Grimrock

[Hatonastick]

Friend of mine bought me it on Steam.  Classic Dungeon Master/Eye of the Beholder/Knightmare (one of my favourites) etc.  Uses an actual 3D engine by the looks of it, but seems to work well enough.  Am really enjoying it so far although some of the puzzles are very, very hard.  Anyone else picked up this nostalgic gem yet?

[okee]

Yeah was watching the development of it and bought it when it came out.
Very good game with great graphics and nice puzzles.`I'm on level 7
was away on holiday and never got back to it, must finish it soon.
The music is epic also

[Hatonastick]

You are way ahead of me then.  I'm only on level 4.  I hear theres only 15 levels though which is a bit disappointing although they are working on a level editor for fans to use.

I'm thinking of making my own DM style game.  I started one many years ago in STOS on the Atari ST (only thing I've got left is some of the graphics I did) after reading an article in a magazine.  IIRC it gave people a head start in making their own DM style game as it explained some of the concepts and even contained BASIC code (I think).  I wish I still had my notes.  Or the article.

[erico]

Go buy Lamulana while the pc version of spelunky is not around!!

[Crivens]

Wow that's coincidental! When I was in Uni instead of doing much studying and inbetween drinking I wrote a DM game in STOS.

If I remember rightly I gave up in the third year after gearing up on my final year project. I got it to the stage of walking around the maze and getting objects and the like with a maze editor. Next step was monsters.

My parents gave all my old computers to a charity shop years ago without telling me. I went through all the disks specifically to find my DM code (and some LOM code) but the ones I could read (lot of corruptions) didn't have it Well gutted!

Cheers

[erico]

You actually wrote code in uni Crivens?
Crist all mighty, were you that bored?

[Crivens]

In the entire third year I didn't go to any morning lectures. None. I think I went to a total of about 15 lectures all year long. We had a get together group now and again (once a week I think) that was mandatory of about 5 students and a lecturer to see how things were going, and I got a note after a while (about 4 months) to say basically unless I was dead then I had better turn up otherwise I was getting kicked out of Uni. Extra sleep could be got from the few lectures I did attend. For third year final exams I think the most I revised (in total for the whole year) was about 2 hours the night before (after a few pints at the local bar) for one exam I was worried about (Robotics I believe). I would be at a bar, nightclub, or some party pretty much every night of the year. Basically I seriously thought I was in a movie or something. Honestly I was surprised when we had to actually start going to lectures, and really was a bit gutted (in my alcohol soaked mind) that there was no locker lined corridors like out of Fame or somesuch American college movie And I'm totally not making that up.

So yeah, by avoiding any sort of work at all I managed to fit in a healthy party lifestyle and lots of hobbyist coding. Of course I have always *loved* programming, so it wasn't exactly I was bored, I just love doing it. Always have. That's why I still love my job (after 17 years).

Actually I wish I had been a bit more into low level code at the time. Main stuff I did was STOS as it was the quickest way to get the best results IMHO. But a mate of mine (Mathematics and Comp Sci) was always dipping into Assembly and the like. A few times when we were all getting drunk and messing about with our STOS and AMOS creations he would be in the background knocking out some  cool Assembler raster routines (think of the demos you used to get) and the like. They were cool, but it was like totally over our heads and getting plastered and birds was the name of the game (and the odd DM clone). Didn't do anything to understand what he was doing. He's now a director at EA in San Fransisco and has worked on a load of top games. Nice!

Ah, with the amount of hobby coding I can get done these days I totally miss college days. Don't get me wrong I wouldn't swap my life now for anything, but just in terms of game programming those days were golden. The amount I could get done now (esp considering I don't drink much anymore) is just unbelievable with that amount of time! Seriously missed the boat with bedroom coding in the 80s and early 90s!

Cheers

[Wampus]

Hah. That's how University in the UK used to be. God knows how any of us managed to graduate.