CYOA books (off topic)

[Andrew]

I remember the "Choose Your Own Adventure" book with the green slime.  Pretty hideous, if you have a good imagination.  Gads, why does it always have to be blobs or slimes with me?

The text-based adventure game for the computer that always sticks with me is "Zork."  I actually finished the first "Zork" and was on the tip of completing the second.  Also got pretty far in "Leather Goddesses of Phobos" - which was a game that had some strange ins and outs.

[Grumpy Guy]

I remember CYOA Books fondly, but there were a couple other series I liked better...

First on that list has to be Which Way Books.  #10, invasion of the Black Slime and Other Tales of Horror occasionally rears up in my nightmares even to this day.  That book really creeped me out...  Any way, a list of Which Way books can be found here...

http://www.gamebooks.org/wwlist.htm

Second was a series called Lone Wolf.  In it, you took on the role of Lone Wolf, the last of ther Kai warriors.  It was followed by a Mangakai series, but the sequal series was nothing compared to the first, which ran for six gloriously illustrated, mind blowing books, cuminating in the fifth, which was a double book, the size of an large novel.  Look here...

http://homepages.tesco.net/~parsonsp/html/lone_wolf.html (British covers for the books - the American books had very different covers...)

Or, if you don't mind waiting for construction to finish, the "Official Fan Site":

http://www.magnamund.org/

For a wealth of info on Lone Wolf.
(Incidentally, Lone Wolf had a spin off series called The World of Lone Wolrf:  Grey Star, which was about a wizard.  It was pretty good, too...)

Finally, there was one other series that I dearly loved, but for the life of me, I cannot remember what the series was called.  It was written for a older audience than Which Way or CYOA books, pre teens to early teens.  There were elements of romance thrown in with the adventure.  For some reason, I can only remember one title - "Sword Daughter's Quest" - and that one has yielded me no results on an internet search.  The whole sereis was sword and sorcery fantasy.  If anyone has a clue, I'd like to know what I'm talking about...

In any case, thanks for the trip down memory lane.  Now I have to see if I can find any Lone Wolf books.  I'm dying to play  Shadow on the Sand again...

[Susan]

Grumpy - is this what you're talking about?
Sword Daughter's Quest

[JohnL]

>I went through a phase a few years back where i downloaded all those 8 bit
>games on my pc and played, but it's never the same as the joysticks and

I've seen instructions for making a joystick interface to plug Atari style joysticks into today's computers. It works by translating the Atari joystick switches into the Min/Max values an IBM joystick would generate as it's moved. I haven't tried it though. My electronics building projects haven't gone all that well. :)

>paddles (which i still have but aren't very operational) I'm such a geek i still have

Hehe, I have quite a bit of experience fixing controllers.

Paddles - There's not a whole lot to go wrong with paddles. The contacts usually get dirty, leading to erratic control. Take out the screws in the bottom of the controller and take the case apart. Pull the knob straight off, then unscrew the nut holding the pot (the round control inside) to the case. Look for an opening in it and spray in some Radio Shack Tuner/Contact Cleaner, then twist it back and forth several times, repeat if necessary. Do the same for the button if it's not registering well. When all is working ok, put it back together.

Joysticks - Atari brand sticks have a bunch of things that can go wrong with them, from the internal pegs that the stick sits on breaking, to the internal stick cracking. One problem that IS easily fixable is when the little metal bubble switches migrate off their assigned positions. To fix this, cut the plastic coating around the problem contact(s) and peel it off. Reposition the contact and stick it in place with clear packing/sealing tape (Scotch tape won't do it). The contacts tend to be sticky, so it's usually easier to stick them to the tape and then use that to position them. This also works on a bunch of Atari clone sticks.

A better solution would be to buy replacement joysticks. There are several places on the net where you can order Atari stuff. Wico sticks are well made and are basically an arcade quality controller in a home controller case. Tac-2 joysticks are pretty tough also, although I did have one break on me. You can also use Atari 7800 controllers on the 2600 and I've heard you can even use Sega Genesis controllers.

>alot of my old toys, including the tomy pocket games and some of those
>handheld computer games from the early 80's which were baseball, hockey..etc.
>(nothing but a red blip and alot of loud noises)

I have a lot of my old toys also. Still have almost all my video games (our Sears Arcade was given away as was my Coleco Telstar Arcade).

>The text-based adventure game for the computer that always sticks with me
>is "Zork." I actually finished the first "Zork" and was on the tip of completing the
>second. Also got pretty far in "Leather Goddesses of Phobos" - which was a
>game that had some strange ins and outs.

The three original Zork games have been released as free downloads, as well as Zork: The Undiscovered Underground. You can download them from;

Infocom Info

The only difference I can see betwee the Windows and DOS versions is that the Windows ones are self-extracting archives. I haven't tested these, but all you should need are the story files (.DAT), then follow the Z-Machine Interpreters link and download a copy of Frotz for your OS. Frotz is a freeware interpreter for running Infocom-style story files (original Infocom and user created), that is much more flexible than the ones Infocom included.

This works with the various Lost Treasures of Infocom packages also, I've tested it personally.

Myself, I completed Infidel without any help, and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with only a couple peaks at the hint book.

[Grumpy Guy]

YES!!  You RULE!!

One thousand and one blessings upon your name and your house, my lady!  Now if only I can find some way of getting ahold of these books...

On a similar line - I just made the most magnificent discovery.  Most of the Lone Wolf books (All of the Kai and Magnakai adventures - some 12 books) are available for free online.  The Author, Joe Dever, releaced the copyright to an organization known as Project Aeon.  You can find them here:

http://www.projectaon.org

They have not only made the games available fpr play online or for download, they have made a pretty brilliant little piece of equipment called a Statskeeper - it does things like keep track of your items, you Kai Disciplines, and so on - right in your browser.  I have spent the better part of the day playng these games, and they are as engaging as ever.  I give both the site and the books thereon my highest reccomendation.  Check them out - you won't regret it, I promise!

[Cullen]

FYI: you can create a direct link to various sites this way:

(Bracket)url=http://www.siteyouwanttolink.org/(endbracket) www.siteyouwanttolink.org (bracket)/url(end bracket)

In case I have gotten my terms confused (it happens, as you know), by brackets  I mean these things [ ].

Information like this and more can be found at the Help section of this board.

(I know.  You probably knew all of this already.  Just trying to be helpful...
Cordially yours,
Cullen

[Grumpy Guy]

razzafraking know-it-alls...