What if KSP runs on EGA

[kBob]

When I first started playing KSP I kept having flashbacks to Lunar Lander on my TRS-80. While those were fun days, and once in awhile when my computer is acting up I wish I had that thing, no way am I going back, 2d lunar landings, no thanks. EGA was a good step up but it's was really just adding color to what you could do on monochrome, CGA often seemed a step back because the resolution was so poor compared to monochrome, still remember those early flight sims where you had that solid green grass and solid blue river, as I recall EGA didn't improve it much, wasn't until VGA (and 386 processors) then you started seeing the good stuff.

If you really want to go back don't forget to PUT IT IN ALL CAPS.

[pxi]

I can see it now. The game comes packaged with several floppy disks, and every time you go through a Sphere of Influence transition, it pauses the game and gives you a prompt to "INSERT DISK 5 (or whatever) TO CONTINUE."

I remember the days of floppies...

Monkey Island 2 on the Amiga 500. 12 disks iirc. I remember serious technolusting for a SCSI hard disk with a capacity of like 20MB. It's amazing how much some things have changed.

[LameLefty]

The ZX-81 flight-sim was just the sort of thing I was thinking of too; although of course it was pre-ASCII for home computers :-0 Were you rich enough to buy a whole one or did you have to build it from kit, like me?

Yeah, the ZX-81 had character-based graphics made up of an alternate character-set. Each letter had a pixel-pattern shape as its alternate - you drew "images" by writing out lines of characters using the alternate character set. I was able to avoid building one from a kit by saving up months' worth of lawn mowing money, my birthday money and my allowance. The Sinclair Spectrum version was a lot nicer but I don't know anyone in the U.S. who ever actually owned a Spectrum. Both versions are shown here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Simulation_(Psion_software)

[Pecan]

Boxman: Excellent video. I used to have but can't find a PC version of Shuttle. Took me ages to work out what I was meant to be doing with it and, once I'd found out almost any deviance from 'official' mission meant game over it didn't last too much longer on my machine. Possibly accurate of course - you train for years for a single mission and when it's done, so are you.

LameLefty: Odd thing is that the ZX81 was pretty powerful for the time - once you added mods. Like KSP it was a brilliant base that people could add on to as they wanted. Mine had 16k (obviously ^^), music & speech board (when Pets still didn't), printer, etc. etc. for less than £200. [My phone just bleeped ... or maybe it belched on the last early-80s computer it had for breakfast]

[Xarian]

Man, seeing those rendered stills really brings me back. In fact, the first one has me worried that a sand worm is going to come eat my harvester.

And btw - regarding KSP tabletop - freaking brilliant idea.

Jason (playing Jebediah Kerman): "Is it ok if we use content from 3rd party books? I want to use Infernal Robotics."

Chris (the GM): "Sure, but keep in mind that some of those books can have some pretty weird rules..."

(...later...)

Jason: "Okay. I have a powered hinge attached to a jet engine - it's been in my subassemblies since last week's session."

Chris: "Okay, where are you going with this?"

Jason: "I'm going to put one on each side of this fuel tank and make a VTOL jet!"

Chris: "Well, you can try." The GM thumbs through the Infernal Robotics book and finds the appropriate table. "Roll a d20 and 2d8."

Jason: *rolling* "The d20 came up as a 3 - I got 3 and 4 on the other dice."

Chris: "Alright, looks like you succeeded. Want to move to the runway?"

Jason: "Yeah! I'm so going to buzz the tower after this! I start my engines and rotate them so I can do a vertical takeoff."

Chris: "Okay, roll for Jeb's piloting."

Jason: *rolling* "20! Yeah baby!"

Chris: "Okay, well, it turns out that your starboard hinge was attached using rotational symmetry rather than a mirror plane..."

Jason: "So what's that mean? Do I take off? WHAT HAPPENS TO JEB?!"

Chris: "It means that one engine is pointing down and the other is pointing up. Your plane starts pinwheeling across the runway like a giant pointy sausage."

Jason and Sarah (playing Bill Kerman): *mystified* "Uh, what?"

Chris: "The aft section flies off shortly after that. Jeb manages to eject the parachute at the last second and coast to the ground..."

Jason: "Jeb the immortal!"

Chris: "... and lands on Bill's rover, destroying it." *rolling some dice* "Thankfully Bill managed to get to the escape hatch in time."

Sarah (playing Bill Kerman): "Guys, that was the first time that Bill even made it off the runway. I'm cursed."

Chris: "Well, KSP is a hard game. By the way, Kerbin is pretty unforgiving at night time. Bill starts to hear some wolves howling in the distance. Sounds like they're getting closer..."

[kBob]

Monkey Island 2 on the Amiga 500. 12 disks iirc. I remember serious technolusting for a SCSI hard disk with a capacity of like 20MB. It's amazing how much some things have changed.

And the Amiga disks were 3.5" 720K what a luxury.

[The Jedi Master]

Convoluted grappling rules replaced by convoluted interplanetary transfer rules...

On-Topic: I want to see what it would look like as a typewriter game (I think that's right--it looks like a typewriter, anyway).

[Lazro]

Convoluted grappling rules replaced by convoluted interplanetary transfer rules...

On-Topic: I want to see what it would look like as a typewriter game (I think that's right--it looks like a typewriter, anyway).

Text adventure, Interactive fiction, take your pick.

[Xetalim]

You are orbiting the Sun.

You see the kraken, Sun and Kerbin.

What will you do?

kick kraken

You attempt to kick the kraken.

The kraken dodges and destroys your spacecraft.

What will you do?

quit KSP.

Maybe KSP as a text adventure?

[boxman]

And the Amiga disks were 3.5" 720K what a luxury.

880k to be accurate. It is true that it used 720k floppies, but it had a different rotation rate which meant it could fit 880k onto a standard 720k floppy.