Forum: Author Hangout

Heard some people muttering about old computer games they had loved years ago, but were no longer able to play because the old games were no longer compatible with today's computers.
I personally remember a game called "Hills," which was about shooting off cannons or some sort of long-range weapon in which you had to take into account things like distance and wind speed. It was a very simple game - maybe stick figures, certainly nothing sophisticated.
One of the games they mentioned was Sim City, which I had not realized was extinct.
Has any author on SOL tackled this subject? Are there any of these old games that you remember?

One of the games they mentioned was Sim City, which I had not realized was extinct.

The franchise is still alive as a free to play on-line game (The Sims), but The Sims, whether the on-line version or the single player version is a very different game from the original Sim City.

From what I've read, they tried to re-launch Sim City in 2017 as an online multiplayer game, but it was a market failure.

You can still play your old games on a modern computer. You just need an emulator. Search for "retro games emulator" or just "games emulator" and you will find multiple options. You can even play old games that were for specific game computers like the Nintendo DS or NES. Makes playing your old Super Mario easy :D
There's even an open source project for old Flash games (https://flashpointarchive.org) with a huge library of flash games that you can play using the emulator. Even those that would originally need a link to a specific site. All in a secure sandboxed environment.
Of course you might need some other software to get a software version of a game but that is also available for most games.

Some of the really old games (for PC) were written using loops for slowing down or waiting some time. With the advanced processor speed those loops got processed too fast, leaving the player no time to react or even to see what happened.
The programmers would have had to replace all those time consuming loops with other constructs to maintain play-ability — which they didn't.
In other cases the graphic was bound too tight to obsolete becoming hardware (pre-VGA) and would not run on the newer graphics cards.
Most of my games ceased to run when I switched from DOS/Windows to Windows NT 3.51, because they directly accessed the hardware (impossible with NT).
Even many newer games required the Windows95 branch of Microsoft's operating systems and didn't run on NT.

HM.

I remember the artillery game or one just like it. It was one of the only games we were allowed to play when the school opened its computer lab, presumably because it honed math skills or some such. On our computers it was called Golf or Gulf or something similar that made absolutely no sense.

First computer game I ever bought was named Carnivore where you hunted dinosaurs while they hunted you. Great game but couldn't get it to work after Windows 95.

Back in the 80ies my friends and I all owned C64's and we probably spent more time trading games than actually playing them. But one of the games we actually played was M.U.L.E.; one of the first true multiplayer games where four colonists - either humans or computer players - try to establish a successful settlement on the planet Irata by buying plots of land and exploiting them. You had the option to install solar collectors for energy, farm for food or mine for minerals. Each round would start out by the land auction, where players could compete for new plots of land. Then players took turns to buy and outfit new M.U.L.E.s to work their land, hunt the elusive wumpus or go to the Casino. After that came a production phase. The last phase was the auction, where you'd sell your surplus to the store or other players or buy required ressources. In this phase all players participated at once, and it brought out the worst in people at times, because trying to starve a neighbor is a valid strategy for winning the game ;-)

Sid Meyer's Railroad Tycoon.

I loved that game, which has now morphed along a long path into OTTD.

Volker Wertich's Die Siedler (Settlers)

Both are examples of games which were obviously not as technically advanced as their successors but somehow had a much better "game" feel.

I use to play this game called Carmagedón 3 where the goal was to run over people to get points. My problem was I had to wait a while before I tried to drive because I would look at people as points and think of aiming for them.

I remember having to go to computer show to buy games because computer stores weren't around then. Now with the end of Fry's there is no good place any more.

DOSBox is designed to run old school games on modern systems. In fact, many of the games in the comments are available for purchase at Good Old Games with all the software configured to run on modern computers.

Due to my dad, I have a love of the before my time Sierra games, have those to play on modern stuff.