sunt curios daca mai exista jocuri ca Fool's Errand, care m-a blocat timp de cateva saptamani bune in anii 2000 (asta chiar daca aparent e pentru copii de 6-8 ani... btw la fel am patit si cu Diablo II). o descriere sumara pe wikipedia:
nu vreau ca topicul sa fie despre Fool's Errand insa il recomand cu caldura. un review bun e aici, review pe HOTU (unde l-am gasit acu 10+ ani) aici, review youtube aici. oricum, faza e ca autorul recomanda versiunea de Mac insa aparent are probleme cu ambele emulatoare (mai ales versiunea alb-neagra, "adevarata", la care nu poti sa vezi sfarsitul!); eu as recomanda versiunea Amiga - review specific - care are mai multe culori ca versiunea DOS.The Fool's Errand is a 1987 computer game by Cliff Johnson. It is a meta-puzzle game with storytelling, visual puzzles and a cryptic treasure map. It is the tale of a wandering Fool who seeks his fortune in the Land of Tarot and braves the enchantments of the High Priestess.
bonus un Interviu cu Cliff Johnson, creatorul jocului, aparut pe Wired in 2009:
Spoiler:
For all the YouTube clips and fan sites devoted to The Fool’s Errand, the eccentric Bristol, Connecticut, creator remains something of a puzzle himself. Just what kind of mind lurks behind the phenomenon? In this excerpt of his interview with Wired writer David Kushner, Johnson serves up the missing pieces about how his own game began.
Wired: You got your start making monster movies?
Cliff Johnson: I took my allowance, got a $50 Sears camera, and made so many movies that I’m surprised that I graduated high school at all. I don’t remember how I passed anything. Senior year, I made film called Return of the Freshman. It cost $2,000 to make and I got $6,000 showing it. It had special effects – flying saucers attacking a high school.
Wired: You also made monsters for theme parks.
CJ: I ended up building monsters for five different amusement parks. built the monsters out of fiberglass and resin. My favorite was the rotting skeleton — half skeleton and the other half was a rotting human frame. I was like Huckleberry Finn, I got friends to help and used the money to make films. That led to me wanting to go to USC film school, [where I] became a film major and teaching assistant in animation department. I became very interested in things you can now find on YouTube. I worried that avant-garde animation would disappear from earth … that’s important to how I go about making games.
Wired: How’d you get started in computer games?
CJ: In 1984, I wandered into an Apple store and peeked at an Apple Mac. I had never used a computer, they scared the hell out of me. I remember that day. It was a mid-weekday afternoon. I started playing with MacPaint and MacWrite, and $3,000 later I walked home with a Macintosh. I started programming film budgets, and doing micromanagement in Microsoft Excel, something that used to take me hours to do with a paper punch calculator. It was total magic. There was something about programming a spread sheet that tickled my fancy. I played with making formulas that would color the screen in different colors…. This is very old school. I was never a wired person, I did films and this was unlike anything I’d done. But by poking around, by the end of 1986, I had an interest in playing with each function — how to control menus on the Mac and the buttons. It was like discovering the lightbulb.
Wired: So how’d this become The Fool’s Errand?
CJ: Fool’s Errand was a 20-page story that had a cutout map. I gave it out as a Christmas present. Then when I got around to playing with the computer, I thought, I have to do something, enough playing around. I was always project-oriented, whether making monster models or making movies. I like to have something to show for it when it’s done. It occurred to me, “Why don’t I adapt this 20-page story and 81-piece map into a computer game?”
Wired: It must have been a challenge to go from short story to game. What’d you do?
CJ: I came up with the idea that okay, the story will be a scroll, the map will be a map. But, say, you have to earn every part of the story. I was interested in paper-and-pencil games magazines. I liked the look. I like putting different kinds of media together. The art direction in game magazines inspired me. But I thought, wouldn’t it be more fun to take step further? The idea of taking a pattern on the computer and putting a crossword puzzle over it. Logic puzzles, memory puzzles. I started creating puzzles where you earn a piece of story to earn a piece of map. I always used a technique which my animation professor called Found Art. I enjoyed looking at the computer and seeing what I could find.
Wired: You got your start making monster movies?
Cliff Johnson: I took my allowance, got a $50 Sears camera, and made so many movies that I’m surprised that I graduated high school at all. I don’t remember how I passed anything. Senior year, I made film called Return of the Freshman. It cost $2,000 to make and I got $6,000 showing it. It had special effects – flying saucers attacking a high school.
Wired: You also made monsters for theme parks.
CJ: I ended up building monsters for five different amusement parks. built the monsters out of fiberglass and resin. My favorite was the rotting skeleton — half skeleton and the other half was a rotting human frame. I was like Huckleberry Finn, I got friends to help and used the money to make films. That led to me wanting to go to USC film school, [where I] became a film major and teaching assistant in animation department. I became very interested in things you can now find on YouTube. I worried that avant-garde animation would disappear from earth … that’s important to how I go about making games.
Wired: How’d you get started in computer games?
CJ: In 1984, I wandered into an Apple store and peeked at an Apple Mac. I had never used a computer, they scared the hell out of me. I remember that day. It was a mid-weekday afternoon. I started playing with MacPaint and MacWrite, and $3,000 later I walked home with a Macintosh. I started programming film budgets, and doing micromanagement in Microsoft Excel, something that used to take me hours to do with a paper punch calculator. It was total magic. There was something about programming a spread sheet that tickled my fancy. I played with making formulas that would color the screen in different colors…. This is very old school. I was never a wired person, I did films and this was unlike anything I’d done. But by poking around, by the end of 1986, I had an interest in playing with each function — how to control menus on the Mac and the buttons. It was like discovering the lightbulb.
Wired: So how’d this become The Fool’s Errand?
CJ: Fool’s Errand was a 20-page story that had a cutout map. I gave it out as a Christmas present. Then when I got around to playing with the computer, I thought, I have to do something, enough playing around. I was always project-oriented, whether making monster models or making movies. I like to have something to show for it when it’s done. It occurred to me, “Why don’t I adapt this 20-page story and 81-piece map into a computer game?”
Wired: It must have been a challenge to go from short story to game. What’d you do?
CJ: I came up with the idea that okay, the story will be a scroll, the map will be a map. But, say, you have to earn every part of the story. I was interested in paper-and-pencil games magazines. I liked the look. I like putting different kinds of media together. The art direction in game magazines inspired me. But I thought, wouldn’t it be more fun to take step further? The idea of taking a pattern on the computer and putting a crossword puzzle over it. Logic puzzles, memory puzzles. I started creating puzzles where you earn a piece of story to earn a piece of map. I always used a technique which my animation professor called Found Art. I enjoyed looking at the computer and seeing what I could find.
