gregJan 8
Ron Gilbert (GrumpyGamer)
State of the art game dev tools in 1989:
Jan 8 at 8:14pmWeb
Show threadCampbell JonesJan 8
@grumpygamer It does impress me that game development has gotten so much more expensive and time-consuming despite the tools to develop games having improved exponentially. Is it consumer expectations?
Show threadNot a Spring OnionJan 8

@serebit @grumpygamer

You can spend a lot of time and effort to improve the visuals of a game.

Ideally, the customers will be so blown away by the expensive graphics that they don't notice the lack of a story.

Show threadsynlogic4242Jan 8
@grumpygamer I love that era/style. often "less is more" imo
Show threadptfedJan 8
@grumpygamer thanks for sharing, that‘s interesting.
Show threadKalaluJan 8
@grumpygamer Is the Flip button aligning left when it's active? That would be a clever UI feature... I guess.
Show threadRon Gilbert (GrumpyGamer)Jan 8
@kalalu It's Flipping it left and right. Mostly used for walking left and right without need new art.
Show threadHenrik PauliJan 8
@grumpygamer I think @kalalu meant to ask why the text in the button was aligned to the left, unlike the rest of the buttons.
Show threadlebout2canap ⏚Jan 8
@grumpygamer Were you supposed to brush that guy?
Show threadChris White finds this vexingJan 8
@grumpygamer Really curious what's under the "Chores" menu.
Show threadRon Gilbert (GrumpyGamer)Jan 8
@stoneymonster Chores were what we called Animations.
Show threadChris White finds this vexingJan 8
@grumpygamer ok! I can probably guess why.
Show threadMark GardnerJan 8

@grumpygamer @jmac This was a state of the art game dev tool in 1985: Garry Kitchen's GameMaker on the #Commodore64 by Activision

More info: https://www.garrykitchen.com/product_history/garry_kitchens_gamemaker.html

#C64 #RetroGaming #RetroComputing

Show threadJPJan 8
@grumpygamer the rare and beautiful Blue Bernard
Show threadMeeea Jan 8
@grumpygamer so... so beautiful 😭
Show threaddruidJan 8
@grumpygamer What on earth was in the Chores menu?
Show threadRon Gilbert (GrumpyGamer)Jan 8
@druid It's what we called Animations.
Show threaddruidJan 8
@grumpygamer Ha! Nice. I love your games, by the way. ❤️
Show threadChris GreenJan 8
@grumpygamer Every bitmap in the early versions of Flight Simulator/Microsoft flight simulator was made in an inhouse "painting" tool written in MS basic. The commands were basically "ijkm" cursor movement with the space key writing a pixel in the current color.
Show threadEndyJan 9
@aachrisg @grumpygamer Did that tool go on to be Paint?
Show threadEricJan 8
@grumpygamer what platform is that running on?
Show threadRon Gilbert (GrumpyGamer)Jan 8
@winkywooster IBM PC. This is not eh tool we used for C64 Maniac Mansion, that ran on Unix machines and it lost to time. This is the toll we did for working on the IBM PC, PC Maniac, Loom, Indie, MI, etc.
Show threadendolexiJan 8
@grumpygamer @winkywooster Were those versions developed in parallel, from scratch? I always felt PC Zak looked way different from C64 Zak.There was no real way to "port" something back then, right?
Show threadcloudnautJan 8
@grumpygamer looks like thimbleweed park 2 (exclusively for C64) is coming huh? I‘ll buy it - just daying
Show threadatopoeia-oJan 8
@grumpygamer At Broderbund we used Macromind Director. There was this guy Matt Siegel who had hacked the file format so animations could be played in Broderbund products without their runtime system. Was pretty slick... part of it was in assembler I remember part in C which helped make it faster than the Macromind runtime as I recall.
Show threadPatrik SvenssonJan 8
@grumpygamer So cool, but the "Flip" button is making me twitch...
Show threadRon Gilbert (GrumpyGamer)Jan 8
@patriksvensson Why?
Show threadPatrik SvenssonJan 8
@grumpygamer It's not centered!
Show threadPatrik SvenssonJan 8
@grumpygamer Joking aside. Thanks for posting it!
Show threadslayerfest79Jan 8
@grumpygamer thank you Mr. Gilbert.
Thank you for all the joy you have brought to players all around the world (me from Germany) in all those years.
Thank you for still doing so and staying true to what is fun and beautiful.
And most of all, what brings me to thank you now, thank you for bringing a smile to my face in times where most of what I see here and everywhere is disconcerting.
Show threadmingistech Jan 8
@grumpygamer Bernard Bernoulli!!!!!!
Show threadワンプ八九八Jan 8
@grumpygamer I am still using the SEGA Digitizer :D
Show threadVincent HammJan 8
@grumpygamer if anyone is curious, there is actual documentation floating around for Byle
https://tandell.com/misc/SCUMM-Tutorial-0.1.pdf#page=144
Show threadEndyJan 9
@grumpygamer Is that the SCUMM tool?
Show thread8bitKittyKatJan 26
@grumpygamer I would genuinely love to have access to these tools, for fun. Hopefully that can happen someday.