Scorched Earth: The Mother of All Games • Hacker News Board

Re: Scorched Earth: The Mother of All Games

#51

Post by hantusk » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 7:59 AM UTC

pdw wrote: post #40

int_19h wrote: post #20

There was a similar game for DOS at around the same time called "Tank Wars", except that one was written for VGA 320x200x256 graphics. I wonder how many people remember it. https://dosgames.com/game/tank-wars/

I always preferred Tank Wars over Scorched Earth

Me too!

It had a cheat code, so if you set the power to a certain amount it would shoot through the grass

Re: Scorched Earth: The Mother of All Games

#52

Post by Nursie » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 7:59 AM UTC

If anyone would like to play a somewhat updated version of it right now then I highly recommend Atomic Tanks.

This can be installed on debian/ubuntu with a quick "sudo apt-get install atanks", but is available on windows and other platforms too.

(https://atanks.sourceforge.io/)

Re: Scorched Earth: The Mother of All Games

#53

Post by pcblues » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 8:09 AM UTC

I can't (but I will) tell you how much Scorched Earth rocked in the early 1990's at uni. It was a winnable game for people who sucked at xpilot :) Thanks for the mammaries people ;)

Re: Scorched Earth: The Mother of All Games

#54

Post by malkia » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 8:14 AM UTC

Great Game - also - how the fuck were they able to run in this weird VGA/SVGA mode? Something bitplanes, etc. - it wasn't your standard 320x200x256 colors. (Sorry, but back then in Bulgaria the literature on CGI/EGA/VGA was zero, and Ralph Brown's interrupt list only did that much)....

Re: Scorched Earth: The Mother of All Games

#55

Post by npteljes » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 8:15 AM UTC

Playable online on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/msdos_Scorched_Earth_1991

Re: Scorched Earth: The Mother of All Games

#56

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 8:27 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Scorched Earth: The Mother of All Games

#57

Post by billpg » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 8:27 AM UTC

EvanAnderson wrote: post #32

There was a clone game, Scorched Tanks, for the Amiga that was also loads of fun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_Tanks

I remember the game music of that, "Ari San Crossroad" by "Sidewinder". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvqcW0E0osE

(Dammit brain, I forget all sorts of useful things, but why did I remember that?)

Re: Scorched Earth: The Mother of All Games

#58

Post by staplung » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 8:42 AM UTC

Loved Scorched Earth. Had this fun bug/feature related to the weapons market. Between rounds you used your earnings to buy more weapons for the next round. There was an option to make it a "free market" which meant that the prices would get jacked on the weapons that you bought most often. But - and I didn't know this at the time - the price of an item was represented as a signed int so if you jacked the price high enough (which didn't take long) the price would flip over to a very high magnitude negative number and they'd literally pay you to take the nukes/MIRVs/dirt-bombs/napalm off their hands. Good times.

Re: Scorched Earth: The Mother of All Games

#59

Post by fho » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 8:42 AM UTC

mike_hock wrote: post #42

fho wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh ... That brought up some buried memories. GORILLAS.BAS and NIBBLES.BAS

Wait, you had them, too? I thought I'd stumbled upon something super secret!

I think they came as examples with the BASIC interpreter? I recall having to run them from some sort of editor.

Re: Scorched Earth: The Mother of All Games

#60

Post by fho » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 8:44 AM UTC

pcblues wrote: post #53

I can't (but I will) tell you how much Scorched Earth rocked in the early 1990's at uni. It was a winnable game for people who sucked at xpilot :) Thanks for the mammaries people ;)

One game I wasted my school years with was XKobo (http://zkobo.online.fr/xkobo.html). So simple, yet so addictive.