Games A whole Galaxy on a floppy !

[Wij]

Imagine that. A whole fucking galaxy (and a game) contained in less space than one of Edmond's pictures of boobs that are a bit wet !!

Here's the whole techie lowdown on how they did it, with code lovingly recreated from a disassembler:

http://www.jongware.com/galaxy1.html

 

[Tom]

I remember buying that game and being well pissed off that the massive box it came in contained only a couple of floppies.

 

[Exioce]

I still play FFE, upscaled to a slightly nicer resolution.
No other game simulates solar systems quite like it. Can take off from London and dock at a space station orbiting Mars, all on manual control.

 

[Shagrat]

I used to love playing Stars! http://www.starsfaq.com/index.htm

Used to swallow up hours, I loved that you could use mass drivers to fire asteroids into other peoples planets to pummel them to dust.

 

[Scouse]

I still miss Elite


I don't miss the C64 loading time though. 13 fucking minutes off that bloody tape

 

[Wij]

Elite 1 was not a proper Galaxy like Elite 2.

 

[Tom]

I still miss Elite


I don't miss the C64 loading time though. 13 fucking minutes off that bloody tape

Check out the noob without the turboloader cartridge.

 

[Scouse]

Elite 1 was not a proper Galaxy like Elite 2.

Yeah - but it was a better game.

For a start - dogfighting with Thargoids didn't involve shooting past each other at a combined speed of 80,000kph.

Check out the noob without the turboloader cartridge.

 

[Job]

This thread makes me smile, it's like PVP online going back to jokes about RPG's.

 

[Exioce]

The combat at times was horrific and made the game unplayable without constant saving/loading. It's still played to this day though for the Newtonian flight engine and realistic solar systems.

Random star names
Now how are you gonna store the names for the 500 million-and some stars? Err.. you don't.
Make 32 sounds as if you're trying to speak while being beaten in the stomach:
char *namepart[] = {
"en" , "la" , "can", "be" ,
"and", "phi", "eth", "ol" ,
"ve" , "ho" , "a" , "lia",
"an" , "ar" , "ur" , "mi" ,
"in" , "ti" , "qu" , "so" ,
"ed" , "ess", "ex" , "io" ,
"ce" , "ze" , "fa" , "ay" ,
"wa" , "da" , "ack", "gre"
};

..an' bung them together at (semi-)random.

Ex io ce

Ahem...

 

[old.Tohtori]

Ex-ho sounds like a galaxy everyone has visited

 

[old.user4556]

When I saw the thread title "galaxy on a floppy" and also saw it was started by Wij, I had other ideas about what to expect in this thread.

You know, it's Wij afterall.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Not all of us have a floppy galaxy sir.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

 

[Scouse]

Unlucky m8. Shame you had to grow up with that. It's almost like child abuse. Explains a lot


Edit: But Solomon's Key + Winter Games = Win

 

[Sydrik]

Slightly later but still retro, I'm at my parents for a week over xmas. Snes emu and Secret of Mana. BOOM!!

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Unlucky m8. Shame you had to grow up with that. It's almost like child abuse. Explains a lot

It was full of win. Still have emulators on my home PC so I can relive the dreamy days, only without the several minutes loading time

 

[Raven]

One of my mates had an Amstrad, we all laughed at him on a regular basis.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

It was the superior home gaming machine of the time. Went downhill when floppies came about.

 

[Sydrik]

Amstrad + any dizzzy game = chidlhood win

 

[Scouse]

One of my mates had an Amstrad, we all laughed at him on a regular basis.

Yeah. And when you did you got this:

It was the superior home gaming machine of the time.

Which made us laugh harder. It was clearly the C64.


And, to the first person to say "spectrum" - you and your stupid colour clash can CTFO

 

[Raven]

I had a 48k spectrum that would play "128k only" games. therefore I win.

 

[old.user4556]

I had a C64.

When I got an Amiga 500, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. My parents had told me about a month beforehand to "Put it out of your head, you're not getting one" - I was so disappointed, but it was all a scam to put me off the scent. I love my mum and dad for giving such an awesome childhood memory like that.

 

[Sydrik]

My Grandad got my Amstrad from a couple who lived round the corner, he and my mum set it up in the front room of our house so when I got home I would see it straight away. I couldnt blow my load at that age, but if I could've, I would've!!

 

[Raven]

My Spectrum came in a carrier bag with a load of games, my Dad brought it round one visit. Looking back I am fairly sure it was nicked. My mum couldn't afford to buy me one.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Clearly the best ever was the home entertainment system.

 

[rynnor]

I remember when you could get an online banking system on 3 floppies...

 

[Wij]

The combat at times was horrific and made the game unplayable without constant saving/loading. It's still played to this day though for the Newtonian flight engine and realistic solar systems.



Ex io ce

Ahem...

Nice

 

[Zenith.UK]

There were so many tweaks or cheats in FE2.

The easiest one was the 655.34LY hyperspace jump. Jump 655.34LY with hardly any fuel, then jump back to another destination. You could get from a Federal system to an Imperial system in 2 jumps and hardly any fuel used. Some people started calling it resonance since it was every additional 655.36 LY. That number is the decimal of FFFF hex in 2 bytes of binary, so it was actually an overflow error in the game.

Then there was the "pause" cheat. I had a Puma with front, rear, top and bottom turrets with 20MW beam lasers on each. I could engage in a fight, pause, move the turret onto the target, unpause for 2-3 hits, pause, retarget, unpause... and so on. Strong beam lasers could cut most ships down quickly. Having one on every turret meant I had complete sphere coverage.
I loved that Puma.

 

[Exioce]

The Puma was the ultimate heavy freighter, with unbeatable heavy weaponry. I used to make tremendous profits by filling it full of slaves and selling them all over the sector.

Every single time a new space game is announced I cross my fingers for something as ambitious as FFE, but nothing comes close.