CompuServe Thread

#20,000 LEAGUES

7 messages in this thread
#107535From: Aegis DevelopmentFeb 5, 1988 12:56 PM
Don't have information on 20,000 Leagues. Jim did lose an INCREDABLE amount of work to the virus, I hope the creators of the virus realize the damage they caused. Aegis has just released Ports of Call, a maritime simulator. Really excellent product. Here is some feed back from users…. BIX:Amiga.user/main #2484 from cmcmanis TITLE: Darn Aegis I am sure it is a conspiracy to get me to fall over dead. Last night after finishing some programming work I plopped in Ports of Call to see what it was like. I had to exit the game to go to work this morning. Needless to say, it sort of captured my attention. –Chuck Other quotes include… "… as games go it is destined to be a classic." So check it out.
#107538From: Steve AhlstromFeb 5, 1988 1:32 PM
I agree with Chuck, Ports of Call is hot! What I like MOST about it is that it's unprotected, I can run it from my HD, and it MULTITASKS — YEA!!!!! After playing it for 10-12 hours, I just wonder tho, is it REALLY possible to make a profit?
#107634From: Marc BaimeFeb 5, 1988 10:58 PM
Steve, I still have a bad taste in my mouth from Aegis Arazok's Tomb (in my opinion one of the worst games of all time). Could you describe Pots of Call a little? Thanks.
#107646From: John Sobernheim(TCR)Feb 5, 1988 11:47 PM
Marc, Ports of Call is a 1-4 player game that can take anywhere from an hour to many, many hours to play. The overall objective of the game is to make money and gain prestige by running a shipping business. You start the game, with 5 million in the bank (In the expert level at least, don't know if it's any different in the beginner or genius levels) that you can use to buy your first ship. You pick a home port and start accepting contracts to deliver products like Machinery, Textiles, Agricultural products, etc, to different parts of the world, for a fee. By strategically picking your contracts, you can create shortages or overages in specific areas and then capitalize on the rewards. The more ports you service, however, the more prestige you get. Prestige is also dependant on the quality and quantity of your sailing vessels, and how you treat other situations in the game. The game has a good mixture of arcade action and strategic thinking. I can recommend the game quite highly, it's very well done. -John
#107678From: Steve AhlstromFeb 6, 1988 2:16 AM
Marc, Looks like our opinions of Arazok's Tomb are the same. The game stunk! (well, I probably shouldn't say that — I only played it once, for about 5 minutes at my dealer. I played it long enough for it to GURU the 500). Anyway, Ports of Call is a very good thinking strategy game. It's planning and strategy is along the lines of Balance of Power but not as complex. Scenerio: You are a person with $5 mil to spend. You want to start a tramp shipping company. You buy one (or more) ships that you can afford, and start travelling the world shipping freight. The goal is to be profitable and grow (a goal I've yet to achieve). The graphics are excellent — by LaBarre and Sachs. Digitized sound is very good. The disk is not protected but does have a keyword protection of sorts. Instead of the 'normal' keyword protection, Aegis shows that they do have a sense of humor. You get questions like "What is the color of the chain on front of the box", "What color was George Washington's white horse", "What word is directly underneath Aegis on the cover of the manual", etc. Not only do I not get bored looking up words, it's ALMOST fun in itself, and, cuz a several of the questions I've gotten so far deal with colors of objects on the box or the manual, it will (should) limit piracy to a degree (there aren't TOO many color copiers around).
#107997From: greg gossFeb 7, 1988 9:54 PM
Hmmmm. I like it. "What is the colour of [xxx] on page [yyy]?" I didn't think it was possible to make keyword protection copier-proof. An interesting innovation. ../greg
#107643From: John FoustFeb 5, 1988 11:37 PM
I asked Sachs about this, and he only lost boot block code to the virus. He was patching it in directly, by hand, and never had a text version of the code. He wrote a special little loader that brought up the opening screen and music of a game in about two seconds after putting the disk in the drive of a 500. Sure, you can't plan ahead for a virus that only eats boot blocks, but you can always plan ahead for catastrophic failure, and he didn't. So as the real hackers say, "he deserved to lose."