Let's Save & Preserve ACK!

[RetroRomper]

TLDR - We're saving ACK and everything to do with it!


~~ Spreadsheet I'm cataloging ACK related resources to preserve.

https://tinyurl.com/saveack
~~Upload folder: add everything you have regarding ACK here!
--- Share it!
--- Duplicates are encouraged! As is source code to your own game, storyboards, sketches, design documents (word files, notes, everything.)
--- Even artifacts from other games and creation systems you've or have created!
--- If you think it's unique, lost, endangered, or even scattered around the internet, please upload it!

I want to talk TO YOU! The ACK community!
--- Email me at nbacon0@gmail.com
--- Let me catalog your stories, experiences, and work with ACK and video games!

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Greetings and salutations my comrades in adventure!

After musing on "below the line" bases on Jolt Country, I realized that nary a whisper was being uttered in the Adventure Creation Kit base and many were bemoaning the state of games being lost as far back as 2014. Thus I asked if there was an online repository of these marvelous DIY adventures into the depths of the creators creativity and when the answer was no, Mr. Bryanb instituted a suitable challenge:

If such a thing doesn't already exist, we could create it! By "we" I really mean you, the person reading this message. It's not like you're doing anything important at the moment so go serve the community and make this thing that we all need. Don't argue...GO!

Being the analytical SOB that I am, my brain went into "Save & Preserve!" mode and conceived the following formulation to cradle these profoundly wonderful creations into the future:

1. Catalog as many links and notable projects as possible from the JC ACK Forum & around the web, including on it's precursor and any forks / derivatives.
2. Download / mirror as many associated sites and files as possible.
3. Solicit files from the community that still calls the ACK JC Forum a safe harbor.
4. Contact individuals / groups recognized as being arbiters of ACK games and utilities.
5. Find a suitable place for everything collected: GitHub for the source code, a video game repository willing to call the games / assets home, etc.

BONUS - Interview frequent contributors (such as Garth & Chris) and creators of ACK games to make sure their stories never die.
BONUS #2 - At least note / catalog other creation systems.
BONUS #3 - A dedicated website?

I have ideas on how to accomplish each to their fullest extent and will be cataloging my progress here. Right now I'm going to reach out to ICJ for whatever files & contact information he has on ACK and hopefully other gaming endeavors (plus ask for edit rights to my posts in this base,) Paul / Tdarcos who at one point had around 452MB of ACK / Adventure Files, and Mr. Flack as he noted that he has scanned in (slowly) his collection of video game items and artifacts including Commodore 64 material.

I'm going to do this and all you need to do is sit back, press some buttons, and let me do all the work for you.

Let's get it on!

Love & Kisses,
The Retro Romper

[pinback]

I'm concerned about how many buttons you're going to ask us to press.

[RetroRomper]

I talked to your wife and she told me you couldn't find hers, so I'll keep the number to a minimum.

[RetroRomper]

I just collected them I guess.

Hey Paul,

You had posted a .zip file of around half a gigabyte of ACK and other such things at in-the-matter-of.com/adventure/acksrc.zip in a thread from long, long ago. If you still have it on your NAS or somewhere else, would you be willing to upload it? You may only have the only copy of quite a few things and the upload folder is open to however much you can contribute to this effort for ACK or anything else you may have that could be considered unique or what not.

And please upload any of your other work as well such as your books, website backups, etc. Want to make sure we've all of your stuff safe and secure.

Take care,

Retro

[pinback]

C'mon, Paul, get to work. PRESS SOME BUTTONS.

[RetroRomper]

I mirrored the sites I wanted to grab full copies of, loaded up the few patches & odds and ends I grabbed from here, and emailed Garth + left a comment on his blog. Tomorrow I'll spend my evening grabbing the one off articles about ACK and trying to connect with more of the old ACK guard.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Ok, I'll see if I can help.

[Tdarcos]

I got my old domain names back after I screwed up and lost them (long story I don't need to explain right now) but I have to file a trouble ticket, my old login does not allow me to access the control panel so I can't get to anything. Going to http://paul-robinson.us/adventure retuns, not a directory listing, but instead a PHP status function (I forget the name of it) in which PHP shows what version of it the server is running, and what add-in packages that installation of PHP has; it's a long list!

I'll get back to you, otherwise, if my NAS still works (I haven't tried hooking it up again yet) then I do have it and I'll be happy to upload or copy it to something, probably a memory card (I have extras I can loan.) Can you handle a micro SD card (cell phone/tablet size) if I have trouble uploading/can't upload/can't get to what was uploaded before? (Presuming my NAS still works and I can extract files fom it.)

[bryanb]

Thanks for taking this on, Retro. This effort is sorely needed and I'm looking forward to see how things progress. We can all do our part I'm sure. I would be willing to write the occasional ACK game review on RFTK as a crossover. That should go well with my future review of the ZZT version of Rippled Flesh.

Have you thought of an official project/website name yet? I was thinking ACK Attack, Admiral ACKbar, or Yakety ACK might be good choices, but I suppose those might not be the best way to endear yourself to the community.

[RetroRomper]

It's been a difficult few days, but I'm still on this.

Will be going ahead with it this weekend.

[RetroRomper]

Can you handle a micro SD card (cell phone/tablet size) if I have trouble uploading/can't upload/can't get to what was uploaded before? (Presuming my NAS still works and I can extract files fom it.)

Would you like to also backup your NAS with me while at it? I have a 500GB external drive I can send you and depending on the size of your setup, a few TB (it'll be purchased and sent right to you) and I'll include a return label for shipping. But an SD card would be fine, just excited to be able to get some games to preserve.

[Jizaboz]

We always thinkin about a buffalo NAS
Retro got yo backup on the buffalo NAS

[RetroRomper]

Twas bored so I created the Header Image for the Google Form I'll be sending out in a few days.

[RetroRomper]

Thanks for taking this on, Retro.

What do ya think about the Header? A little busy, but eh....

[RetroRomper]

A few issues exist here and there, but it's good enough.

[RetroRomper]

I've completed the question for the Google Form and put it online: would anyone mind going through it, offering your thoughts, suggestions and critiques?

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... sp=sf_link

Thank you!

[bryanb]

What do ya think about the Header? A little busy, but eh....

Looks great! I for one am suddenly feeling very motivated to play some of the featured games (is there a list of names somewhere?). You did a particularly good job of showing the wide variety of ACK games that are out there. The Spanish one looks like something Level 9 could have released.

[RetroRomper]

Looks great! I for one am suddenly feeling very motivated to play some of the featured games (is there a list of names somewhere?).

I'll look for a list, but what would be better to have than a review, would be a long play of as many ACK games as you're comfortable with. With those, you can add commentary after the fact, give out clips, play around with it if you want to be that serious. Also it preserves the game in a more accessible fashion: learn what DosBox is, or watch a video?

[Tdarcos]

Can you handle a micro SD card (cell phone/tablet size) if I have trouble uploading/can't upload/can't get to what was uploaded before? (Presuming my NAS still works and I can extract files fom it.)

Would you like to also backup your NAS with me while at it? I have a 500GB external drive I can send you and depending on the size of your setup, a few TB (it'll be purchased and sent right to you) and I'll include a return label for shipping. But an SD card would be fine, just excited to be able to get some games to preserve.

My NAS is either a 3 or 4 TiB (the term for 1 trillion bytes, 1000^4, as opposed to 1 TB, 1024^4, about 99 billion more), I've used about 1.5 TiB. My Programming directory alone contained over 200,000 files in 66,000+ directories. So it would be nearer to 2 TB. I have a lot of interests in a lot of things. To protect it, I had two separate backup drives. I just didn't expect to end up flat on my back and having to depend on others to recover my stuff.

First I have to see if my NAS itself works, it got dropped again and while it's been OK before I want to check.

[bryanb]

I'll look for a list, but what would be better to have than a review, would be a long play of as many ACK games as you're comfortable with. With those, you can add commentary after the fact, give out clips, play around with it if you want to be that serious. Also it preserves the game in a more accessible fashion: learn what DosBox is, or watch a video?

This is probably largely generational, but I don't really get Let's Play/longplay videos. To me it's like watching another person have the fun you could be having by playing a game and spoiling the game for you in the process. You'd never see if you were interested in a game by reading a walkthrough so I don't get why a video walkthrough is any different. If you're just interested in hearing someone's commentary, I'd personally wait until I played through the game myself before watching the longplay. I do understand the preservation angle, but there's no reason we would ever lose access to ACK...it'd of course be different if we were talking about online games that were about to be shut down with no way to play offline.

Suffice it to say I'm probably not going to be the ACK longplay guy. We should probably be recruiting someone young enough to understand this aspect of Internet culture like Flack Jr. If only we hadn't alienated Flack the Elder from this whole project with some poorly chosen words...if only.