Journal of Tormod Haugen

This was an interesting week. I’ve been home a couple of days, the ground is covered in what we call Steel Ice in Norway, and I’m breaking neurons on a work related task. Since I also want to get blogging some more, I kind of have to write something now. Or something like that.

Barring a few tiny ideas, I’m fresh out when it comes to blog post inspiration. Which makes Łukasz’ latest post coming like an inspiration. I’ll just say what he does so well: What games are you playing right now?

For me it is a a bit of this, and a bit of that. I’m mostly a PC person, but my computer isn’t built to handle anything that are sold out of bargain bins (err… or about that). I’ve logged quite a few hours the last month playing the Kakuro puzzles in Platinum Sudoku for the DS. I also plowed through Orcs and Elves by Id Software - a decent dungeon hack on the same platform, though it isn’t something I’d buy as a full-price item.

As I said in an earlier post; I’ve also played a bit of Spectromancer, but not more than a bit. I’m not sure I will play it more right now, but that is mostly because I play the actual Magic: the Gathering against living and breathing humans while drinking coffee these (Satur)days.

I also tried out the latest build of Cortex Command yesterday. I’m pleasantly surprised - both with its captivity and genius - and with its ability to run on my aging computer. I’m not sure why (oh, well - I am…), I’m longing for a good game of Worms with friends again.

What do you play?

Now, it is quite a while since Magic: the Gathering 4th Edition were released. That was when I started playing, a long time ago. At the time of writing, 10th Edition is the current base edition, it seems. I am suddenly feeling old.

I rediscovered MtG while having lunch at my favorite coffee bar one weekend. The next weekend I was bold enough to approach them, and soon I was playing a bit again. At the start I was content with letting the local master (I guess), Rune, create my decks. Or rather; it was a necessity. My poor deck constructing skills were worse than before - a major feat in itself. He created a black and white deck out of some of my remaining cards of old, and tuned a 40 card deck out of what I made for a sealed tournament.

I’ve bought a few extra cards, and tried my hand at construction myself in the last month, and though no great result has come from this… I’m improving. Next weekend will show if I have improved enough.

A related discovery, coincidence I guess, is related to this latest craze of mine. It seems that Richard Garfield, creator of many games including MtG, has been working with Skaff Elias (as Three Donkeys LLC) and Apus Software to create an online card game called Spectromancer.

I’ve played the demo of Spectromancer a bit - it is intriguing, but currently undergoing my indie game test; I’ve uninstalled it. If I install it to play some more - I’ll buy it.

I got through Fallout, ready to start on Fallout 2. During the game, which I played as a intelligent person with a knack for hitting where it hurts, I learned (or re-learned) some things:

1. As in all RPG’s, carry a 10 foot pole and 50 feet worth of rope at all times.
   • Since Fallout hasn’t got a 10 foot pole, carry two pieces of rope.
2. Don’t turn your back to anyone wielding a automatic weapon. Ever. Just run.
   • Unless your enemies are the ones wielding the hardware, and you are exceptionally well insulated against lead. Then go stand by those less likely to survive the hailstorm.
3. Don’t play too much chess, it is bad for your health
4. Don’t let out the prisoners under the Cathedral. Please. Please…

Anything worth adding?

It is that time again. I delve back into the oasis of great games from the past, looking to find my childhood. Silly, isn’t it? I carry my childhood with me, hoping to be as good a parent as mine before me.

Spurred by people talking about GOG.com, I managed to get my hands on Fallout and Fallout 2, for the price of a cup of coffee and a light lunch at my favorite coffee bar.

Download and install went as well as it should, though I was a bit shocked to see Tim Cain as the Fallout icon. This happens for both Fallout and Fallout 2, as his image is hidden in the 48×48 pixel version of the icon. Phew.

I went on the net finding high resolution patches for both Fallout and Fallout 2 at NMA. Reading the Readme I installed the patch, knowing I could get it uninstalled by running the patcher again.

I changed the patch’s ini file to set my resolution to 1280×1024, and started the game. Which crashed with a message that it couldn’t set resolution to 640×480. A bit of research put the blame on the file ddraw.dll in the game directory. I removed it (by renaming it to ddraw.dll), making the game revert to Windows’ version (installed with DirectX and/or the gfx card drivers?), then it worked just nice. I also read that this was due to ATI drivers - and since the game works without the high res patch, with the supplied ddraw.dll, I guess it is supplied to avoid the problem in the first part. Possibly the packaged ddraw.dll allows 640×480 res, breaking the high res patch.

A fix sets the color (bit depth) to 16 bits, avoiding a screen blackout bug - this might or might not have been fixed in GOG’s version of Fallout, but with this set in the patch’s ini file you won’t get the loading screens.

Edit: I also had some problems in the Rad Scorpion caves outside of Shady Sands. When I entered the map, I couldn’t scroll around, and even the exit area was outside of the screen. efin says in the GOG forums:

Also, I don’t know if anyone else has had this problem, but with the hi-res pack I couldn’t go anywhere in the radscorpion cave. I could move around the screen, but I couldn’t scroll to go anywhere else other than the first bit you c an see. It appears to be wrong numbers put into an .ini file.

If you have this problem, go to the “f1_res” folder and open “map_edges_F1.ini” - in it you’ll see the edges mapped out by number for each section of the game. Here is what I have for the Caves section:

NAME = CAVES
ELEVATION = 1
LEFT_EDGE = 1568
RIGHT_EDGE = 2540
TOP_EDGE = 1840
BOTTOM_EDGE = 1532

I’m not sure if these are accurate, but they worked for me. Have fun!

So, now it is time to start the fun.

Update: It is given away.

I was so lucky to receive a code from a random passer by, and as I was told I could give one on myself, I thought I’d pass it on.

Therefore, if anyone would like to try and buy some Good Old Games from GOG.com, feel free to ask me for a invite code. First come, first served. My email address is made up from my handle “tormodh” and the domain of Google’s popular email client - “gmail.com”, or you could drop a line in the comments below. Email entered in the field (for email) will not be shown to others than me.

More info (same links as supplied by Mart):

• The main Good Old Games site
• Old’s Cool at gamesindustry.biz
• CD Projekt: Publishers “scared” to go DRM-Free

I don’t know where I stand around difficult games.

On one hand I enjoy a challenge - but on the other I like to have a fun time, not spend time doing the same bit of timed puzzle again and again. And in there lies the (first) answer. I don’t like to be forced to do the same part of a game repeatedly. I can sit a long time thinking, trying different things. I don’t have a problem leaving the game in order to wait for a (possible) solution to present itself.

I have a long list of games I haven’t finished. Among them are the classic Prince of Persia, left behind as I got tired of having to replay everything each time I failed. Most of the games left behind are not there because of their difficulty, but rather because they failed to engage me, became boring.
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I like games, I play games.

When I’m in a gaming mode, you’ll probably find me playing pen and paper role-playing games, or reminisce about the good old games of old. And it in not that the latter are better. Erm, the older, that is. And I do play, and enjoy, modern games. It is just that older games had an unforgiving nature often missing from games of today. And nostalgia…

I recently picked S.T.A.L.K.E.R. out of a garba… bargain-bin. Mainly due to Andrew’s review of it. This is a game containing what I miss. It holds promise of much good role-playing, and of having to plan before running in guns blazing. At least as long as you stay away from the dreaded quick load button.
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