Jolt Country

...both for winning 10th place and, in the process, writing the second highest-ranking Hugo game in the history of the IFComp (the first is Jason Dyer's 'Persistence of Memory' in 1998, which took 9th).

Hugella wrote:...both for winning 10th place and, in the process, writing the second highest-ranking Hugo game in the history of the IFComp (the first is Jason Dyer's 'Persistence of Memory' in 1998, which took 9th).

Congratulations, Sidney!

HALF-LIFE 2 FUN FAX: Gabe Newell approved a fake torrent of Half-Life 2 to be distributed through Bit Torrent sites so he could ban the IP addresses of those who tried to use it from Steam - even though someone who legitimately bought the game may wish to use a cracked .EXE file that removes the system-killing Safedisc protection, which was totally added to the retail release even though all the data is encrypted and needs to be authenticated through an Internet connection!

Thanks! I had a blast writing the game, and I have really enjoyed working with Hugo. So much so, in fact, that I'm planning to stick with it. I even ordered the bound/printed Hugo Book (love it -- sure beats wading through the PDF, and I haven't really felt comfortable printing it out at the office).

By the way, Sidney Merk is a pseudonym. My real name is Mike Snyder, and I was around a few years ago with DOS-based games (Lunatix, from the '99 comp, in particular). Trading Punches was more successful, and I learned a lot in writing it!

Merk wrote:Thanks! I had a blast writing the game, and I have really enjoyed working with Hugo. So much so, in fact, that I'm planning to stick with it. I even ordered the bound/printed Hugo Book (love it -- sure beats wading through the PDF, and I haven't really felt comfortable printing it out at the office).

I hear you there. There was a game that was released last year called "Devil Whiskey" (it was a non-IF game) and I printed out the manual for it at work... the printer was across the hall and when I got there someone was reading it. I felt it best to come back in a few minutes after the guy got his fill of the descriptions of the spells and monsters in that game.

The bound Hugo manual is gonna rock.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:... the printer was across the hall and when I got there someone was reading it. I felt it best to come back in a few minutes after the guy got his fill of the descriptions of the spells and monsters in that game.

Knowing my luck, that's exactly what would have happened. I guess I could have came back after hours, but the bound version is great. Mine arrived a few days ago, and I can see where this is going to be very handy in working on my next game. It's professionally done, not a Kinko's thing.

And the content.... excellent! I wrote most of Trading Punches with only "manual.pdf" and the source code for a few other games as reference. It was close to the COMP04 deadline when The Hugo Book was announced in PDF form (at least, announced in RAIF, where I saw it). It helped, but by then, I was nearly done.

By the way, I wasn't aware of this forum until Ellison on the ifMUD mentioned it. I was wondering where all the Hugo people are, since it seems to be the read-headed stepchild of IF (mentioned whenever IF tools are discussed, but seemingly never serious considered by most new authors).

Btw, Merk, over here, I'm Roody_Yogurt. I also know the fun of taking a comp handle and running with it (well, at least, continuing to use it).

Oh, hey. I kind of like using the Merk pseudonym. I may release whatever else I write using it, even though it's not really a secret identity or anything. I use "Wyndo" for quite a few places. I guess it's just another online handle. :)

Mike,

Any chance you'll release the source code and/or design notes on the making of Trading Punches?

Hmmm..... maybe. The design notes would be interesting. Much of it is penciled into a spiral notebook, and some of that isn't accurate (changes made during implemenation that differ from the original ideas, etc). The source code would be a lot easier, since it's pretty straightforward. I guess if anybody is interested in either, I probably could.

Just to add a voice, I would be interested in seeing any and all source code. A lot of what helps people choose a language is the perceived amount of source code from games that is available. Whether or not that source code would actually help them, of course, is not really the issue. It is the perception that they have various games to look at.