https://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&boardid=1&threadid=263262
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On Sun, 03 Sep 2023 01:39:39 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

https://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&boardid=1&threadid=263262

I fondly remember playing "Karateka" on my Apple ][.

(A game, I'm shamed to admit, I acquired by disobeying the stricture
of 'don't copy that floppy!')

And while it was visually and thematically impressive, I remember that
- even at the time - I was underwhelmed. I mean, sure, the game was
gorgeous but its combat was extremely simple, there was no real
variety in enemies, and the whole experience was incredibly short! I
recall thinking at the time that, had I actually PAID for the game, I
would have felt ripped off. "Karateka" was an experience you could
finish in ten minutes; hardly worthy of the price of admission.

Looking at the price-tag for the video ($20 USD), I sort of get the
same feeling. Especially since I doubt the documentary will have
anything new to add that hasn't already been covered in dozens of
other documentaries that have covered Mechner's career.

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Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 03 Sep 2023 01:39:39 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

https://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&boardid=1&threadid=263262

I fondly remember playing "Karateka" on my Apple ][.

(A game, I'm shamed to admit, I acquired by disobeying the stricture
of 'don't copy that floppy!')

And while it was visually and thematically impressive, I remember that
- even at the time - I was underwhelmed. I mean, sure, the game was
gorgeous but its combat was extremely simple, there was no real
variety in enemies, and the whole experience was incredibly short! I
recall thinking at the time that, had I actually PAID for the game, I
would have felt ripped off. "Karateka" was an experience you could
finish in ten minutes; hardly worthy of the price of admission.

Looking at the price-tag for the video ($20 USD), I sort of get the
same feeling. Especially since I doubt the documentary will have
anything new to add that hasn't already been covered in dozens of
other documentaries that have covered Mechner's career.

Yeah. I remember this game being hard too on APple 2. I prefer Prince of Persia, but that one was hard too.
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Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
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On Sun, 03 Sep 2023 23:10:08 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 03 Sep 2023 01:39:39 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

https://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&boardid=1&threadid=263262

I fondly remember playing "Karateka" on my Apple ][.

Yeah. I remember this game being hard too on APple 2. I prefer
Prince of Persia, but that one was hard too.

I didn't find "Karateka" that hard but "Prince of Persia" was a chore.
It demanded perfect control and pixel-perfect jumps; a lot of other
platformers were a lot more forgiving and floaty. It was amazingly
satisfying when it worked (jump the ledge, drop and roll, pull out
sword, duck-n-stab!) but getting that perfectly choreographed set of
movements was an amazingly finicky task and - IMHO - not really worth
the effort.

"Prince of Persia" was one of those games that was a lot more fun to
WATCH than play.

"Karateka" - being so much simpler - wasn't as demanding. Once you
figured out the moves (which wasn't so easy in the 'copy-the-floppy
days' when you didn't have a manual ;-) you could finish the game in
ten minutes of playing. You just had to remember to exit combat mode
before meeting the princess. ;-)

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On Mon, 04 Sep 2023 08:38:23 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

"Prince of Persia" was one of those games that was a lot more fun to
WATCH than play.

I fucking hated this game. I never saw the appeal. The time limit
alone killed it for me. I have nothing else to say about this game as
you already said it. The game was a chore to play. Period.

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On Mon, 04 Sep 2023 08:58:46 -0400, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
wrote:

On Mon, 04 Sep 2023 08:38:23 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson ><spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

"Prince of Persia" was one of those games that was a lot more fun to
WATCH than play.

I fucking hated this game. I never saw the appeal. The time limit
alone killed it for me. I have nothing else to say about this game as
you already said it. The game was a chore to play. Period.

The time-limit really wasn't that bad. It's extremely intimidating,
but that's because your first few hours of gameplay - due to the
control issue mentioned above - are going to be VERY rough. What with
you dying every tenth step and the game throwing new concepts at you
fairly regularly at the start of the game, you start wondering how
you're going to finish the game in an hour.

And, of course, if you don't improve your skills, you won't. But the
thing is, you won't really be able to get very far in the game UNLESS
you improve your skills (an early version of 'git gud scrub'?) so that
time limit is sort of meaningless. By the time you become good enough
to progress a ways through the game, you'll be whizzing through it
faster than the numbers can count down.

But that time limit is extremely discouraging to new players, and I
100% agree the game would have been better off without it. "Prince of
Persia" was a wonderful, iconic game with a lot of great ideas and implementation, but it was also incredibly flawed and too often it was
more frustrating than fun.

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Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

I didn't find "Karateka" that hard but "Prince of Persia" was a chore.
It demanded perfect control and pixel-perfect jumps; a lot of other platformers were a lot more forgiving and floaty.

Was it really that hard? I remember I played this on my first PC so
probably in 1990 and finished it. I have a vague memory of turning my
monitor upside down since some potion in the game caused things to get a
little weird.

I did try again later, maybe in 2011 when someone released a Commodore
64 version. No idea which version I tried then though but I don't think
I got much anywhere with it. I guess in ~20 years some of my
expectations and abilities may have changed.

"Karateka" - being so much simpler - wasn't as demanding. Once you
figured out the moves (which wasn't so easy in the 'copy-the-floppy
days' when you didn't have a manual ;-) you could finish the game in
ten minutes of playing. You just had to remember to exit combat mode
before meeting the princess. ;-)

Was it really that short? I remember finishing it but ten minutes seems,
well, short. There wasn't much replay value in it, as I recall. Well,
you could kiss the girl or get kicked by her.

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On Sunday, September 3, 2023 at 8:33:10 AM UTC-5, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Sun, 03 Sep 2023 01:39:39 +0000, a...@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

https://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&boardid=1&threadid=263262

I fondly remember playing "Karateka" on my Apple ][.

(A game, I'm shamed to admit, I acquired by disobeying the stricture
of 'don't copy that floppy!')

And while it was visually and thematically impressive, I remember that
- even at the time - I was underwhelmed. I mean, sure, the game was
gorgeous but its combat was extremely simple, there was no real
variety in enemies, and the whole experience was incredibly short! I
recall thinking at the time that, had I actually PAID for the game, I
would have felt ripped off. "Karateka" was an experience you could
finish in ten minutes; hardly worthy of the price of admission.

I heard that the pirated version contained much less than the original game. For example there was a combat practice option.

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On Mon, 04 Sep 2023 09:47:31 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

But that time limit is extremely discouraging to new players, and I
100% agree the game would have been better off without it. "Prince of
Persia" was a wonderful, iconic game with a lot of great ideas and >implementation, but it was also incredibly flawed and too often it was
more frustrating than fun.

More frustrating than fun. More fun to watch someone else play it then
to play it yourself. Like I said, you summed up this game perfectly
for me.

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On Tue, 05 Sep 2023 00:59:34 +0300, Anssi Saari <anssi.saari@usenet.mail.kapsi.fi> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

I didn't find "Karateka" that hard but "Prince of Persia" was a chore.
It demanded perfect control and pixel-perfect jumps; a lot of other
platformers were a lot more forgiving and floaty.

Was it really that hard? I remember I played this on my first PC so
probably in 1990 and finished it. I have a vague memory of turning my
monitor upside down since some potion in the game caused things to get a >little weird.

Well, it wasn't "Battletoads" hard, but it had a definite learning
curve and the controls were less forgiving than other games (IMHO).
But once you got past that initial hump it didn't really elevate past
that point.

I've always assumed - but never bothered to check - that its controls
were optimized for joystick and that much of the control difficulty I
remember was from playing it with keyboard. I remember playing it
years later on.... Sega? Nintendo? One of those... and the movements
felt a lot more smooth.

"Karateka" - being so much simpler - wasn't as demanding. Once you
figured out the moves (which wasn't so easy in the 'copy-the-floppy
days' when you didn't have a manual ;-) you could finish the game in
ten minutes of playing. You just had to remember to exit combat mode
before meeting the princess. ;-)

Was it really that short? I remember finishing it but ten minutes seems, >well, short. There wasn't much replay value in it, as I recall. Well,
you could kiss the girl or get kicked by her.

Yeah, it really was. Fight the ten or so ninjas outside, repeat for
the inside hallway, a few more in the five or six rooms inside (duck!
A hawk!), kill the boss, exit combat mode and rescue the princess.
There was maybe a one hour learning curve to master the controls and
combat, and maybe a second hour to memorize the enemy placements and
strategy but once that was done? How long would an actual run through
the game once you figured out what to do? If you were /really/ good
you could probably finish it in five minutes, but ten minutes was
probably average.

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Am 04.09.23 um 15:47 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson:

But that time limit is extremely discouraging to new players, and I
100% agree the game would have been better off without it. "Prince of
Persia" was a wonderful, iconic game with a lot of great ideas and implementation, but it was also incredibly flawed and too often it was
more frustrating than fun.

Actually one of the few games I finished, cannot say the same about the
sequel.
And yes it is frustrating in the beginning, you also have to get used to
to the extreme control lag, which is both iconic for POP and Karateka,
but once you are used to it, and got a grip on combat, which once you
have figured it out is rather easy, the game is manageable.

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Am 04.09.23 um 14:38 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson:

I didn't find "Karateka" that hard but "Prince of Persia" was a chore.
It demanded perfect control and pixel-perfect jumps; a lot of other platformers were a lot more forgiving and floaty. It was amazingly
satisfying when it worked (jump the ledge, drop and roll, pull out
sword, duck-n-stab!) but getting that perfectly choreographed set of movements was an amazingly finicky task and - IMHO - not really worth
the effort.

Both games had an extreme lag, which you needed to get used to.
The Enemy variety in Karateka, I think it had 4 different enemies, yes
it was short, but given for its time it still was a huge milestone when
it came out!

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Am 05.09.23 um 14:39 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson:

Yeah, it really was. Fight the ten or so ninjas outside, repeat for
the inside hallway, a few more in the five or six rooms inside (duck!
A hawk!), kill the boss, exit combat mode and rescue the princess.
There was maybe a one hour learning curve to master the controls and
combat, and maybe a second hour to memorize the enemy placements and
strategy but once that was done? How long would an actual run through
the game once you figured out what to do? If you were/really/ good
you could probably finish it in five minutes, but ten minutes was
probably average.

Jepp it was a rather short game, but given its release date, games were
either enless arcadish games or rather short!
There were exceptions to the rule like some RPGs but no one really had a problem back then with Karatekas length!

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Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

Yeah, it really was. Fight the ten or so ninjas outside, repeat for
the inside hallway, a few more in the five or six rooms inside (duck!
A hawk!), kill the boss, exit combat mode and rescue the princess.
There was maybe a one hour learning curve to master the controls and
combat, and maybe a second hour to memorize the enemy placements and
strategy but once that was done?

OK, 10 minutes with two hours practise sounds possible. I took 40
minutes last night, just to get inside. It seemed the initial outside
area is on eternal spawn, you have to push to get in.

Took maybe another 30 mins to finish it. I had to save scum a little
with the hawk thingy, the timing with that was a right pain. Played with
the Vice C64 emulator and keyboard controls.

The game was an interesting version, there were some text screens with
how to play and also a blurb about what copy protections there were. It
wasn't really clear how the protections worked but if they were
triggered, various things would happen like making the game harder or impossible to finish. Sneaky.

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