Back in Ye Olden Days, I knew nothing of blogs and was content to post materials on forums and newsgroups and the like. I contributed a few writings to GameFAQs back before the days when it was purchased by GameSpot. The only actual FAQ for a video game I ever contributed that described how to beat a game was for the VIC-20 game Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash. When GameFAQs took over, I removed all my content from that site. Now, having finally been able to play the game on original hardware, I think it is time to revive the old FAQ. Moreover, no longer limited to plain, monochrome text, I can do more now that I have my own blog and the ability to add images, color text and link video. Let's take a trip into a rarely visited part of the Ultima Universe.
Before the featured video, I'd like to share this blog post from Jeff's Gameblog. It's his three-fold model of RPGs. Essentially, there are only 3 categories - retro, pretentious, and stupid. And he's right, of course.
Coincidentally, purple is the stupidest (veering towards retro) color in Jeff's model. ;)
Without further ado, here's the RPG Pundit reviewing Cha'alt...
Last week, I decided to improve the map storage section of the hexagon guide. This section had a diagram that suggested the use of a 2D array, but then it presented formulas that didn't look like what was shown. Reader feedback made me realize this section was confusing. I was mixing two separate steps here.
Store the map in a 2D array.
Slide the rows to the left to save space.
The diagram showed step 1 but not step 2. The formula under the visualization showed step 2. Mismatch!
I think it's worth having two separate diagrams here. I couldn't figure out where to place the second diagram in the page layout, so I decided to instead make the one diagram animate between the two different approaches.
One of the advantages of writing text over making videos is that I can treat it as a "living document" that improves over time. The improvements are less frequent the longer the document has been around, but I am still updating the pages I wrote in the 1990s, and I intend to continue improving the new ones too.