Mac gaming of yesteryear

[Lady Jaye]

My first Mac game ever was a little-known graphic adventure game by Infocom called Arthur (it was basically a text-based adventure with graphics attached to it). I don't remember it that well (trying to find it online was pointless; besides, even if I did find it, I'd also need to download the documentation that was required to advance at all in the game). Unfortunately, that game pretty much stopped working shortly after I got it, because my parents had upgraded the SE/30 from System 6 to System 7 (and not long after, they replaced the SE/30 with a IIcx, which I still have).

Other games I got in my early Mac days (circa early-to-mid 1990) were Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, When in Time is Carmen Sandiego and SimEarth (version 1.0). I still have all three games with their boxes and all, but the diskettes got data rot. Besides, in the case of the Carmen Sandiego games, I'd have to use a Mac emulator to run them (my old 350MHz iMac w/ OS 9.1 is too fast for these games, making them crash).

You know, it's interesting how these early pre-CD, pre-Internet games used books or printed documents as a sort of copy protection (you'd have to type the word on top of page xxx of the 1991 World Almanach, for example).

So, among you Macheads, what was your first game, and what year was it?

[scooterb23]

While not a Machead...one of my favorite games ever was a game where you had to fly a paper airplane throughout a house. We had it on our old Macs at college (early 90s) I loved playing that game instead of working during computer class. Except that one day when I forgot to turn off the sound on my computer, and the musci started playing in the middle of the lecture :embarrassed:

Anyone know the name of that game? And is there a version I can play on my PC?? :D

[Lady Jaye]

It's called Glider. I used to have it, back when that shareware was fully playable (now, it's more a demo of the first level than a shareware, you gotta pay to unlock the full game).

UPDATE: The current version is Mac only (OS 9 or X), and the author of the game got the rights of the game reverted to him. It's now available for free at http://homepage.mac.com/calhoun/

Scroll down on that webpage. You can also download the older version for Systems 6 & 7, as well as a Windows version (no indication of the exact Windows compatibility, though). So, if you can't run the Windows version, I suggest that you go for a classic Mac emulator.

[scooterb23]

Bliss!!!

The Windows version works great on Win XP!!!

Thank you so much Lady Jaye :D

[Queen Of The Felines]

Heh, I remember downloading a bunch of shareware games from AOL back in '93-'94. Glider, Tetris clones, Sokoban, Shanghai, Realmz from Fantasoft (still going after all this time!), and the way-cool arcade clone games from Ambrosia Software (ditto).

First commercial games I bought were Marathon and Heaven and Earth.

Now if you want to talk about the Apple II I'll be here all night. LOL

Kristine

[Lady Jaye]

Scott, you're welcome! You should drop a line to the author of the game, just to let him know that the Windows version runs fine on Win XP...

And I can thank you back as well. I kinda forgot that game (I too used to play it nearly 15 years ago). Last year, I found out that an update existed but back then, it was available as a commercial release (which was frustrating, to say the least). If it weren't for your question, I wouldn't have found out that the game has switched to being a freeware.

Kristine, I got Marathon quite late (only a couple of years ago) through the Bungie action sack. Actually, the whole sack works fine in OS 9, except for Minotaur, which is multiplayer-only.

Ambrosia Software is a great shareware company, isn't it? They're so great that MacWorld treats them pretty much at the same level as the big 3 of Mac gaming publishers (Aspyr, MacPlay and MacSoft).

[scooterb23]

You should drop a line to the author of the game, just to let him know that the Windows version runs fine on Win XP...

I'd like to, but he doesn't seem to have an e-mail address available...maybe I'll dig around tomorrow for one...

[KJN]

I fondly remeber spending a lot of time playing Lunatic Fringe (from the After Dark screensaver packages) during a summer job many years ago.

And later Glider and Maelstrom as well.

[Lady Jaye]

There was a game with After Dark? I don't remember that... (although maybe it just wasn't part of the set in later versions...)

Which was your fave After Dark screensavers? Mine were Boris the Cat and of course the Flying Toasters.

[Lady Jaye]

Scott: I don't see an email address on John Calhoun's website, but I noticed that his website address is a .mac one. Try calhoun@mac.com (it might bounce, but there's a high chance that it won't).

[Jorpho]

Oh yes, it was all about the Carmen games and the Sim games at first.

The first non-educational game I really took notice of was StormImpact's Taskmaker, which was followed by a sequel, Tomb of the Taskmaker. Both are freely available at Underdogs and work great under Basilisk II.

They might be considered roguelikes, but they're pretty innovative. My beef with the sequel was all the time I spent trudging back and forth to ATMs to deposit all my treasure.

[le geek]

I played Fool's Errand and 3 in Three on my friend's Mac and loved them.

The Fool's Errand is one of my favorite games

http://www.fools-errand.com/

I also enjoy Spectre, and Swoop a lot :)

Sadly my Mac II Died on me for a second time, and it's not worth getting fixed. Unless there is an easy fix like replacing a battery or something...

Cheers,
Ben

[Jorpho]

Ah, how could I forget about The Fool's Errand? (Actually, when I first played it a year or two ago, it was the DOS version, but the Mac version is superior in several ways.)

I look forward to the April Fool's Day treasure hunt.

[Lady Jaye]

Le Geek: maybe it is the backup battery that's dead?

I'm pretty sure that's what happened to our old IIcx (Steve was playing Yahtzee on it when it suddenly went dead). If you search online, you'll find the information concerning the battery model corresponding to your Mac. In my case, it was pretty simple, it's the same backup battery used even in the iMac (available at Radio Scrap). So, even if replacing the battery wouldn't work on the iicx, I wouldn't really have bought the battery for nothing, since I can keep it for my iMac.

[slapdash]

As a rule I don't really play games on my computer, but I got into Fool's Errand quite a bit -- couldn't put it away until I'd solved it.

I also got hooked on some war game for a while, but once I trounced it (and the game didn't end!), I never bothered with it again. It was five medieval kingdoms... Green, blue, orange/gold, black, and red... The black kingdom was a bit "evil" themed, the blue "horse" themed, the green "elf" themed... Don't remember red (wolves?) or orange (mountain?) particularly...

[tynstar]

The only game I ever played on the MAC was 3d Pattle Smash. It was a game that came with the OS but it was a lot of fun.

[TheSmirk]

On Mac the main thing I remember was playing Myst and the games from Ambrosia software, they were ALL OVER the Mac gaming scene