Starting in 1986, I played most of these games on the Atari ST and/or Amiga. I seem to recall the graphics being improved over the Apple/PC/C-64 versions, and I recall using a mouse. Has anybody compared the originals to the Amiga/ST ports? That could have a big effect on Jim's technology concerns. I know that Karl is a big Amiga fan, and they might have had two very different experiences playing the same game.
Hugh -------Original Message------- From: John Romero <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: 01/21/03 01:01 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [SWCollect] King's Quest 1 > > > But the animations were incredibly crude because the sprites > were inexplicably limited to half-horizontal-resolution > sprites! And so were the backgrounds! > I originally thought this would be for a speed increase or > storage requirement decrease -- but on closer examination, > the text boxes that pop up show that the game is running in > 320x200, which is not half-horiz-res. And since the game > backgrounds were all vector graphics, it would not have taken > up that much more space to hold 320x200 coordinates. It > drove me nuts to see, game after game, graphics created and > displayed at 160x200 running in a 320x200 graphics mode! I believe the reason why the graphics on the PC were so low res is because they were merely ports of the Apple II games to start with. Then, when they moved over to developing the titles on the PC, they didn't change their engine technology because that resolution was the most compatible with the C-64 and Apple II systems of the day. The Apple II version of King's Quest was one of the early double-resolution 16-color games and subsequent Sierra adventures used that graphics mode. Double-res on the Apple II was 160x192 with 16 colors. Mixed-mode graphics on the C64 was 160x200 with 4 colors (from a 16-color palette) per 4x8 character block. It was just a logical decision to use the same assets and resolution as the other popular platforms. - John ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/ > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/swcollect@oldskool.org/
