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[Smith1776]

Nice Chinese spy balloon, Dualstow!

Thank you

The "alien" LOL. Nice, dualstow!

[dualstow]

I think it was debunked at least 2 years ago but always good for a laugh. :-)

[Smith1776]

I think it was debunked at least 2 years ago but always good for a laugh. :-)

My best friend is obsessed with aliens and UAPs (like, Joe Rogan level obsessed) and has been giving me all the updates day by day. He's convinced that the UAPs are legit alien spacecraft piloted by extraterrestrial lifeforms.

The thing about him is that he has an uncanny knack for being right about things before others catch on. He'd probably make a good fund manager lol.

[dualstow]

I’m writing it down now- I’ll never diversify into Martian commodities. All the choices on Earth are complcated enough. Don’t even have much in the way of global equities.

[Xan]

Okay dualstow, what's the new avatar? Is that an AI-generated image in the style of King's Quest?

[dualstow]

Okay dualstow, what's the new avatar? Is that an AI-generated image in the style of King's Quest?

I’m a *huge* fan of King’s Quest, as my brother and I really enjoyed it in the 80s (1980?) after seeing someone play it in the store.
But in this case, I merely typed “8-bit castle” into google images.

[Tortoise]

I’m a *huge* fan of King’s Quest, as my brother and I really enjoyed it in the 80s (1980?) after seeing someone play it in the store.
But in this case, I merely typed “8-bit castle” into google images.

I was obsessed with the King's Quest series back in the day, too. Something about the detailed fantasy graphics (landscapes, castles, etc.) combined with the game play concept of exploring and solving puzzles just hit all the right notes for me.

Quest for Glory and Monkey Island were cool, too, but King's Quest was OG.

[dualstow]

[Smith1776]

I can't believe I hadn't heard of King's Quest. I had to google it unfortunately. It looks like this would have been right up my alley, but maybe just a little before my time?

[dualstow]

I can't believe I hadn't heard of King's Quest. I had to google it unfortunately. It looks like this would have been right up my alley, but maybe just a little before my time?

It’s possible that Tortoise and Xan and i even played different generations of it. Mine was on a floppy disk, the big thin kind. You had to take them out and turn them over to continue the game, but it was very exciting at the time!

[Smith1776]

I can't believe I hadn't heard of King's Quest. I had to google it unfortunately. It looks like this would have been right up my alley, but maybe just a little before my time?

It’s possible that Tortoise and Xan and i even played different generations of it. Mine was on a floppy disk, the big thin kind. You had to take them out and turn them over to continue the game, but it was very exciting at the time!

Yeah, the Wikipedia page shows a long history. I was born in 1988, so my earliest gaming memories were around the tail end of the floppy disk era (Doom) and beginning of the CD era (Warcraft).

[Xan]

I can't believe I hadn't heard of King's Quest. I had to google it unfortunately. It looks like this would have been right up my alley, but maybe just a little before my time?

It’s possible that Tortoise and Xan and i even played different generations of it. Mine was on a floppy disk, the big thin kind. You had to take them out and turn them over to continue the game, but it was very exciting at the time!

I certainly remember playing Oregon Trial like that on Apple 2s in elementary school!

My first introduction to King's Quest was number 6 at a friend's house, installed via 3.5" floppies. Not long after when CD-ROMs came out, I played King's Quest 5 with actual voice recordings on the CD version at a different friend's house. Never did play the older versions (or #7).

However I was a big fan of Space Quest, and played all of those. IIRC Space Quest was about 1 release behind King's Quest, so SQ5 lined up with KQ6 etc. There were also some VGA remakes of the older ones, and CD-ROM versions of 4 and 5 with voices. (6 was CD-ROM only of course.)

Looking back though, I think the LucasArts adventure games were probably the best. Having no dying makes for a much freer game to explore, and it's also more of a challenge to write such a game (and so more fun to appreciate it as you're playing). Monkey Island was top notch. I need to check out Return to Monkey Island, a sequel finally by the same guy who did the original two, but I haven't had the time.

[Tortoise]

Yeah, I didn't start playing the King's Quest games until the early '90s, and by then they had done VGA/SVGA remakes of some of them (as Xan mentioned), so they looked much better than the originals. That was before CD-ROM was widespread, so the games were still installed from floppy disks.

Although I played the games a little bit later than dualstow and Xan, I still have a bit of old-school street cred: Sometimes, when my friend and I would get stuck on one of the King's Quest games, we would open a terminal window and dial up the Sierra Online bulletin board system (BBS) to get hints.

For you young'uns, BBSs were basically a precursor to the Web. You'd use your dial-up modem to call the BBS phone number, and when you connected, you'd see a text-based title screen and menus like this:

[dualstow]

hah! We had a local BBS in my town. I didn’t use it much, as there wasn’t much going on, but I did make use of CompuServe before I’d ever heard the word “Internet”. $8 an hour!

[dualstow]

@smithers

excellent avatar, sir

[Smith1776]

@smithers

excellent avatar, sir

It's classic, Jerry!!!

[dualstow]

(

Vinny wrote elsewhere : Am not recognizing your latest Avatar. Are you matching it with your signature? Estes Kefauver?

No, it’s the recently deceased Robert Badinter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Badinter

[vnatale]

(

Vinny wrote elsewhere : Am not recognizing your latest Avatar. Are you matching it with your signature? Estes Kefauver?

No, it’s the recently deceased Robert Badinter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Badinter

First time I've ever knowingly seen his name? An obscure person to most Americans?

[dualstow]

First time I've ever knowingly seen his name?

To date, you have seen his name eleven times in your lifetime, not including here.

An obscure person to most Americans?

I’d never heard about him until I read his obit the other day.

[vnatale]

First time I've ever knowingly seen his name?

To date, you have seen his name eleven times in your lifetime, not including here.

An obscure person to most Americans?

I’d never heard about him until I read his obit the other day.

How did you arrive at that calculation?

[dualstow]

How did you arrive at that calculation?

It’s extremely complicated, Vinny. But, suffice it to say, as soon as I saw your question I went right to work.

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