It is amazing how much the community now knows about how Sierra's engines work. It's not like Sierra gave out the source code for them but you can't discount the amount of work people will put into something just for a laugh. And no one is surprised Santa would manage to get past the root monster
The first SQ game I played was SQ3 and my machine could only handle CGA so I think of the CGA version as the real version. None of your fancy 16 colours, all pink and cyan baby.
The hacky textmode versions make me wonder if someone could write a driver based off of libcaca, where it tries to pick sensible characters to approximate the original graphics. I don't know enough about SCI internals to know about how the actual text rendering works though, so I'm not sure if having all the text being completely unreadable would be something that could be fixed with that kind of approach or not. In theory it's all text, so drawing that in text mode would be the easiest part, but only if the text rendering is handled by the driver itself.
Yes. You could theoretically go through the game in VGA mode first, write down all the time codes (and where the buttons are, 'cos you won't be able to read the symbols), then restore your first save game on Xenon. The time codes are all generated at the start of the game so... it is technically possible. Just a huge fucking chore.
It's ironic how the first thing Text Mode does is obliterate all the in-game text. XD
Text mode is fascinating! Programmers really had to get creative with graphics limitations.
ALL ABOARD THE PAINTRAIN!
Space quest 1 forced into text mode looks just like a NES with dirty pins
And somehow still better than KQ5 NES.
It is amazing how much the community now knows about how Sierra's engines work. It's not like Sierra gave out the source code for them but you can't discount the amount of work people will put into something just for a laugh. And no one is surprised Santa would manage to get past the root monster
More pain on the train? On main? This is our gain!
Edit: Oh god, as if the Cyborg already wasn't distressing enough!
The Pain Train stays mainly in the plains.
The first SQ game I played was SQ3 and my machine could only handle CGA so I think of the CGA version as the real version. None of your fancy 16 colours, all pink and cyan baby.
truly the pain train
The hacky textmode versions make me wonder if someone could write a driver based off of libcaca, where it tries to pick sensible characters to approximate the original graphics.
I don't know enough about SCI internals to know about how the actual text rendering works though, so I'm not sure if having all the text being completely unreadable would be something that could be fixed with that kind of approach or not. In theory it's all text, so drawing that in text mode would be the easiest part, but only if the text rendering is handled by the driver itself.
So what does King's Quest V look like in Text Mode? That, paired with Cedric's voice, would be true torture.
There's only one way to find out...
Letssss go!!!
4 colour SQIV? You have committed crimes against Space Quest and her people.
Hear me out: text mode SQ4 with a 4 color CGA shader on top. Better?
@@spacequesthistorian Make it look like SQIII and we have a deal.
@@Harmon1ca Where would the pain be in that?
SQ4 text mode > Amiga version
Sad but true.
So what you're saying is that SQ4 is completable in text mode as long as we skip all the time pod parts?
Yes. You could theoretically go through the game in VGA mode first, write down all the time codes (and where the buttons are, 'cos you won't be able to read the symbols), then restore your first save game on Xenon. The time codes are all generated at the start of the game so... it is technically possible. Just a huge fucking chore.