Discovered this on an old Apple 2 in the 90s. Loved the basic physics of things like flying inverted or flying down low and then releasing a bomb while pulling up into a steep climb so the bomb would fly more laterally to a target.
Sopwith – 1984 Game (2000)
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Re: Sopwith – 1984 Game (2000)
#12I played this on the original IBM PC. (Un)fortunately, my dad got the 8MHz upgrade, so the game was really hard, because it was built for a 4MHz clock. Luckily someone eventually realeased a DOS utility that would fake a 4MHz clock by making everything take two cycles. Good times. :)
I think ours had a turbo button that would double/half the clock speed. Good times indeed :)
I seem to recall that the turbo button didn't come along until the 80286, but some of the PC clones had them before that.
My 486 definitely had a turbo button (that was the one I built after using the original PC for so many years).
Re: Sopwith – 1984 Game (2000)
#13This game was so fun. I think there's a lot of unexplored game design in this style of 2d aviation. The multiplayer game Altitude was a good modern example.
We had an awesome split screen dogfighting game on a Win98 PC where everyone had a Spitfire-like plane and tried to take the others down. You could land at your base and heal etc. Super fun. I think it was called Iron Birds? Don't think I've found it since.
Re: Sopwith – 1984 Game (2000)
#14I was just thinking of this game last night. I was wondering if AI could take the ASM and convert it into a browser game. Playable w/o DOSBOX.
Re: Sopwith – 1984 Game (2000)
#15This game was so fun. I think there's a lot of unexplored game design in this style of 2d aviation. The multiplayer game Altitude was a good modern example.
Lufteauser is a bigger space & higher motion, but has hit some good vibes for me, in this zone. Single player. We were always begging the daycare to let us play this. Very solid.
Do you mean Luftrausers?
Re: Sopwith – 1984 Game (2000)
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think ours had a turbo button that would double/half the clock speed. Good times indeed :)
I seem to recall that the turbo button didn't come along until the 80286, but some of the PC clones had them before that. My 486 definitely had a turbo button (that was the one I built after using the original PC for so many years).
The Turbo button worked wonders for Tetris. You start it with turbo turned on, so Tetris adjusts to the computer’s speed - but it only does this once, at startup. As soon as the blocks start falling, you turn the turbo off, and now your Tetris runs at half speed. I even managed, a few times, to roll over a score of 32,768 (ah, those signed integers).
Re: Sopwith – 1984 Game (2000)
#17Did the site get slashdotted?
Re: Sopwith – 1984 Game (2000)
#18The first time I ever saw a PC it was running Sopwith. Must have been 1989. I loved the game, but it was this exotic new machine that really interested me. It had 5.25” floppies, probably a 286 and quite an old machine by then.
I had only used Z80/128k machines up to then. My dad had an Amstrad 6128, with those 3” “hard” floppies, sturdy, with a decent thick metal gate.
This PC was a very different beast. I remember being confused about the disks. They seemed weak and unprotected ! you could literally see that delicate magnetic surface through the opening. I had always been told never to touch it, but there it was, just asking to be touched…
Re: Sopwith – 1984 Game (2000)
#19One of first games I ever played at my dad's work when I was probably 6 or 7 years old. I've always enjoyed flight Sims, understanding this dubiously qualifies :). I've enjoyed the strategic aspect of fuel and bomb management and while the ai is simple, it provided a challenge.
I now have kids of my own; over the winter I setup an old laptop with old games, and started introducing them chronologically to games like Sopwith, Paratrooper, Alley Cat etc.
My 6 year olds son comment on this game in his journal:
"I like: everything. I don't like: nothing."
Took me a second to not over interpret the seeming double negative :-)
Update : years later I played wings of fury on my cousin's amiga 500 ; far better game but not the same magic :)
Re: Sopwith – 1984 Game (2000)
#20Wow, I wanted to pick up again Nand2tetris this year, this fills that hole!
Thanks!