Horace in the Mystic Woods (PC)

Lobo · **Reply #30 on:** March 25, 2010, 08:04:30 pm

Look what Igor brought today from the graveyard~

Wonderful mate, Horace is kickin' and the whole psion setup is putting my iphone to shame.

There was a bit of a problem to clean all the blood and gibs from the screen but it works top notch, need to check the stigma as well later.
Thanks again, gotta send you that burrito man, definitely!

PS. Cool Wagga drawing on the package, btw.

flash · **Reply #31 on:** March 25, 2010, 08:14:44 pm

LOL,

Glad it got there mate!

Sorry about Wagga, but even more sorry for the Curry loving Spider... Glad to pass him on to you - look afer him.

ps. Did you find the backup battery in the label? I almost forgot to send one so slipped it in there.

(If anyone is reading this and is a bit confused - well, that'll teach ya for reading things on this forum..

)

Lobo · **Reply #32 on:** March 25, 2010, 09:08:47 pm

Holysmokes and I was just about to throw away the package! Yep, the battery is inside, saved!

for anyone wondering what the heck is that all about-

flash · **Reply #33 on:** March 25, 2010, 09:25:47 pm

Thank god I mentioned it...

LOL..

(now I look silly)

Sokurah · **Reply #34 on:** March 25, 2010, 09:33:30 pm

Hey, congrats, and welcome to 'Club Horace' (as if we weren't members already).

Lobo · **Reply #35 on:** March 25, 2010, 09:48:16 pm

Aye, very cool it is. Now I really think 'someone' <cough> oughta do something for the PC port. Heck, this should be ported to anything from wristwatches to old grandpa clock (analog version).

Btw, trying to find the manual for this particular series seems almost impossible. Also, is this PsiWin usable with 3a?

EDIT: Ohwait, seems like it is (compatible), goody. Hope that Win7 wont crap on it or something (Vista seems fine so it should work).

EDIT2: Ohwait, found the manual too. Now I know that huge button on the bottom is called 'Space'. Rockin' !

flash · **Reply #36 on:** March 25, 2010, 10:13:52 pm

LOL!

Yes, space!

Now wtf is that diamond one?

Not sure if psiwin will work in win7? If it does, let me know and I will post Nasty Golf for you if you promise to do me some screen grabs (shortcut is oblong key + one up there + that one over there)

Lobo · **Reply #37 on:** March 25, 2010, 10:42:20 pm

Crap! Just tried and it doesn't work (psiwin) on Win7. Damn', what's the bloody difference if it runs on Vista it should run here as well.

Ah well, I will have to install it on the old comp with XP as soon as I find the computer (should be under the sink somewhere).

That diamond one seems to be rather important, together with U. All I need to know when entering To Do stuff.
If there was only anything TO DO actually!

EDIT: Waitaminute, where the heck did I see support for Vista anyway??
Now that I look at the page where I got psiwin, it only goes from 98 to XP.
Oh, darn, reading skills = - and imagination = + gives - .

flash · **Reply #38 on:** March 25, 2010, 10:48:35 pm

PsiWin works perfectly under XP.

I hope you get it to work as I want to send you Balders also - another little mascot LOL.. And perhaps my fave game I wrote on the Psi3a. It is only bouderdash (without scrolling) but packed with things to play with.

Lobo · **Reply #39 on:** March 25, 2010, 10:50:52 pm

Cool, AmA GonnA setup on XP then! What's the Balders like, any screens to share?

For some reason, every time I turn on this thing it looks as if it's gonna show the 'Tidemarsh' icon in there (I told you I like that one a plenty).

flash · **Reply #40 on:** March 25, 2010, 11:01:47 pm

Yeah, I quite liked Tidemarsh.

Well, Balders is a boulderdash clone (ish) that plays to the strenghs of the p3a. It is all timedand stores a ton of records, and has (i forgot) about 100 levels?

I have no screens because when these were written we did not have the net as it is now and never bothered with promoting it (I need you for some captures mate

)

Lobo · **Reply #41 on:** March 25, 2010, 11:26:02 pm

Ok, I'm gonna install it then to XP, you send me the game. If all works well then I'll transfer it and grab the screens.
What is the problem with capturing anyway?

flash · **Reply #42 on:** March 25, 2010, 11:29:18 pm

There is no problem capturing,

the p3a has a screen capture build in and once the screens are captured, all that has to be done is to use psiwin to transfer to a pc and convert the mbm file to a file the pc can use. There is several bits of software for that.

Oh, you will love my little Balders

I will send you some more games soon (there are 5 or 6) but at the moment, the pc is off while I work on this Yummy imac contraption.

Lobo · **Reply #43 on:** March 25, 2010, 11:38:22 pm

Ah, Ok, I thought there was something wrong with your device.

Righty then, send the stuff or post it someplace, whatever games you got. I've found the mbm converter, hope all goes well.

Heh, imac ey? Excllnt!

flash · **Reply #44 on:** March 25, 2010, 11:40:39 pm

Ok,

I will sort the stuff out and then email it to ya.

If you can do some nice screens perhaps I can do a nice release post?

Lobo · **Reply #45 on:** March 25, 2010, 11:44:35 pm

Allright, as soon as I get the games ama gonna jump to xp and see what I can do with all this.

Btw, currently on Level 2 in Horace.

What? The bloody inertia caught me off guard. I know Soks mentioned it but I totally forgot until Horace started bumping off the walls in level2.

Sokurah · **Reply #46 on:** March 25, 2010, 11:50:09 pm

Quote from: Lobo on March 25, 2010, 11:38:22 pm

Heh, imac ey? Excllnt!

I have to admit - I've considered getting a 27" iMac instead of that d*mn MacBookPro that nobody knows when will be updated - they're about the same price anyway.

Still waiting for my new windows to be mounted first though. They just began erecting the scaffolding today, so it'll be a while yet.

The reason for postponing the purchase is, as I've mentioned, to have a little less hardware in case someone uses the scaffolding for breaking in over the next couple of months...or however long it takes.

...not that the lack of it keeps the thieves away. The two apartments on the ground floor were burgled less than a week ago - on saturday. I'm two floors up...and a bit nervous.

Lobo · **Reply #47 on:** March 26, 2010, 12:47:53 am

Quote from: Sokurah on March 25, 2010, 11:50:09 pm

Still waiting for my new windows to be mounted first though. They just began erecting the scaffolding today, so it'll be a while yet.

Microsoft does the windows installations on buildings these days???
Wow, I guess they're moving away from digital to real world these days. Hopefully, they'll provide drivers (cops) once your Win crashes (due to robbery). Update Often!!

Sokurah · **Reply #48 on:** March 26, 2010, 07:24:01 am

Quote from: Lobo on March 26, 2010, 12:47:53 am

Microsoft does the windows installations on buildings these days???
Wow, I guess they're moving away from digital to real world these days. Hopefully, they'll provide drivers (cops) once your Win crashes (due to robbery). Update Often!!

I had expected to get this reply.

flash · **Reply #49 on:** March 26, 2010, 07:33:20 am

Quote from: Sokurah on March 25, 2010, 11:50:09 pm

I have to admit - I've considered getting a 27" iMac instead of that d*mn MacBookPro that nobody knows when will be updated - they're about the same price anyway.

Still waiting for my new windows to be mounted first though. They just began erecting the scaffolding today, so it'll be a while yet.

The reason for postponing the purchase is, as I've mentioned, to have a little less hardware in case someone uses the scaffolding for breaking in over the next couple of months...or however long it takes.

I must admit that I love my MacBook much more than the iMac (at the moment). The iMac is lovelly, but I expect more for that kinda money.

I wish I had bought the larger MacBook rather than the 13" one - then I perhaps would not have needed the iMac.

Sokurah · **Reply #50 on:** March 26, 2010, 08:45:27 am

Quote from: Flash on March 26, 2010, 07:33:20 am

I must admit that I love my MacBook much more than the iMac (at the moment). The iMac is lovelly, but I expect more for that kinda money.

I wish I had bought the larger MacBook rather than the 13" one - then I perhaps would not have needed the iMac.

Well, there's food for thought. Thanks for that.

I would also prefer the MBP to the iMac and if that's what I'm doing I'll probably buy the 15" version.
Still, let's see what happens.

spacefractal · **Reply #51 on:** March 26, 2010, 10:42:41 am

I just get the iMac Mini, which still is a excellent little machine. Dont need any bigger yet.

For the PC version, which language do you write it? If it GLBasic, it can been converted to iPhone as well wrting that as a real PC game.

How do the original game is actuelly?

Lobo · **Reply #52 on:** March 29, 2010, 10:25:06 pm

Hah, this one is for Sokks here, totally misplaced it before but finished it an hour ago!

Sokurah · **Reply #53 on:** March 30, 2010, 07:19:53 am

Quote from: Lobo on March 29, 2010, 10:25:06 pm

Hah, this one is for Sokks here, totally misplaced it before but finished it an hour ago!

That is beautiful. I love it. Great colors. If that was a painting I would SO hang it up.

Lobo · **Reply #54 on:** March 30, 2010, 06:55:45 pm

Thanks, it was meant for the game menu or something. It would look cool on the wall or something. Only one thing is missing though..

..parky..

Lobo · **Reply #55 on:** April 03, 2010, 01:48:48 am

Actually, that screen gave me an idea so try this out quick. Use arrows right, left to move, get close to the flower (until you can't move) but don't touch the ghost. Once there, hit the up arrow and press space.
Now gogerrit!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3606583/monday.rar

headkaze · **Reply #56 on:** April 03, 2010, 03:44:11 am

Hehe nice one Lobo although couldn't seem to jump the flower to get the star?

Lobo · **Reply #57 on:** April 03, 2010, 05:36:57 am

Kinda have to step as close to flower as you can or for as long as Horace can walk. Then press UP arrow so Horace is facing the floating platform with star and then press space, should jump over there where the star is. After that, you can really quit cause it's all screwed up anyway.

Fixater · **Reply #58 on:** April 17, 2010, 09:29:37 am

Fantastic to find that people are talking about this classic game up here

I worked at Psion's Repair Center in Greenford in the mid 90s and I remember that everyone went mad when Games Deluxe came out.
Those games rose the bar in terms of extracting performance from a machine with very limited resources.
I remember abusing my Psion.com email address by asking Melbourne House's Fred Milgrom if a 4th Horace game by the original developer William Tang had ever been commissioned and he said categorically that it wasn't. However the UK arm of the company produced a screenshot which I still have somewhere that illustrates that there was one! In those days the sound was broadcast in the morning on Channel 4 and this screenshot and a demo for Mugsy's Revenge appeared. Mugsy eventually appeared - Horace 4 did not.

The ARM7 used in the Series 3s successor the Series 5 was obviously a stronger processor, but access to video RAM directly was more complicated and nobody really managed to achieve the same level of performance relatively speaking - at least what I saw anyway.
I guess the Symbian SDK was the way to go, but it was not easy for somebody without a strong C++ background.
There was a port of Lemmings for the Series 5 by Psygnosis, but it was never released.
I really must find all my disks of this stuff if people are still interested.
Other ports of games were attempted, but never emerged - Jumpy, etc.

Around 2000 I was repairing broken database (.dbf) files, etc on a regular basis as we had access to the file specifications.
I dug a lot of people out of the doldrums by resurrecting what I could from a corrupt files and OPLDatabase files used in OPL were even simpler.
I was asked to look at the Horace level data file and convert it - which I did, but the game itself never appeared and nobody asked for anything else.
At that time an application called RevTran had appeared and people were reverse translating enmass. But despite all the blueprints there nobody finished the Series 5 port to the best of my knowledge.

I hope the new port will finally appear!

Fixater · **Reply #59 on:** April 17, 2010, 09:35:23 am

I just had to dig out my archive