First of all: thank you Ticalc.org; great site

But anyways in reply to the article, I agree. I do not, however, believe that the Ti-community is now dead, like it won't get better. But there is great POPTENTIAL still existant. Altogh some games do get old because they are "srupid" clones. But new aspects exist for ti games such as:

**Soundtrack (If capable like memory)ala Plain Jump II

**Better RPG's (don't get me wrong but Zelda is great but really, please no more games with little people fighting dragons with swords and talking to wizards.)

**Series (a continued string of episodes, which evolve from each other.)

**More Secrets and Suprises(Codes, secret rooms, moves, keypresses, etc.)

**3-D Simulations (Engines, maybe overhead views with juming, and mario-types with forward and back movement(Oddworld and Sub-Zero Mythologies))

**More Recognizable "companies"(those programmers who work on a program or are even associated with the programmer(s) should appear in a recognizable frequency.)

**Release Dates Proposed, Anticipated, and Met(making a bigger deal out of program release(be it a basically goooooooood game)games will gain better ratings.)

These are just some of the improvements that could prolong and/or increase interest. . . in the program community.
I myself am a programmer(Z80)and am slowly working on one that will follow, as much as I can, these guidelines.

'jour,
Nihilist9

this is a reply to lemonhead who mentioned the host of pong clones, and to anyone who knows the answer to my question:

I think TI-NOID is the best feature-rich game I have played for TI-92. Even though it had terrible bugs, I wanted to come back and play it again. What ever happened to that game???

I agree with Justin. Lately I've also noticed that many users as well as a couple of programmers are beginning to consider programming our calculators a businness. IT IS NOT A BUSINESS, IT IS A HOBBY. Many of us like programming and we do it for fun. When we are pleased with our creation we share them with others only to get insulted if we made mistakes or no credit for no mistakes. Personaly, I hate people who make programming the calculator a businness and take the fun out of our common hobby.

From: Chris (Man in the Moon)
ch@calc.org

Truly. Read my post reply above. Let this be the learning experience, the hobby, and let the business come later. _This_is_a_hobby_. Let it be a business when you do it for a living, not in your spare time. You devote 8 hours _a_day_ to a program and spend the rest of your time relaxing, then you can sell it. But please, don't make what is into something which is not.

i think that games are so bad lately bc lazy-minded american programmers and artists have no concept of an enjoyable, fulfilling, cool, fun peice. pop artists these days (of all types) are extremely beligerent in their creative process, with the CLICHES, and the blandness, and the negativity. i think that snes, nes, and psx games are the BOMB! i think that n64 sucks, generally. the oldschool world of miyamoto has been absorbed by capitalist corporate clown-haired rodents. people have lost the concepts of the old, and think that originality is equal to laziness. in short, celebrate and expand good games, and never criticize hard workers unless they are uneducated and or ignorant. creativity really means freedom! creativity does not know rules, nor does it know prejudice! every idea in your mind can be made into a peice only if you have the skills. ti games are totally innocent. let them go wherever they want.

"Lazy minded American programmers"?????
What the heck are you talking about??
What does race or up-bringing have to do with anything?? You speak nonsense.

What?

1) <lazy-minded american programmers and artists>

+

2) <Creativity does not know rules, nor does it know prejudice>

=

3) This makes you one of the least creative people out there.

Not that I disagree completely with your article, but...
There is hardly anything original, nor has there been for a very long time (longer than any of us have lived).

I think the book THE FOUNTAINHEAD, by Ayn Rand has an appropriate comment (although about architecture, it can be applied to games). We borrowed from the Victorean Age for buildings, they borrowed from the middle ages, the middle ages borrowed from ancient greeks, etc. Same with books. Tolkien and his ideas for the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy aren't exactly that new.

But I think that what most people think is creative is what they grew up with. IE: I cannot stand Zelda 64. I think it is one of the worst games of all time, no plot, bad graphics, terrible sound, etc. But many people love that game and others on PSX and N64. And I bet if you check out who else hates Zelda 64, I bet the majority of them have been playing games longer than those who think its the greatest game of all time. Now try showing those people who think its the greatest game of all time a game on a NES or Atari 2600, and I bet they won't appreciate it as much as those who grew up with those games. Also, there are tons of lousy games on the NES and SNES which you seem to be fond of.

But I don't mean to be criticizing you because you have different tastes than me.

Also, flames should be expected. (I am sure someone will point out ill logic in my response.) But I look at it this way. I could care less about the people who critize a program which I write if I know they cannot do better. Ignorance is part of human nature. Though sometimes flames lead to basic design flaws which could help. People will never be completely satisfied with anything anyone programs. It takes an incredibly long time to write anything worth while. Who cares if it is in asm or basic. It might be faster and look better, but a 20000+ line program is still a 20000+ line program which takes time to write (maybe 2000+ lines for a calculator).

I think what you might be referring to is the size of the community. I think if you go to Stroustrup's homepage, he makes a point about C++. When a community starts small, like a long time ago in the beginning of the PC, more, and I hate to say this, "elite", make up the community. How many people here had an Apple II, or anything earlier (not talking about emulators)? I will make another guess that people who did learned to do a little programming, and many programmers we know today started because the community was smaller back 20+ years ago. But the bigger the community gets, the more it follows the trend to the common person. And that leads to ignorance floating around.

But looking at it as objectively as I can, I don't think that the TI community is that large. It is larger than when the TI-85 came out, but how many of you were actually writing complex games back then? It wasn't until recently (last 10 years is my guess) that many high schools wanted/required scientific calculators. And that eventually leads to at least one person per school who has a link cable or a lot of time, and shows people a tetris clone, or something similar. Then people start to want bigger and better things.

To conclude, I guess it's just the evolution of the community. Despite what many people may think about this being the end, there *hopefully*, will always be a small community somewhere, even if calculators evolve into a much bigger scale.

I started gaming a while ago. My first system was and Atari. I thought games like Pac Man and Yar's Revenge were so awsome. Then the NES came along and I was dazzled by new, more complex games, like Mario, Metroid, Donkey Kong, and the like. After that, the SNES came out and I thought Super Mario World and Secrets of Mana were the coolest games in the world. Playstation came out, Twisted Metal, Metal Gear Solid, etc. were then the best in my mind.

After playing a complex game, going back to a joystick with one botton to manuvere a little yellow head is, well, not as fun. Yeah, it WAS fun, but it's outdated. I really don't think you could find someone who would choose an old Atari 2600 over a brand new PSX or N64. There's probably no one would want an 386 over a Pentium II. Why? Both options will leave you with games. It's because new, more complex games are better. No matter how good Wolfenstein 3D was back on an old crappy computer, it's never going to be as good as Quake 2.

creativity exceeds technique

We can all say creativity is important and that few people in the ti world are creative, but just remember that its easier to say "be creative and make some new cool games" than it is to do. Tell us some ideas of games you had in mind and I'll look into making them (I only do ti-basic though).

do you know who i am... i've probably made more 83 asm than any other sole author. i just stop prodcution and release demos when i hit a brick wall. chicken shoot, zelda demo, rogue runner demo, jumble demo, punchout demo, and a few others are creative.

Well jolly good! You've done quite a bit for us. Keep up the good work and try to get past walls and stuff of that nature.

Is Zelda, Punchout, etc. creative? It may be the first time they're one the calculator, but they were out on the NES way before that.

Justin is right. I can remember when I first got my Graph-Link cable. ASM was new to me and my school. The games were the greatest and they helped pass the time in pre-calculus. As time wore on, it seems that the quality of games(graphically) has increased dramatically. The originality of TI-games has plummeted, though. I think we should all take a minute to look back at the TI community's history and get back to creating original games.
I also think that users should not ask too much from the people that program games/programs for TI calculators. If they want a port for their calculator, they should try to learn assembly and make the port theirself.
Thanx for reading this and I hope the situation improves.

I completely agree with what you have to say, Justin.

The problem is that the people who comment brutally only are concerned only about three people ("me, myself and I"). They don't care about how other people people feel; they only care about their interests. Since that kind of person would have definitely not tried to program before, they should have no right of making negative comments. As far as I'm concerned, these kinds of issues shouldn't even exist.

People have not considered the programs that have never been released because of the problems the programmers couldn't overcome. Many programs, I would assume, never make it to the light of the public because of their complexity. Only capable people who persevere can write and finish games like Joltima and Super Mario Quest. Great job Justin and Don!!

Once anyone sees the hard work that people put into a complicated piece of art, they should NEVER be able to make such derogatory comments, as it would be morally incorrect.

Oh, and the same applies to people who copy people's work... They don't deserve to receive credit, as they did not go through the process.

But sadly, and unfortunately, history repeats itself.


It's up to the TI-community as a whole to keep a fresh, open mind.

keep an open mind.....unless the game is called rape.

In the beginning, all games that come out are original. This is because there's nothing to compare it to. As time wears on, games begin improving upon the ideas others. An example of this is Quake. One could say it's a Doom clone. Yeah, it is, but what's Doom? A Wolfenstein 3D clone? Yeah. I think that original ideas are great, but as programmers get better and technology progresses, it ok to copy off the previous originals. If no one copied other people's ideas, there wouldn't be Quake 2.... and who could imagine life without that?

Well, Wolfenstein3D was an updated version of Wolfenstein, made by ID. And who made Doom? ID, not some other company making a clone. I'm not saying you are wrong, and am not making a whole lot of sense, but I just had to point this out... I am barely awake and can't even think, so sorry if I do nothing but sound like an idiot...

I must agree with Justin on this point. Most non-programers don't know how much work it is to code in Assembly. I mean how many PC products are programmed in Assembly today? None that I know of. This is because Assembly is time consuming. The advantage is that Assembly programs are not bloat-ware. We need to be more respectful of programmers who put their works out for everyone to use, since much time, and blood were poured into them.

Hello, I have to agree on the last comment, assembly is just plain more difficult and time-consuming. I started this year in basic programming and everything was new to me. And then i saw assembly and i was dead confused. When i first saw basic, yeah, i was confused, but it all fell together eventually, and now i can program. But i tried to learn assem. by reading every tutorial in this site. I still dont have the slightest clue on what to do. At all. I read all the starters guides and all. does anybody know what is so good about assembly over basic?? because i think that if i continue programming, im usin basic. and since im still new at basic, if anyone has any codes that are written out, please send them to me. the link hole on my calc is broke, thats why i need em written out. thanks a lot! andrew