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For all of our modern-day high-powered GPU babble, the Infocom games still have the best graphics possible.
I recently started playing Zork I again on a C-64 emulator, and it really holds up.
The key is to play like you would in the old days: No distractions. Be patient and thoughtful. And actually read everything on the screen, instead of skimming the text.
Since we're now trained to have the attention spans of methed-out ferrets, it can be hard. My tips are to turn the phone completely off, put it in another room, and turn down the lights. Also, do you map by hand on grid paper with a pencil.
Lately, I've seen people bragging about video games providing value because they take 40 or 50 hours to complete. An Infocom game could easily take days, weeks, or months to really explore and appreciate thoroughly.
Zork is great. Everything seemed to click into place at the end.
I had incredible memories of zork zero but wow, that shit is opaque. I unashamedly used a guide when I got stuck and it took forever still.
There's a surprising amount of resources that aren't dead links regarding infocom stuff.
Pulling back, I want to say that as I get older and hopefully wiser, the number one quality in a person that draws me to them is their passion for deep cut niche interests, pursued without care of who is watching. Often in spite of who is watching.
I don't have any particular interest in cartography or typography, but watching people who are truly, deeply nerdy about a topic is one of the most pure joys. In some ways, it's actually better that I'm not into these things because it allows me to appreciate just how much you are.
When I'm choosing who to spend time around, I don't care if you're passionate about the same things as me. I strongly care that you're passionate about something.
^ this is me telling you I despise nihilists without telling you I despise nihilists. Except, well... sorry.
Play on Civilian and comp-stomp the AI, that way you get to see all the Special Project videos which are really excellent. I really wish they let you see them if someone else gets there first.
It's one of the best science fiction stories I've experienced, along with The Last Question (very short) and Outer Wilds (which is some of the most profound 20 hours of solitude I've had).
The only meaning an action has is in the smaller timescale then. The here and now, and a few years after.
Help the people around you, be curious, chase your interests, do cool things. Time is short and for you, it is the only time that matters.
My view is more the existential nihilism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism
"""This view suggests that it is not possible to live a genuinely meaningful life, that there is no higher reason to continue living, and that all efforts, achievements, happiness, and suffering are ultimately pointless"""
My first sentence is kind of how I reason that point. There is no "ultimate" reason for being because given sufficient time, any reason you might have, doesn't matter.
Then there is my reaction to that: I'm here. So now what?
Some people may commit suicide.
Some may go on a rampage hurting people.
If there is no higher power then I get to choose my purpose in life and no one can say it is any better or worse than anything else to do. So I figure (reasons not shown which may be the more interesting conversation...); live, be nice, be curious, do cool things.
I acknowledge my upbringing and privileges are a significant influence on my day-to-day choices too. But so what? If there is no higher power to judge...
Hopefully I'll enjoy life - no major complaints so far - which if nothing else, feels nice. I guess you could argue I'm some level of hedonist. But so what if I am?
My favourite build-out, which might have been somewhat nerfed in later updates, was to allocate all of my eggs in the Life basket so that you can start the game with Incarnation.
In my experience, Torin is a game over win condition.
Torin can be one-hit-killed with cracks-call as well, so nature wizards are annoying. He is the only one who you can get back with all XP though, since you can just cast incarnation again.
Halfling+lionheart+invulnerable is a very good early-game rush on the harder difficulties, as are phantom warriors.
I wonder if you can still get units with negative numbers of figures in them when lionheart wears off. Maybe I need to buy it and find out.
Surely there was a more automated solution than to do something 8k times manually?
But there’s something to be said for a mindless, long-term repetitive project that you can chip away at when you feel like occupying yourself with something unimportant for a bit.
Unfortunately this specific activity in Minecraft very easily turns into an enormous time sink which unless I was really too tired to do anything else and sleeping wasn’t an option, I inevitably regret afterwards.
You can't unsee the Skinner boxes, once you notice them.
But they are generally targeted at ~18 biological age, so I'd expect suspension of disbelief in value can only stretch so many years.
But SMAC was in its day quite divisive. Some Civ fans (self included) weren't able to get into the world with unfamiliar tech tree, obscure terrain features and the whole nomenclature of the game just being so... alien.
Now, granted it was likely the best sci-fi turn based title ever made but at the time us fans of Sid's work were really craving for a sequel to CivII and as a result SMAC received a somewhat lukewarm welcome. Likely undeservedly so.
His name in the game title is just a brand, the lead designer for SMAC (and Civ II) is Brian Reynolds.
However, is the whole "Back to the future" chapter basically about Alpha Centauri? Some time ago I read the book, but seems to be mentioned a bunch there: https://imgur.com/a/6d0U6oH
I absolutely loved the different factions and what they believed in. It always made me wonder what types of beliefs aliens would have, if they exist.
The political system is really great; even though there are only four fields with four options each, it is wonderful that the options aren’t automatically correlated. If you want to have a free market police state, you can. I honestly think playing this game in childhood might get people to think about little bit more about what their politics actually mean (I mean we could also have read some books, but that’s impossible). It also gives just the right feeling for a sci-fi game, because authors love playing with weird political configurations.
I wonder if there some legal issue preventing Firaxis from making a true Centauri remake.
There are separate soundtracks for each faction, I think.
Is there a mathematical framework for how to optimize a map for gameplay to be most enjoyable?
Taking this question seriously leads us into surprisingly rich territory! It's actually at the intersection of several fields that have been quietly revolutionizing game design.
The Alpha Centauri map works brilliantly because it balances several mathematical tensions:
* Resource distribution follows power laws that create natural chokepoints and valuable territories without being too predictable
* Distance metrics between faction starting positions that ensure interaction without immediate conflict
* Terrain connectivity that creates interesting path-finding problems and strategic depth
Here's where it gets really interesting:
Flow Theory Mathematics: Csikszentmihalyi's concept of flow has been formalized into mathematical models. The ideal difficulty curve follows something like: `D(t) = S(t) + ε`, where difficulty matches skill level plus a small challenge margin. For maps, this translates to ensuring players always have meaningful decisions at their skill level.
Information Entropy: Good maps maintain optimal information entropy - not too random (chaos), not too ordered (boring). Researchers have found sweet spots around 0.3-0.5 on normalized entropy scales for terrain variation.
Graph Theory Applications: Maps are fundamentally graphs, and metrics like:
* Betweenness centrality (identifying crucial chokepoints)
* Clustering coefficients (how "clumpy" resources are)
* Shortest path distributions (travel time variance)
...all correlate with player engagement.
The Deeper Insight: What seems naive is actually profound - by taking "fun" seriously as an optimization target, we're forced to confront what makes human decision-making satisfying. The best mathematical frameworks don't try to define fun directly, but instead optimize for decision richness - the number of meaningful, non-obvious choices available at each game state.
This is why procedural generation in modern games increasingly uses these frameworks, creating maps that aren't just random but mathematically tuned for engagement.
The map was likely developed iteratively via playtesting - no need even for heuristics then. Just play & ask “is it fun?”
Hint: it’s a logical derivative of the seafaring term “landfall”.
https://somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.com/about/
The long version is even better:
https://somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/on-salva...
Embracing curiosity and exploration can be life-changing; embracing play, lifelong - it's a universal form of lifelong exploration among primates. Also, plenty of research supports exploration's powerful affect on aging minds (though I don't know your age) in many ways. And as a wonderful effect, you find new things that you love. And remember that part of exploration is dead ends and failures - if you aren't failing, you aren't trying.
Also, life changes take a bit of time, like turning a big ship - an accumulation of things need to change. Just beginning to head in that direction - changing the derivative of the derivative of your path, in geek terms - can change your outlook, give you direction and goals; you're embarked on a long journey.
There's no panacea. Life can still feel pointless at times. For me, at least, the trick is to recognize it's my emotions, to have compassion for them - life ain't easy - and to put my head down and just do the things I know are right. And when I come out of it, I feel proud of what I've done and in a better place to move forward. Always do things that leave you a little better off than when you started.
Good luck! I hope that helps!
Thank you for sharing your wisdom!
On my list, Alpha Centauri easily makes it on top 5 games ever made.
Thank you for the trip to memory lane. <goes to GOG to download the game>
One shortcoming is that its land texture doesn't show any contrasty edges, everything smoothly flows into other regions. We see the mountains but the textures pretty much ignore them and the edges that we see in our planet's texture are missing.
That said, I do appreciate the work that went into this, it looks very cool.
Through SMAC, I found ideas about how future societies might organize themselves to ensure human survival and progress. I found ideas about speculative technologies and how they could reshape civilization. I found that playing the game made me feel less alone, because it revealed loneliness as a universal human condition—timeless and unyielding. I found hope in a vision of humanity finding its place among the stars. I found myself grappling with ideas far larger than myself. I found my empathy measured by in-game choices. I found that history, like the game, carries no moral compass—it only moves forward.
And the starting prompt was:
> $NAME3, a new era of struggle and opportunity awaits you. The UN Starship Unity has arrived in the Alpha Centauri system after a forty year voyage. All contact with Earth has been lost. After Captain Garland's assassination by an unknown assailant, the crew mutinied and split into factions. In the ensuing conflict, some seized control of the Unity's colony pods. You now shape the destiny of your $<M1:$FACTIONADJ0> faction, which has just made PLANETFALL!
I'll use this opportunity to encourage people to watch this show. If you are a fan of sci-fi (think Greg Egan, Vernor Vinge), you will love this. If you are not, I think you should still give it a try. It is that good.
yes he does
