Date: Tue, 12 Jul 94 17:05:58 EDT
From: schulman@michael.nmr.upmc.edu (Christina Schulman)
To: macgifts@mac.archive.umich.edu
Subject: comp.sys.mac.games FAQ
Archive-name: macintosh/games-faq
Last-modified: 1994/07/11
comp.sys.mac.games FAQ List
(last changed July 11, 1994)
Welcome to comp.sys.mac.games!
[Minor changes only this month; I've updated the X-Wing/Rebel Assault,
walkthru, and Patchlist entries slightly, and revised for greater
clarity the instructions for obtaining this FAQ. Still no Doom entry
(yet), although I plan to put one in next month; Id Software isn't
returning my calls, so I'm waiting to see what IMG has to say. :-)
(I'm certainly not going to put in any rumors just on the basis of having
seen them on alt.games.doom.)
I'm considering posting this twice a month instead of just monthly--
feedback, please? Is the (hopefully) reduced level of newbie ignorance
worth the extra traffic?]
This FAQ provides the answers to some of the Frequently Asked Questions
on this newsgroup that aren't covered elsewhere. It is posted monthly,
on or near the 10th of the month, to comp.sys.mac.games, comp.answers,
and news.answers. Several other game-specific FAQ's are posted regularly
to comp.sys.mac.games, as well as the Patchlist, the mac.ftp.list, and
the Broken Games list.
How to get this FAQ:
The latest version is available at the Usenet FAQ archive at rtfm.mit.edu.
It can be ftp'd as /pub/usenet/comp.sys.mac.games/comp.sys.mac.games_FAQ.
If you don't have ftp access, send mail to mail-server@rtfm mit.edu with
the line "send usenet/news.answers/macintosh/games-faq" in the body of
the message. You can also send mail to schulman@michael.nmr.upmc.edu;
please include "Games FAQ" in the subject line.
WWW users can find it in hypertext at
http://wcl-rs.bham.ac.uk/~djh/macfaq/macfaq.html
or in plaintext at the WWW Usenet FAQ archive at:
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/macintosh/
games-faq/faq.html.
Corrections, suggestions, and large cash bribes are welcome; please send
them to Christina Schulman at schulman@michael.nmr.upmc.edu.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contents:
0. A word about flaming.
1. Where can I find Mac games available for anonymous ftp?
2. What does .hqx mean? What about .cpt and .sit?
3. Where else can I get Mac games?
4. What's the Patchlist/GPHL? Could somebody please repost it?
5. What's ResEdit? How do I get it?
6. I'm completely stuck in this game I'm playing. Where can I get a
walkthru?
7. What's an easter egg?
8. How do I fix the bug in Indiana Jones: Fate of Atlantis?
9. I just saw this really great game called "X-Wing" on the PC. When
is it coming out for the Mac?
10. I've done some programming on other machines, and I'd like to write
a game on my Mac. How do I start?
11. I've written this terrific game for the Mac. How do I get it out to
the major ftp sites?
12. What's "IMG"/"Inside Mac Games"?
13. Are there any freeware chess games for the Mac?
14. Is there a FAQ for [FA-18, Sim City 2000, Civilization, Pathways into
Darkness,...]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
0. A word about flaming.
Every now and then some moron posts something along the lines of "Mac
games suck!!!!! Get a real machine!!!!!" And immediately 30 or 40
people take the bait and post long, vitriolic replies and exhort everyone
to mail-bomb the perpetrator.
Please, please, please don't waste your time and our bandwidth replying
to this kind of idiocy. More often than not it was posted as a practical
joke from the account of some hapless user who left themselves logged in
in a public computer cluster. The owner of the account then logs back
in a day or two later to find several megs of hate mail and uuencoded
core dumps in their mail spool.
If you feel that you absolutely have to share your witty, concise flame
on the complete superiority of the Mac above all other gaming platforms,
take it to comp.sys.mac.advocacy, where it will be appreciated.
------------
1. Where can I find Mac games available for anonymous ftp?
The 3 major sites for ftp'ing Mac software are sumex-aim.stanford.edu,
mac.archive.umich.edu, and wuarchive.wustl.edu, which is a mirror site
of the first two. (A mirror site is a site that contains an exact copy
of the contents of another site, in the hopes of diverting some traffic
away from the more popular site. Wuarchive is updated daily; other
mirror sites are usually 1 to 3 days behind the "mother" site.)
Other mirror sites of sumex and umich exist at grind.isca.uiowa.edu (North
America), archie.au (Australia) and nic.switch.ch (Switzerland). It's
more polite and generally faster to connect to a site that's on the same
continent you are.
Bruce Grubb periodically posts a comprehensive list of Mac ftp sites
to comp.sys.mac.games. It is available via ftp at sumex as
/info-mac/info/comm/mac-ftp-list-387.txt and at umich as
/misc/documentation/macftplist3.87.txt. (The name will reflect the
current version, which may be later than 3.87.)
------------
2. What does .hqx mean? What about .cpt and .sit?
Files ending in .hqx are binary files which have been converted to
BinHex format so that they can be transmitted as ASCII text files via
USENET. There are various utilities that will BinHex and de-BinHex
files, among them Compact Pro and StuffIt (see below). Some Mac ftp
clients such as Fetch will automatically de-BinHex files when you download
them.
Files ending in .cpt have been compressed by Compact Pro; files ending
in .sit have been compressed by StuffIt. Compact Pro by Bill Goodman
and StuffIt Lite from Aladdin Systems are shareware; they can be ftp'd
from any of the major Mac ftp sites, and the registration fee for each
is $25.
StuffIt Expander is a nifty free utility from Aladdin Systems that will
uncompress StuffIt, Compact Pro, and Applelink archives. It will also
decode BinHex 4.0 files without requiring you to first strip the
headers. It's available at umich in /mac/util/compression and at
sumex in /info-mac/cmp.
------------
3. Where else can I get Mac games?
Well, you could buy them. Most software stores have a section for Mac
games, but you can usually get better prices, a better selection, and a
better return policy from mailorder sources. Each issue of MacWorld and
MacUser contains many, many ads for mailorder companies, between which
they occasionally sandwich articles. The phone numbers for the biggest
sources in the USA are:
MacConnection: 1-800-800-3333
MacWarehouse: 1-800-255-6227
MacZone: 1-800-248-0800
If you call them and ask nicely, they'll be happy to send you a complete
catalog.
Local Mac User Groups are another source for games; often shareware and
freeware games are distributed on disk at meetings or are available for
downloading on their bulletin boards. Contact your local MUG for details.
If you can't find a game anywhere else, you can always order it from
the company directly.
------------
4. What's the Patchlist/GPHL? Could somebody please repost it?
The Patchlist is a list of fixes that the legal owners of certain games
can apply to the programs to bypass the irritating copy protection
schemes. Anthony Chan used to maintain it; Geoffrey Peters now maintains
it and periodically posts the latest version to comp.sys.mac.games. To
get a copy, just send email to either af_chan@postoffice.utas.edu.au or
geoff@apanix.apana.org.au with a subject along the lines of "Please send
me the GPHL," not just "Patchlist." You can also ask Geoff to add you to
a mailing list so that you receive new versions of the GPHL automagically.
------------
5. What's ResEdit? How do I get it?
ResEdit is a utility from Apple that lets you edit the resources of Mac
files. (Hence the name.) You will need it if you want to patch games
or extract beep sounds. You can severely damage your software this
way, so you really shouldn't use it unless you more or less know what
you're doing. (And even if you do, it's a good idea to use it on a
copy of the file.)
ResEdit can be ftp'd from ftp.apple.com in /dts/mac/tools/resedit.
------------
6. I'm completely stuck in this game I'm playing. Where can I get a
walkthru?
Solutions and hints for many popular games are available via anonymous
ftp at risc.ua.edu in /pub/games/solutions and at ftp.uu.net in
/pub/games/solutions. There's also a large solution site at nic.funet.fi
in /pub/doc/games/solutions, but you will need gunzip or MacGzip to
uncompress these files. (Gunzip is available from the GNU archives at
prep.ai.mit.edu; MacGzip is available at sumex in /info-mac/cmp.)
If you can't find an answer there, post your question--chances are
*somebody* on comp.sys.mac.games has gotten farther than you!
If someone posts a question for which you also want the answer, instead
of posting "Send me the answer too!" send email to the original poster
and ask him or her to relay the answer to you.
------------
7. What's an easter egg?
An easter egg--the kind you find in Mac games, anyway--is any sort of
hidden surprise (hence the name) that occurs when an unlikely set of
conditions are met. For example, when the system clock is set to
December 25, Maelstrom displays Christmas ornaments in the title screen.
Another example is the very large literal easter egg suspended over a
remote lake in F/A-18.
Of course, if the programmer didn't put it in on purpose, it's not an
easter egg, it's a "feature."
------------
8. How do I fix the bug in Indiana Jones: Fate of Atlantis?
There is indeed a bug in Indy Atlantis. On the Team Path, when you land
the balloon on the "X" in the desert, the game hangs. A patch for this
bug is available via anonymous ftp at umich in
/misc/update/indy.foa.patch.cpt.hqx and at sumex in
/info-mac/games/com/indy-foa-updt.hqx.
It can also be obtained directly from LucasArts at:
LucasArts Entertainment
P.O. Box 10307
San Rafael, CA 94912
Phone (tech support only): (415) 721-3333
Fax: (415) 721-3482
------------
9. I just saw this really great game called "X-Wing" on the PC. When
is it coming out for the Mac?
Don't hold your breath.
LucasArts insists that there is no Mac version of X-Wing in development
and that there are no plans to start one. Much of the code in X-Wing
is dependent upon the IBM PC processor. Recently there have been hints
that there may be a Mac port of X-Wing under development, but it
definitely has not yet reached the coding stage as of July 1994.
X-Wing will run under SoftWindows on the PowerMac, but it's so glacially
slow that it's unplayable, and there's no sound. Hopefully this will
improve with the SoftWindows 486 emulator, which is expected by the end
of 1994.
LucasArts is, however, releasing a new Star Wars-based game called Rebel
Assault, which will be available for the Mac on CD-ROM only, and will not
be that similar to X-Wing: "They're different. Completely different
artists, completely different game, it's just....well, different."
According to LucasArts on July 11, 1994, the currently expected release
date is "the end of August." Hopefully they mean August 1994.
------------
10. I've done some programming on other machines, and I'd like to write
a game on my Mac. How do I start?
To quote the Public Domain Mac Programming FAQ Answer sheet, you'll need
"a Mac, a lot of time, and a few hundred $." Programming on the Mac
is not for the faint of heart. Get the Programming FAQ via ftp from
rtfm.mit.edu in /pub/usenet/comp.sys.mac.programmer and read it; any
questions it doesn't answer are probably best asked in comp.sys.mac.
programmer or rec.games.programmer. And good luck!
------------
11. I've written this terrific game for the Mac. How do I get it out to
the major ftp sites?
[This answer was shamelessly stolen from L.H.Wood's Screensaver FAQ,
with permission.]
If you want to spread good Mac shareware or freeware to the world, giving
millions of people, including me, the chance to see it, simply email a
binhexed copy of the compacted or stuffited archive to:
macgifts@mac.archive.umich.edu
which will distribute it to ftp archives across the world, including
the big ones - info-mac, umich, their many mirrors, and comp.binaries.mac.
Remember to add a text description of the contents before that long binhex
column!
Don't send self-extracting archives (SEAs) - Compact Pro, Stuffit Expander
and Stuffit Lite are readily available from these ftp archives, and we all
know how to use them. Dial-up access to ftp sites is on the increase and
SEAs run up others' phone bills unnecessarily.
------------
12. What's "IMG"/"Inside Mac Games"?
IMG is Inside Mac Games, a monthly magazine dedicated to Macintosh
Computer Games. A Free Preview Edition is uploaded monthly to sumex
in /info-mac/per. (It's also uploaded to AOL, Compu$erve, and GEnie.)
------------
13. Are there any freeware chess games for the Mac?
An unauthorized port of Gnuchess is available at umich in /game/board.
There's also "Chess Set!", a shareware chess stack for Hypercard,
available at sumex in /Game/Board. Steve Bushell's freeware "Chess++"
is available from ftp.std.com in /pub/python.
------------
14. Is there a FAQ for [FA-18, Sim City 2000, Civilization, Pathways into
Darkness,...]
There are FAQ's for many of the more popular Macintosh games. Try looking
in the info or games directories at the major ftp sites. Some are
available directly from the maintainer:
Civilization FAQ:
Available via anonymous ftp from ftp.uwp.edu in
/pub/games/romulus/hints/civ.faq.Z, by sending email to
djh@wcl-rs.bham.ac.uk with the subject "Civ FAQ please", or by WWW
at http://wcl-rs.bham.ac.uk/~djh/civfaq1.html.
F/A-18 Hornet FAQ:
Available via anonymous ftp from the Hornet archives at
chemotaxis.biology.utah.edu in /Public and williams.edu in
/pub/Hornet.Archive.
Pathways into Darkness FAQ:
Send email to David_Reevely@magic-bbs.corp.apple.com with the subject
"PID FAQ please". There are also "Pathways into Cheating" and "PID
Basic Survival Guide" documents available at umich in /game/gameutil.
Sim City 2000 FAQ:
Send email to Kevin Endo at thx@netcom.com with the subject
"SC2K FAQ please" or anon ftp it from netcom.com in /pub/thx.
------------
This document copyright 1994 by Christina Schulman.
Credits:
Suggestions and additions to this FAQ have been contributed by:
Anthony Chan <af_chan@postoffice.utas.edu.au>
Dave Stanworth <DJH@wcl.bham.ac.uk>
Sherman Uitzetter <sherman@michael.nmr.upmc.edu>
L.H. Wood <L.H.Wood@student.lut.ac.uk>
Thanks, guys!