrected through a raise dead spell, you will lose 1 point of Constitution.

Peculiarities of the IBM PC version

In Pool and Curse, all interaction is done by the keyboard IBM PC version.  In Pool, you usually use the Home and End keys to select your characters or your items, but sometimes you can use the arrow keys. The Page Up and Page Down keys can usually be used to cycle through a multi-screen menu like the one presented at the weapons/armor shops.  It can be a bit confusing, but using the numeric keypad may be a more intuitive option.  Using the numeric keypad is utterly necessary to move in combat, the cardinal four directions are insufficient for the isometric views of the combat screens.  Later games rely more on the arrow keys to select menu items.

While the joystick was an option of the Commodore 64 and Apple II versions and mouse support was in Pool's Macintosh and Commodore Amiga versions, those control options would only start to be included as of IBM PC's Secret.  Oddly enough, the Demo option found in the Commodore 64 and Apple II versions and in the PC version of every game following is missing for IBM PC Pool.

Some of the IBM PC versions of Pool do support Tandy music on their title screens just like every other version of the game except the Apple II version.  Unfortunately their music driver was not very good, leading to an odd tone played early in the main track.  Also, the music will never finish on the title screen for Pool regardless of how slow your Tandy is.  Weirdly, the music also plays when you start a battle in Pool.  It does not play music at this point in the Commodore 64 original.

Eventually they got rid of the music, at least as of version 1.2 and 1.3 (which are indicated on the credits screen, earlier versions do not indicate the version number there).  The version numbering of Pool is not generally well known due to the lack of version number display.  However, there are versions with a START.EXE of 10-26-88 and 12-12-88 according to an old crack .nfo file.  I would suggest that these are v1.0 and v1.1, respectively.  My copy has a START.EXE of 12-12-88 and does not display a version number but does play music.

Curse is similar except there was also music for the PC Speaker.  It always displays a version number and 1.0-1.3 exist.  Music was removed as of 1.3 and similar to Pool you could never hear the full theme.

If you want the versions with the music, look for the original retail box versions.  Avoid slash releases or any compilation release, especially the ones that come on CD-ROM.  I would concentrate on 5.25" double density disks if you really want to maximize your chances.

Between the two 16 color graphic drivers, the Tandy driver is far more speedy to load than the EGA driver. Interestingly, the background color in the combat screens is black for the Tandy but light gray for EGA. Curse's Tandy driver would also use light gray.

To avoid a "PUT SAVE DISK IN C:"or "INSERT DISK 3" error, make sure your directories are correct in your POOL.CFG file.  Later games let you delete their .CFG file and let you re-enter the information (graphics and sound type, game save directory and prior game directory typically), but with Pool you must manually edit your file.

There is a lot of plain text in the START.EXE file, including all the copy protection words.  Even though Pool's Translation Wheel gives 108 possible combinations (36 x 3), there are only 13 copy protection words While each word can be selected by three combinations of Espruar and Dethek runes, only one combination is ever used, and here is how the word and lines match up:

beware - - - - -
copper - - - - -
friend - - - - -
savior - - - - -
wyvern - - - - -
dragon -..-..-..
jungle -..-..-..
zombie -..-..-..
efreet .........
knight .........
notnow .........
temple .........
vulcan .........

Unless some version added a check in its code, you could simply type in a single word replacement for all 13 copy protection words.  Curse was trickier because it only required one letter or number, not a whole word.  Each type of line has six characters, making the range of options far greater.

NES Gameplay Trilogies

There are certain games, that while they are not part of an official series, in many respects could have been.  In these cases, the gameplay across the three games is similar.  In this blog entry I will identify groups of games which I believe share certain gameplay traits that make them an unofficial trilogy.

Gradius - Lifeforce - Jackal

All three of these games were developed by Konami and encompass what I call the Konami Shooter Trilogy.  Unlike Japan, the US did not receive a version of Gradius 2 or Parodius, but Europe never saw Jackal either.  I note that Stinger was also released by Konami, but while it is a fine game in its own right I do not consider it to be in the same league in terms of popularity or adolescent-focused pure shooting action as these games.

All three of these games began life as arcade machines.  Gradius received a very faithful Arcade-to-NES port, although it lacks a bit in the flash and polish department. Jackal is also arcade-faithful as well, but Konami truly excelled here at bringing the fast-paced destruction of this game to the less capable hardware of the NES.  Nothing essential is lost in porting.  In fact, the game is substantially  improved by end-level bosses and level transitions.  As I mentioned elsewhere, Life Force is in certain respects a better game than its arcade original, Salamander.

Of course, I cannot go without mentioning the two player simultaneous gameplay of Jackal and Life Force. Two-player simultaneous gameplay was somewhat uncommon in the days of the NES due to the hardware limitations.  64 sprites get used up very quickly, and the 8 sprites per line limitation of the NES leads to flickering very quickly.  Konami was one of the few developers who consistently could do it right with Jackal, Life Force, Contra and Super C.

Zanac - The Guardian Legend - Gun+Nac

Here we have the Compile Shooter Trilogy.  Zanac and GunNac (note the similarity of the names) are similar in that their basic gameplay model is that of the vertical shooter.  The Guardian Legend combines vertical shooting stages with exploration-style bird's eye view stages like The Legend of Zelda.

Zanac has three principal strengths.  First, it has a wide variety of powerups (eight) that have their own strengths and weaknesses.  Second, it has very solid gameplay, especially for a somewhat early title.  It is a fairly fast paced game, the controls are very responsive, rapid fire is present.  Even though it lacks varied bosses, it feels very modern.  The graphics are good and the music is excellent.  Third, the game adapts itself to the power ups you choose and reportedly your skill level.  It is not simply a randomizer, the game will behave in somewhat predictable ways, in terms of the enemies it will throw at you, based on the active weapon powerup you possess.  This mechanic makes it never quite the same game twice. You can continue at the last area by pressing start and select at the same time on the title screen (this is in the manual).

The Guardian Legend tweaks the formula quite a bit by adding overhead exploration.  You collect chips to buy items from the Blue Landers, fight bosses in special rooms and collect keys to open "corridors" to vertical shooting stages.  Your character is not just a ship but a female android (which the US version took some pains to obfuscate).  It has a password feature for restoring your game, and it is pretty long by NES standards.  There are several themes to individual areas, like water, plants and mountains, and the graphics change accordingly.  The music is some of the best on the NES.  Shooting stage bosses are varied and some are really tough (blue Optomon will make you throw your controller against the TV screen) and others are much more reasonable (even the red Clawbot and Bombarder are reasonable).  Finally, you gain many weapons and you can switch between them as often as you like, but you use up chips by using them.  Fortunately, the game is fairly generous with supplying you with chips and health items when you need them.  By inputting the password TGL, you can play the game as a straight shooter.

Gun+Nac is as to Zanac as Parodius is as to Gradius.  Unfortunately, Gun+Nac is not as well-known as it deserves to be because it was released rather late in the NES's lifespan.  Gun+Nac plays like Zanac with more powerups.  You still collect the Compile "P" chips, but you also collect money so you can upgrade your ship and buy extra lives during the levels.  GunNac is cute and goofy with rabbit and cat enemies, but do not let that fool you into thinking the game is a cakewalk, it is not.  Graphics and sound are excellent.

Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode - The Mafat Conspiracy -  WURM: Journey to the Center of the Earth

Golgo 13 and its sequel the Mafat Conspiracy are a logical choices because they use the Golgo-13 character, but WURM?  It is not as far fetched as you think.  Golgo 13 advertised multiple styles of play.  First, there are side-scrolling areas with some platform (enemy bases) and some free form (underwater) elements like Super Mario Bros.  Second, there are first person, 360 degree mode instances where you have to kill all the enemies that are ambushing you. Third, there are horizontal shooter stages when you fly a helicopter. Fourth, there are first person maze stages with traps, items and enemies to shoot.  Finally, there are dialogue and cinematic sequences when you charm the ladies.

The Mafat Conspiracy has more of the same, mostly.  In exchange for the horizontal shooting mode, you get a driving mode that looks very close to Rad Racer.  There is also a more involved sniping mode and the game is much more cinematic overall.  The mazes are still as annoying as hell, but in the manuals for both games there are maps.  Also, the platforming stages are still a bit stiff in terms of your character's control scheme but there have been some improvements from the first game.  One big one is that now button B shoots and button A jumps, it was swapped for Golgo 13.

WURM shares the jack-of-all-trades gameplay style of the Golgo-13 games.  It starts you out with a horizontal shooter stage.  You will see more than one of these and your vehicle has and can acquire several different abilities and powerups.   Second, you will have a 360 degree first person mode where you fight boss monsters.  Third, you will explore various areas as Moby in side-scrolling stages.  Moby has a gun and can kick and she controls very similarly to Golgo-13.  Like Golgo-13, the enemies on these stages are not known for their variety.  Fourth comes vertical shooter stages, which are a bit more rudimentary than the horizontal stages.  Fifth, there are also cinematic cutscenes, but these suffer from a lot of repetition in terms of dialogue and artwork.  You also have dialogue during boss fights.  Similarly to Golgo-13, you can also engage in dialogue during the side-scrolling stages.

Golgo 13 and WURM share the same designer, Shoichi Yoshikawa, and he acknowledges that he took inspiration from the earlier game.  He even made a direct reference by including the "G-13" robot in the game.   However, WURM has an unfinished feel to it that cannot be said for the Golgo-13 games.

Arkanoid and Arkanoid Again

Arkanoid, that timeless classic from Taito, breathed new life into the Breakout-style of gameplay.  It was ported to the IBM PC compatible platform by Novalogic for Taito in 1988.  What I did not know was that this Novalogic port was based off an earlier port by Imagine.

Imagine was a British software developer in the mid 1980s that went bankrupt.  Ocean Software bought the name and used it on a label for several arcade game ports.  This port of Arkanoid is the only PC port I am aware of which used the Imagine label.  This port was released in 1987.  This PC port was ported from the more colorful ZX Spectrum version, which may be why the Imagine label was left on it.  It only supports CGA graphics and keyboard controls.

Taito had Novalogic port the game again with the mandate to include better hardware support.  Novalogic did not start from scratch, as you will see.  They upgraded the graphics to 16-color EGA and Tandy support,  which required redoing the CGA graphics.  They also included mouse and joystick support and Tandy 3-voice support for music.  Sound effects were still PC Speaker based.

If you compare screenshots of the Imagine and Taito versions, you will see many, many similarities.  Let's start with the Imagine version of Arkanoid :

Now let us compare the CGA graphics of Taito's version :

And here are the customary 16-color graphics for reference :

Both disks are copy protected, but in very different ways.  Taito's executable protected with the Softguard protection.  The executable is encrypted and the loader program makes multiple checks for errors on a track of the disk, then if it is sufficiently satisfied that the errors exist, it will decrypt and run the real executable. Imagine's disk appears as a 180KB single sided disk but is really a double sided disk.  The executable is located on the second side of the disk.  DOS cannot see or execute the executable, but the game's loader reads the data directly through Int 13h read sector commands.  

The Imagine port uses tweaked PC speaker music to get more than one voice out of the PC speaker.  The Taito port uses simple PC speaker music.  The Taito 3-voice music is not particularly more complex or impressive compared to the PC speaker music.  However, unlike the Imagine port, the Taito port is not quite as speed sensitive.  It is almost certain that the Imagine port was developed on or for an Amstrad PC-1512, which uses an 8MHz 8086 and a built-in enhanced CGA graphics adapter.  Both versions quit the game by pressing Esc, then Q, which is weird for PC games but not so much for the small keyboard of the ZX Spectrum.

While neither port will win any prizes for "Best Port of Arkanoid", Taito's version is the better version.  Although it only gives you 3 lives to Imagine's 5, the control responsiveness from the mouse, the joystick or even the keyboard of the Taito version is far superior to the keyboard controls of the Imagine version.  The Imagine's paddle will frequently jerk to the left or the right when you change direction instead of giving a proper smooth movement.  The hit detection between the ball and paddle is more consistent in the Taito version.  Finally, the Imagine version does not seem to have the enemies appear from the top of the screen.  I could not see them in the first two rounds.  Note that the best joystick for the Taito version is one where you can turn the self-centering off, as you can on the boxy Kraft or Tandy Deluxe joysticks.

The real Arkanoid in the arcades used a "spinner", which is a rotary dial.  A rotary dial works by phase shifted quadrature encoding.  There are a pair of optical sensors on either side of a wheel with spokes and holes.  There is an invisible beam between the optical sensors, which are positioned off center from each other.  When the wheel is turned one way, the optical sensor sends a signal.  When it is turned the other way, it sends a mirror image of that signal.  The signal is made up of 1s and 0s sent in a waveform out of phase with each other, and the signal that goes from low to high or high to low first determines the direction.  

The rotary encoder used by Arkanoid was a huge improvement over the resistor capacitor design of older paddle control knobs.  The resistor/capacitor scheme was never especially accurate because it relied on the tolerances of the passive components which could very widely.  Moveover, a potentiometer in a paddle does not have a 360 degree range of movement.  A rotary encoder put out a pure digital signal, the only analog element of the design was how fast the player twisted the knob.  

Your standard ball mouse uses two rotary controllers.  It is by far the closest control to an arcade Arkanoid cabinet as you can get on the PC without buying a MAME controller.  Most MAME controllers are USB based these days, and classic computers tend to be rather incompatible with USB controllers.  

I thought of adapting an Atari 2600 driving controller to a PC mouse interface, because it is essentially half of a mouse.  However, the driving controller puts out a pure quadrature signal.  Serial mice collect the quadrature signals from the movement and the button presses with a microcontroller built into the mouse and send them out in byte-packets to the serial port.  A bus mouse interface like the Microsoft InPort interface may be possible because it accepts quadrature signals from the mouse and has the microcontroller on a PC card.  But an Atari 2600 driving controller only has 16 positions in a complete revolution while your average comptuer mouse has double the number of positions.  The 2600 controller would not be sufficiently fine tuned for games that expect a mouse like Arkanoid and Arkanoid 2: Revenge of DOH, or Cyberball Plus.  

The Imagine version of Arkanoid that has been given to me to write about came on a compilation package called  "La Collection Amstrad PC."  This Collection contains four titles distributed by U.S. Gold: World Class Leader Board from Access Software, World Games from Epyx, Arkanoid (originally from Taito) and "Super Tennis".  "Super Tennis" shares the disk with Arkanoid and boots to this menu :

I know World Class Leader Board and World Games well enough because they came from U.S. companies, but I was not immediately familiar with "Super Tennis".  "Super Tennis" uses French in game and only supports CGA and PC Speaker.  Fortunately its limited hardware selection made it easy enough to track its source, which is Tournament Tennis, originally from Imagic and originally in English. Tournament Tennis has some support for CGA composite color graphics, which would have been unheard of for a European developed title, which cannot support CGA composite graphics because of the lack of NTSC monitors.  Like Arkanoid, Super Tennis appears to be speed adjusted for an 8MHz 8086 machine.  

Here are some screenshots games from Super Tennis :

And here are screenshots from Tournament Tennis as translated into French :