Brilliant. That’s 46% of the games, which is much better than what we had before. Will there be a second lot?
It’s just a pity that the Internet Archive didn’t capture the zip files from the ACE web site, otherwise we would have had a much better coverage. Thanks for doing this and please thank Doreen for providing the files.
I’m going to look through Doreen’s two unreleased games to see how complete they are. I’ll see about asking Karen et al. if they have any of their games’ files still.
You must’ve found a slightly more complete archive of the ACE games listing than I have in the past as quite a few of the titles on your list weren’t on my radar as ACE adventures… although, in many cases I am very familiar with their earlier Amstrad/Spectrum versions. I’ll have to thumb back through the Internet Archive snapshots of Andy’s old website. Do you have a particular source for some of the other ACE titles that we don’t currently have tagged as such in CASA?
Many of the games will just be fairly straight ports of the 8-bit versions, but there are several ACE-exclusive titles that it would be nice to get preserved.
(Yes, it would’ve been so much easier had some of the .zip files been hoovered up by the Internet Archive)
Of the games you don’t currently have in the download, I had noted the following on the Internet Archive’s snapshots of http://www.aceadventuregames.com/games/
So, they definitely exist (or did exist at one point in time).
I can’t remember where I got the info on the others. My notes for several of them say “listed on IFDB; authoring system not given”. This was probably a note to myself that the ACE version needs to be confirmed and that’s why I haven’t submitted them to CASA. Mind you, three of the others (Fly, A Hero for Sorania and The Portal) had the same note and they have now been confirmed to exist.
Of the unfound ACE games, my notes say that Rhyme Crime, The Search for the Wonderful Whotsit and There’s a Hole in Your Bucket were published by Adventure Probe Software, so that is a source worth checking.
It seems likely Rhyme Crime got an ACE version as it would’ve been easy to port over the PAWs code, as was done with others on the list.
The Spectrum version of “Bucket” was definitely published by Adventure Probe, and I’d put a note about a potential ACE version in our CASA entry so I’ve obviously spotted a reference in the magazine to that being in development at some point. Again, a port from PAWs to ACE would’ve been easy.
Whotsit was similarly published by Probe for the Spectrum, so again PAWs to ACE would’ve been easy. Transpo '95 and Raiders of the Lost Tomb, coming from CP/M PAWs, would’ve been straight ports too. I haven’t found any ACE references for those yet too.
I’m less convinced that Sleepin’ Again would’ve been ported to ACE, given that chunks of it are reused in the ACE game Driftin’ and Dreamin’.
I’ll see if the authors can remember if they ported any of those to ACE. From asking those sorts of questions in the past, I know that authors often don’t remember coding whole versions of their games, though! (That are later found to have existed)
I’ve got some extra information on The Lost Tablet, from Doreen, that I’ll write up into a CASA entry soon. Although that one was interesting, t’s unlikely that it was finished/published from what I’ve been told.
My notes say that it was unpublished, but I don’t know who the author was. I can’t remember where I got this info. I should really start to record my sources.
Okay! I uploaded the WinAce compiler, interpreter, manual, and sample game to the IF archive. I decided to hold off on the games temporarily, seeing as I’m clearly the least qualified here to provide information about them.
Apologize for being inexact in my comment. Of course TIMEOUT is not essential, nor PARSE neither. Without PARSE conversation is limited to e.g. menu driven and without TIMEOUT games can only be turn based, not real (or quasi real) time. Of course goodest games can be written without, what I meant was just the shortage of the most beatiful capabilities os PAWS. Hasty replies are always incomplete and take too much for granted! Sorry!