Online or single-player?

[Birdjaguar]

Yeah, makes sense as you are little bit older than me. I missed out on the earliest titles. And you are from a couple hours from where I was born. Almost like we could have been friends. Yeah, nah.

I grew up in Baltimore, home of Avalon Hill.

 

[Core Imposter]

Ah, I thought you were from Durham.

 

[Kyriakos]

Reminder that the thread is about computer games

 

[Smellincoffee]

Until Among Us, I hadn't played online in probably over a decade. As a high schooler I played Star Trek Armada, Star Trek Elite Force, and various Army Man games online, but most of my time was spent playing single-player. I'm trying to do a Stardew Valley coop but haven't found anyone who is on when I'm on. I play Among Us a couple of times a week -- "Vent Tech" is my handle.

 

[Kyriakos]

Until Among Us, I hadn't played online in probably over a decade. As a high schooler I played Star Trek Armada, Star Trek Elite Force, and various Army Man games online, but most of my time was spent playing single-player. I'm trying to do a Stardew Valley coop but haven't found anyone who is on when I'm on. I play Among Us a couple of times a week -- "Vent Tech" is my handle.

Maybe we will play sometime - haven't logged in for months.

 

[Gorbles]

Reminder that the thread is about computer games

Boo, hiss.

Typed from my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra.

 

[Kyriakos]

Boo, hiss.

Typed from my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra.

Hey, computer games aren't that bad

 

[Gori the Grey]

I'll go back to computer games, but I'm still going to derail the thread.

For some time, I've been trying to go zero-player. Feeling as though I was squandering too much time playing (Civ5), I've tried to set it aside.

And I've been pretty successful. But what I've been interested in is the real life experiences that tempt me back toward playing the game.

Certain cloud formations make me think of the cloud-busting that your early scout (and scouting warrior) do. Makes me want to fire up a game.

Today I heard the name Garrison. Not even a reference a particular, historically significant garrison. Just a town name. (I mean, I'm sure there was an in-its-day important garrison in the town). But that made me want to fire up a game. Even though garrisoning is a relatively minor element of Civ5.

Any word or image that I associate with Civ, gives me a twinge of wanting to fire up a game.

So far I've fought the twinges. But still.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Maybe we will play sometime - haven't logged in for months.

If you're on Discord, I'm smellincoffee8224 there. Not that I really know how to use it.

 

[Kyriakos]

Playing AOEII with teens is the worst ever ^^

 

[Kyriakos]

Food please.
Start the game already.

I was a teen too when I first played AoeII online. Then had to deal with even younger people.

 

[Core Imposter]

I played Star Trek: Starfleet Command game released in 1999. This game was based on the tabletop wargames Starfleet Battles. Most games were head-to-head but there were clans and fleet actions. It was a hoot, but the technology wasn't there yet. Some of the people were great.

For most of the last decade I played in a very intense hobby called Stratomatic Baseball where the games were head-to-head and pretty boring, but the real meat was the user created general manager and owner functions. We had budgets, trades, salaries and the most involved thing was drafting by auction minor league, foreign, college and high school players. We actually scouted players sometimes by going to spring training in Florida. You develop long term friendships with people in leagues like that. I was in that hobby on and off since 1970. But my wife's health hasn't been up to par, and I just can't keep up the time commitments.

I can play a game of Civ solo whenever I want to get away from it all and still be available when needed. Which is how I ended up back here. Obviously not making any friends in this community but it's a resource for the game when I run into something I can't remember.

There were some great people around in the SMAC community way back when. One or two might still be around here somewhere.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

I seldom if ever play online games. Have played pvp in Quake and Unreal Tournament long ago but always found it repetitive, boring and silly with everybody jumping around like pingpong balls. ARMA (a military tactical shooter) in coop mode was interesting though. It was kind of fun to work coordinately to destroy some targets, using tanks choppers, air support etc. However the more popular the game got, the most stupid brats joined to the point it was impossible to do anything without some moron killing himself stupidly or even doing some team killing. So the only way to play properly was to was join private servers which you had to pay for or at least join a community and such. Too much hassle. Conclusion: the worst part of online gaming is you have yo play with other people, which renders the whole thing pointless.

 

[Narz]

I'll go back to computer games, but I'm still going to derail the thread.

For some time, I've been trying to go zero-player. Feeling as though I was squandering too much time playing (Civ5), I've tried to set it aside.

And I've been pretty successful. But what I've been interested in is the real life experiences that tempt me back toward playing the game.

Certain cloud formations make me think of the cloud-busting that your early scout (and scouting warrior) do. Makes me want to fire up a game.

Today I heard the name Garrison. Not even a reference a particular, historically significant garrison. Just a town name. (I mean, I'm sure there was an in-its-day important garrison in the town). But that made me want to fire up a game. Even though garrisoning is a relatively minor element of Civ5.

Any word or image that I associate with Civ, gives me a twinge of wanting to fire up a game.

So far I've fought the twinges. But still.

Yeah I see a magpie bird and want to play Dominion

Magpie - DominionStrategy Wiki

wiki.dominionstrategy.com

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Does Hangman count?

Hangaroo is still available on a couple of sites. And there's been a Star Trek Hangman game going on TrekBBS for years (in the Admirals' Lounge, a mere 11,000 posts needed to access it). Which reminds me that the people who were supposed to take over from me haven't posted in 4 days, and the rules say they have to post within 48 hours. So I have to either go on down the list for another person, or I might just post another one to get the game moving again. The idea is that you have to figure out lines of dialogue from the shows or movies, which can be really short, really long, involve just one character or multiple characters. There are a couple of transcript sites we use to verify the accuracy.

Wait, who had a Magnavox Odyssey?

I am just curious about everyone's gaming roots. Sorry to hijack.

Who played Avalon Hill wargames?

Back in the late '80s/early '90s there were some of us in the local SCA who would have either a Saturday or a holiday evening (ie. New Year's Eve) of playing the Civilization board game.

I still have fond memories of the time I was playing with a couple of guys (my boyfriend at the time and the guy who owned the game) who were so determined to beat each other down to bare scorched earth that they didn't notice me quietly sneaking up the middle, acquiring more tech in the trading round, building another city here, another there... and on the last turn I slipped a Civil Disorder card into the trading round.

You need a good poker face to pull off a successful Disaster in the trading round, and my boyfriend never saw it coming. Boom. He lost half his cities, and I gained enough tech and points to win.

The other guy wasn't used to losing that game, and I was afraid he'd be upset. But this time he took one look at the expression on my boyfriend's face, and beamed at me: "Beautiful! Just BEAUTIFUL!"

That's one of the most satisfying game wins I've ever had, because while I really enjoy that game, I'm not that skilled with strategy or pulling off those sneaky moves. And of course if you get hit with multiple disasters in the same turn, it can be impossible to recover.

The last time I played this game was in a PBEM Yahoo group. Annoyingly, the group broke up during the second-last turn, since our host up and vanished. We never did finish. I was in no danger of winning, but would have liked to see how far I could have gotten.

I tried. My best friend's older brother owned some. We tried. But the rule books were like 32-pages long. Reading that much was not beyond us, but taking it in so as to imagine how you would strategize within a game was. I'd like to try it again some time. I never see the games around.

It's a learning curve, definitely. But even after learning a game thoroughly, I always kept the rule books handy, whether we were playing one of the Mayfair rail games, Diplomacy, or whatever else.

I have played a computer adaptation of Avalon Hill's Civilization.

View attachment 691328

But back then I was using XP, and the game was infamously bugged.

Definitely not as attractive as the real board game, but better than nothing, I suppose.

I played lots of games before that. Zork (1 & 2), Dragon's Lair (1 & 2), Microdot, War in Middle Earth, Rick Dangerous, Populous (1 & 2), Sim City, Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, Turrican, Midwinter, Golden Axe, Lemmings (1 & 2), Shadow of the Beast, Syndicate, Elite II: Frontier - why, even Civ 1 - all kept me going for many hours. All released before Doom. I'm sure I've forgotten a whole lot more, too!

I bought the Zork games on Steam last year. I really wish the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game could be available. I had it for the Amiga, and never did manage to get off Earth before the Vogons came. There's so much of that game I never got to play because I kept dying!

I had Civ I, as well. A French trireme took out my battle cruiser, so I can completely sympathize with this situation:

I played a lot of Steve Moraff's games in the late 80s until Civ came out.

You mean the board games? If so, I had them all beginning with the original Gettysburg and Tactics II. On a computer i played the SSI wargames and the TalonSoft Battleground series. I was a consultant and playtester on their Borodino game Napoleon in Russia.

Those Moraff games were a hoot. I could never play Ringjongg without thinking about donuts.


Anyway, to answer the OP's question... my gaming habits are pretty tame in comparison to everyone else's here. Last week I cautiously took the plunge into online multiplayer gaming... with Cluedo. So now I can say I did it, got the Steam achievement, and after one more multiplayer one when an invitation popped up, I went back to solo gaming. I don't like the sense of having to hurry.

Awhile back I joined the admin staff of a Fighting Fantasy group on FB, and it's nice to swap stories and tips with veteran players (the game turned 40 recent-ish and I played it from the get-go) and help out the new players. I've still got plenty of the gamebooks I haven't solved, so I've been thinking about digging out the graph paper, pencils, and trying to find a couple of d6 and seeing if I can solve any of the later ones or the ones that kept killing me earlier. These gamebooks are available on Steam, but after trying a couple I've concluded that I prefer the physical books, and making my own character sheets, charts, and maps.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Who played Avalon Hill wargames?

*raises hand*

 

[Plotinus]

I bought the Zork games on Steam last year. I really wish the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game could be available. I had it for the Amiga, and never did manage to get off Earth before the Vogons came. There's so much of that game I never got to play because I kept dying!

You can play it for free online here! (And also here.) Be warned though, the "keeping on dying" thing remains a theme right through the game. And the notorious babel fish puzzle is still a byword for absurd difficulty to this day.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You can play it for free online here! (And also here.) Be warned though, the "keeping on dying" thing remains a theme right through the game. And the notorious babel fish puzzle is still a byword for absurd difficulty to this day.

The first link doesn't work for me - maybe because I'm in Canada?

Unfortunately, nothing I do with the second link results in anything happening.

Is it playable on a laptop?

 

[Plotinus]

The first link doesn't work for me - maybe because I'm in Canada?

Unfortunately, nothing I do with the second link results in anything happening.

Is it playable on a laptop?

That's odd - both sites are working fine for me. I'm using Edge on a Windows laptop. Maybe you do have to be in the UK for the BBC one.

If neither works for you, you can also download the game from its page on the IFDB. It's the "story file" at the top right that says it needs a Z-Code interpreter. In case you don't know, "Z-Code" is the most commonly used format for text games (the "Z" is for Zork, the game for which the format was invented!) and there are many freely available interpreters. The most popular is probably Frotz, which you can download for Windows here or Mac here. So all you need do is install that, then use it to open the HHGG Z-Code file.

You can also use Frotz to play most of the vast range of text games available for free on the IFDB, many of which are much more sophisticated (and less brutal) than the 1980s classics. Have a look at the list of highest-rated games and see if you like the look of any. (Counterfeit Monkey is top of the list for very good reasons. There's nothing quite like it...)

 

[Birdjaguar]

@Plotinus both links work for me.