A Tribute to the Least Talented Programmer Ever!

This is the story of a guy who has always loved computer games. After playing around a bit with a C16+4 and a C64 he got his first own computer: an Amiga 500. Admiring the great games he experienced, he wanted to be creative, too. Therefore, he examined Amiga Basic. Without much success. Maybe he was just too young then or just too dumb. Nothing really worked out.

It must have been around 1993 when this guy first got seriously interested in programming. He started to learn Quick Basic 4.5 on his PC. This time he worked really hard and soon the first real product was finished: the simulation of a one-armed bandit. Featuring high resolution graphics and flashy effects it soon became popular with himself.

Motivated by such a huge success, he began working on his second game. It was a completely different genre this time: an adventure game. Unfortunately, only a map showing the locations was finished. The next try wasn’t much better. He wanted to convert a kind of role-playing-book (an adventure for one player) into a text-based adventure with non-animated graphics. Only a few pages were done, then he lost interest in it. Unfortunately, both fragments were lost in a hard drive crash.

A long time of inactivity followed. It is not known when this programmer exactly began working again. Probably around 1996. Lacking any real ideas he just wanted to create an interactive game show. So he just took one of the many TV-shows and converted it into a game. It was a glorious comeback! The final product not only featured all the rules of the original show but also a psychological aspect: the studio audience tried to influence you.

Once again euphoric, he started working on the next TV show. This time with a little help from another person. While our programmer was working on the code, the other guy typed all the content into it. This game had AI opponents acting almost like real persons! Unfortunately as the TV show was long gone, nobody remembered the exact rules of the last part. That is why the game just stops. Still it is worth playing.

A short inactive time followed again but it didn’t really last long this time. In July 1996 the programmer started his next project. This time on his own again. It was a text adventure, completely written by hand, not using a special IF-language. The story was ripped off a Mickey Mouse comic with just the characters' names left out. The “parser” didn’t understand much, puzzles were almost non-existent and the plot was ultra-linear. But nevertheless it received good reviews in the programmer’s family.

Right after this, he had the idea to use a Tintin comic as the basis for his next game. He chose “Flight 714 to Sidney”. Using the same “engine” this game was again strictly linear. A few puzzles were included but still not too much. The plot was shortened so much that it was almost incomprehensible to people who don’t know the original story. The only real new things about it were that a “game in the game” was included and the description of the locations now changed when the player did something.

Our crewmember at the time Tapuak commented in August 2004:

Flug 714 nach Sydney is a short and completely linear text adventure based on a “Tintin” comic. Most puzzles are quite easy, as the texts are mainly limited to the relevant objects. The inventory can be accessed at any time (“inv”). As a bonus, a computer version of the “Battleships” boardgame is included.

Once again, nothing happened for some time. A duel-style action game was never finished. In fact it was never really intended to be finished but was only made to prove the programmer could do something like that if he wanted to.

But then in February 1999 he was back and more genious than ever! He programmed a text adventure again. He improved his engine so that the player could at last move around freely and there was much more to do. In fact, the game was really hard. Especially for people not going to the same school as the author. Because it was a satire on his particular school. It became quite popular with his close friends.

Later he ported it to the TI-92. The first version was just an exact copy of the original. But then it became even better: The programmer had learned how to use the TI’s menu system. He included it and the player didn’t have to type anymore! This version was spread around the school very quickly. Suddenly everyone having such a machine knew it. Only the teachers didn’t like it because the students were playing it in their lessons…

Some small works for the TI-92 followed. Those were all written in boring lessons and weren’t really good games from any point of view.

Then he got the chance to program a game in lessons with permission. Together with another highly talented programmer he wrote his first game in Turbo Pascal. Still being used to Quick Basic he had some problems at first, but eventually it worked: Their school project was a clone of the C64 classic Imperator. Fully text-based it relied completely on content. Many planned features did never appear but playing against up to 3 other players is most certainly fun!

Knowing that not many people are interested in such amateurish games on the PC, our programmer again ported it to the TI-92 which had become very wide spread at school meanwhile. At least half of the school played this game then. Only for a week, then it was forgotten again. But still it was the greatest hit by the programmer.

The next project was started soon. So far it has never been finished and most likely it never will because the idea was just too ambitious: to port Balance of Power to the TI-92.

Maybe there will be another release someday. Who knows?

And for those who didn’t get it so far: I was talking about myself ;)