Any Melee/Wizard computer games?

[David Bofinger]

I used to have a TFT iterated skirmish simulator in Java. The blue side was a party of characters, there were swordsmen, pole weaponeers and archers but no wizards (IIRC). The red side was a random group of monsters (e.g. "five wolves"), or sometimes two smaller groups of monsters. There was also random terrain. In nearly every fight blue would win. Characters who were hurt went to the bench and were replaced by previously benched characters who had recovered from their injuries or by randomly generated new characters if no returnees were available. Experience points were spent. A calculation of blue casualties was done: if this was lower than the desired average level of casualties (more or less: a couple of people got hurt but probably nobody died) then the difficulty was pushed up a little, if it was higher than the desired average the difficulty was pushed down a little. Each time something happened it made a PNG image so I ended with a large number of pngs which I fused into an MP4 using free software whose name I forget. It was kind of fun, but didn't go anywhere. The AI was acceptable if you didn't look at it closely. The code was hideous. I started trying to make it into a web app but didn't finish.

[Jim Kane]

Originally Posted by JLV

Ooh! I want to second this request!

Yes, yes, as Death Test is already set-up as a: "Programmed Adventure", as a possible way to side-step the interminable "page-flipping", I think at minimum, a clickable PDF on-disc presentation would be an idea worth kicking around the SJG Think-Tank... though I am not sure how I feel deep-down about not having a printed thing to hold in-hand. Hmmm...

JK

[JLV]

I must admit, I have a positive predilection for "dead tree" versions of things myself. I have everything TFT ever had in electronic form, but I also have everything in print form, and generally prefer to do my reading that way.

Still, a good computer game can be a LOT of fun. One I ran across not too long ago (on Steam maybe?) was The Warlock of Firetop Mountain -- it looks like they did a remarkably good job of making the game fun (and looking like a miniatures game too), though I have yet to have enough available loose change to buy the thing...

[Jim Kane]

Originally Posted by JLV

I must admit, I have a positive predilection for "dead tree" versions of things myself. I have everything TFT ever had in electronic form, but I also have everything in print form, and generally prefer to do my reading that way.

As do I JLV, as do I.

And on a purely personal note: I do wrestle with this one, as I think one thing guys like you and I need to keep in mind is the fact that we have enjoyed a 40-year long love-affair with this thing called: The Fantasy Trip; and I personally feel it is our duty (if I may speak for us Old Ones collectively) that our suggestions are also aimed at making TFT EVEN BETTER, not so much fo us, but for the people who will be falling in love with TFT for the very first time - with the hope that THEY can have an ever better experience than we have had; and hopefully for 40 years of their lifetime, as well.

I know it might sound really corny, but I feel, as a matter of respect and gratitude, that we kind of owe it back to SJ, TFT, and the future torch-bearers, by leaving TFT better than it was given to us; as a "Thank you".

Agreed?

JK

[JLV]

Oh, I don't disagree with that. Every suggestion and comment on the rules or their presentation I've made on here has generally been directed towards that same goal. That's not to say they actually DO that, but that was my intention in bringing them up. I WANT Steve Jackson Games to succeed beyond their wildest dreams with the new TFT; and I want the new people that will come into both the hobby and this particular game to have the same fantastic experience I did with it over the past 40 years. In fact, I daresay pretty much everyone on these threads feels the same way about it, even if they haven't clearly thought their way through it as of yet.

To me, perhaps the single most beneficial thing about TFT to this day is how easy it is to teach to new players and how quickly they can get into it. Every single time I've taught it to new players (even ones who had never played an RPG before in their lives and who thought Monopoly was a "complex" game), they grasped the elements of the game within about 15 to 20 minutes, designed their first character in another 10 to 15, and got to playing right away. The first session is always a little slow (especially the first combat) as you teach them their options and the mechanics; but by the end of the first session (usually three or so hours), they were very comfortable with the system and already beginning to see how they could use their talents and spells in new and intriguing ways. To my mind, TFT was and still is the very best system to use to introduce new players to the hobby -- no four hour sessions just to design a character, no 700-page rule books with exceptions to the footnotes to the exceptions to try and keep in mind, no combats that take two or three hours to play out...really it's just perfect for the newbie -- and even us oldies! ;-)

[meteoricshipyards]

As to computer games, back in the early 80's a friend and I created a dungeon game on the U of MN mainframe that was at least partially based on TFT (and I think later on Gurps or Man to Man). Dx, St, Iq, and hit points and magic points, but we weren't trying to recreate TFT). But it was 3d6 vs DX to hit, and 3d6 vs iq to get a spell off (again, different from TFT).

Every now and then I pull up my Java version of the program and work on it. It's a Looooong way from being interesting. (Besides, it's a text based game. Who plays those today?)

I am playing with a TFT character builder to teach myself GUI in Python. It's an active program, and I expect it to be finished in a couple of weeks ("real soon now", "Just a few more 30 hour debugging sessions"). Similar to Gurps Chargen, but with a real GUI (TKinter, if anyone cares), and probably no genres. (And yes, I realize TFT doesn't _need_ a computer program to help create characters. That's not the main point. The main thing was to play with a real GUI and I wanted to do something fun.)

Tom A.

[JLV]

Actually...

There are apparently a LOT of people that still play text-based games. They even have an annual award for the best new text game! ;-)

[tomc]

Originally Posted by Jim Kane

Yes, yes, as Death Test is already set-up as a: "Programmed Adventure", as a possible way to side-step the interminable "page-flipping", I think at minimum, a clickable PDF on-disc presentation would be an idea worth kicking around the SJG Think-Tank...

I'm thinking something like Twine would be a good fit for homegrown programmed adventures. It produces an html file that runs in your browser.

[Seraphim_72]

Originally Posted by meteoricshipyards

As to computer games, back in the early 80's a friend and I created a dungeon game on the U of MN mainframe that was at least partially based on TFT (and I think later on Gurps or Man to Man). Dx, St, Iq, and hit points and magic points, but we weren't trying to recreate TFT). But it was 3d6 vs DX to hit, and 3d6 vs iq to get a spell off (again, different from TFT).

Every now and then I pull up my Java version of the program and work on it. It's a Looooong way from being interesting. (Besides, it's a text based game. Who plays those today?)
....

Tom A.

Wait a second - Is that Karnath from MECC?

[meteoricshipyards]

Originally Posted by Seraphim_72

Wait a second - Is that Karnath from MECC?

Yes. Been trying to recreate it from old paper listing (and translate it to Java)

Tom A.