Highly anticipated new CRPG released . . . for the Apple II
January 28, 2021 7:01 AM Subscribe
A new role-playing game was just released for the Apple II computer that I invented over 40 years ago!
If nothing else, 2021 is looking up for fans of 40-year old computers. Recently released after a successful Kickstarter, the long-awaited computer role-playing game Nox Archaist was recently released. The games was programmed by a dedicated team on an Apple II.
Nox Archaist also comes out on Steam today.
Not to be outdone, after 15 years of single-handed work the sprawling CRPG Realms of Antiquity was released earlier this mont for the ti99/4a.
Don't have any 40-year old computers handy? No problem! Both games come bundled with an emulator to play on modern hardware.
If nothing else, 2021 is looking up for fans of 40-year old computers. Recently released after a successful Kickstarter, the long-awaited computer role-playing game Nox Archaist was recently released. The games was programmed by a dedicated team on an Apple II.
Nox Archaist also comes out on Steam today.
Not to be outdone, after 15 years of single-handed work the sprawling CRPG Realms of Antiquity was released earlier this mont for the ti99/4a.
Don't have any 40-year old computers handy? No problem! Both games come bundled with an emulator to play on modern hardware.
I should bring up our IIc from the basement and see if it works.
posted by kathrynm at 7:10 AM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by kathrynm at 7:10 AM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
Related: Ben Zotto reconstructs a corrupted Apple II game he made in elementary school some 30 years ago.
posted by colossal at 7:20 AM on January 28, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by colossal at 7:20 AM on January 28, 2021 [5 favorites]
Gah, this takes me back. The IIe was my first computer.
posted by lazaruslong at 7:28 AM on January 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by lazaruslong at 7:28 AM on January 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
I've been having a lot of fun staying up way too late at night playing both games on my Apple IIc and ti99. I had to spend some money upgrading my ti99 before I could play Realms of Antiquity, but it was worth it. It took one guy 191 hours to play through RoA, so I figure it will keep me occupied for quite a while.
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:38 AM on January 28, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:38 AM on January 28, 2021 [3 favorites]
I suppose I should have kept all the Atari stuff I had except ... I'd rather be moving forward with my art rather than digging things out of the past. On the other hand the shareware games I released in the 90s are still popular (albeit free) so ... whatever.
I did donate everything to an actual 8-bit computer museum though. Including some ultra-rare hardware that let you use a hard drive with an Atari 130XE. 10MB hard drive, y'all! Damn that was a lot.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:48 AM on January 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
I did donate everything to an actual 8-bit computer museum though. Including some ultra-rare hardware that let you use a hard drive with an Atari 130XE. 10MB hard drive, y'all! Damn that was a lot.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:48 AM on January 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
Whoops. I meant to include a link to Steve Wozniak's Twitter announcement for Nox Archaist.
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:48 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:48 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Related: Ben Zotto reconstructs a corrupted Apple II game he made in elementary school some 30 years ago.
There was a post about it three days ago.
posted by sideshow at 7:59 AM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
There was a post about it three days ago.
posted by sideshow at 7:59 AM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
Goddamnit steam don't tell me I can't download the files because I'm on the wrong platform
All platforms are the wrong platform, this is the entire fucking point
posted by phooky at 8:27 AM on January 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
All platforms are the wrong platform, this is the entire fucking point
posted by phooky at 8:27 AM on January 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
My IIe is in storage but there's a IIc in the closet - I'm all over this.
posted by 1adam12 at 8:28 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by 1adam12 at 8:28 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Related: Ben Zotto reconstructs a corrupted Apple II game he made in elementary school some 30 years ago.
A few years ago I took a different approach to reconstructing an Apple II game I made in school. The 5¼" disk was completely irretrievable, as in "trapped in 1982 where I left it", but fortunately I'd printed out the code on a dot-matrix printer...
posted by rory at 8:35 AM on January 28, 2021 [5 favorites]
A few years ago I took a different approach to reconstructing an Apple II game I made in school. The 5¼" disk was completely irretrievable, as in "trapped in 1982 where I left it", but fortunately I'd printed out the code on a dot-matrix printer...
posted by rory at 8:35 AM on January 28, 2021 [5 favorites]
We had a Commodore 64 back in the '80s, but games like these were my obsession. One thing jumps out at me... even today, the hideous, screaming, acid green color used for grass and trees still irritates my eyes. All the other garish colors were fine. Discovering a new area and seeing a different color scheme was always a moving experience—Success! Progress! But games with those endless fields of grass really sparked a strong negative reaction in me. 13 year old me would have grinded the first few areas of a game like this over and over until I had it memorized. And I would never, ever finish it. Many games like this were punishingly difficult and cryptic. And nowhere to look for spoilers or cheats or answers to vexing puzzles back then.
Thanks for posting this. I won't be playing it, but projects like these are always interesting to read about.
posted by SoberHighland at 9:14 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Thanks for posting this. I won't be playing it, but projects like these are always interesting to read about.
posted by SoberHighland at 9:14 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
But I'm not done with Tunnels of Doom yet!
posted by whuppy at 9:20 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by whuppy at 9:20 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm down for another wave of classic computing nostalgia. Before the pandemic, I was running a tabletop roleplaying game that took place in 1984, and I wanted a simulated era-authentic BBS as a prop. I ended up just using a TV connected to a raspberry pi emulating a Commodore 64 and I wrote a basic program to simulate the BBS. It worked great and it was fun to do some BASIC programming. (I had forgotten that stuff that scrolls off the screen is gone forever!)
posted by rikschell at 9:26 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by rikschell at 9:26 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
I meant to include a link to Steve Wozniak's Twitter announcement for Nox Archaist.
That's MetaFilter's own Steve Wozniak.
posted by Mitheral at 9:33 AM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
That's MetaFilter's own Steve Wozniak.
posted by Mitheral at 9:33 AM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm wondering how likely these games are to be accessible for me, as a totally blind person. The IIE has some text-mode screen reading capabilities, but I know that there were also a lot of graphical games which were not playable. The emulation adds a whole other layer *ponders*
posted by Alensin at 11:36 AM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Alensin at 11:36 AM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
Odyssey: the Compleat Apventure is still my happy place.
posted by ikahime at 11:53 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by ikahime at 11:53 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
just gonna pour me a bowl of Oops! All Ultimas and dig right in
posted by FatherDagon at 12:52 PM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by FatherDagon at 12:52 PM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
I remember receiving a set of choose-your-own-adventure type books where the hook was it had code in the back to make a game based on your choices. I spent the better part of one evening entering the code for one of them into my Apple II+ and the game wouldn't work. I have no idea if it was because the code was faulty or because I messed up somewhere - I knew nothing about coding at the time and was just entering whatever the book told me to. I kept that computer until the 90s before I finally got rid of it. Who knew that if I had kept it for another 30 years there'd be new games for it?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:57 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:57 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm a backer. The boxed set is quite nice and pings my nostalgia feels.
posted by djeo at 3:36 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by djeo at 3:36 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
1000% in. Ultima IV may still be the greatest game I’ve ever played. Beating the whole thing on my own at age 12 was my first real achievement. I still have my ankh.
posted by n9 at 3:44 PM on January 28, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by n9 at 3:44 PM on January 28, 2021 [6 favorites]
So it turns out that dual floppies are required. I've only got one drive on this machine, so I'm SOL.
posted by phooky at 5:21 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by phooky at 5:21 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
I’m running it with SmartPort hard drive emulation using a FloppyEmu on my IIc.
posted by fimbulvetr at 5:39 PM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by fimbulvetr at 5:39 PM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
I only played it a little bit last night, but I can already tell that it is aiming to be the ne plus Ultima.
After taking a quick look at the reference card this morning, I see they are kind enough to explicitly provide the emulator warp speed keybinds, because if there's one thing I don't miss about the old days, it is the slow reaction time of the game. The lag was enough to impede my enjoyment, so let's see how it goes with the speed cranked up a bit.
posted by notoriety public at 10:16 AM on January 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
After taking a quick look at the reference card this morning, I see they are kind enough to explicitly provide the emulator warp speed keybinds, because if there's one thing I don't miss about the old days, it is the slow reaction time of the game. The lag was enough to impede my enjoyment, so let's see how it goes with the speed cranked up a bit.
posted by notoriety public at 10:16 AM on January 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
A further followup: I’m still not very far in. I am playing at 2x emulator speed which takes the edge off of the lag but you still notice it. I may step up to 4x to see if that is an improvement or not. It will be faster but might make some of the action hard to see.
The scale of the game is pretty staggering. They really fit this on 7 140k disks? I don’t know how much I haven’t seen yet except I can tell that I haven’t seen a LOT, and my guys are at level 5 out of 10. I don’t know how much advancement slows down toward the end, and I don’t know how much time is spent at max level, but my guess is that I’m like 20% in.
They have some old school puzzles too. You need a password to get into the thieves guild, but no obvious clues where to find it. I found a lead on my own- not gonna spoil it. The newness and niche appeal of the game means that there aren’t a lot of spoilers around yet and I mean to respect that while it lasts.
The tactics are still pretty simple but more complex than Ultima V. The “classless” system still strongly encourages you to go down a small number of specializations but you are rewarded for doing so. You NEED tanks to soak the heavy hitters, and your dps can sit back and melt them. There seems to be some attempt to encourage rogue melee dps but so far I haven’t felt like it pays off yet. Maybe on bigger boss enemies, but my rogue is getting it done with dual throwing weapons just fine so far. I have been underusing magic, I think, because the points run out so fast, but I can see how it might get used later on.
If Ultima IV-V were your jam as a kid, you will love this game. It is a work of excellent craft.
posted by notoriety public at 5:32 AM on February 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
The scale of the game is pretty staggering. They really fit this on 7 140k disks? I don’t know how much I haven’t seen yet except I can tell that I haven’t seen a LOT, and my guys are at level 5 out of 10. I don’t know how much advancement slows down toward the end, and I don’t know how much time is spent at max level, but my guess is that I’m like 20% in.
They have some old school puzzles too. You need a password to get into the thieves guild, but no obvious clues where to find it. I found a lead on my own- not gonna spoil it. The newness and niche appeal of the game means that there aren’t a lot of spoilers around yet and I mean to respect that while it lasts.
The tactics are still pretty simple but more complex than Ultima V. The “classless” system still strongly encourages you to go down a small number of specializations but you are rewarded for doing so. You NEED tanks to soak the heavy hitters, and your dps can sit back and melt them. There seems to be some attempt to encourage rogue melee dps but so far I haven’t felt like it pays off yet. Maybe on bigger boss enemies, but my rogue is getting it done with dual throwing weapons just fine so far. I have been underusing magic, I think, because the points run out so fast, but I can see how it might get used later on.
If Ultima IV-V were your jam as a kid, you will love this game. It is a work of excellent craft.
posted by notoriety public at 5:32 AM on February 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
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posted by phooky at 7:06 AM on January 28, 2021 [12 favorites]