Fritz: All Fritz/All Fritz.zip/All Fritz/FILES/GAME_CGA/WIZGAM3.LZH/INFO.TXT

Text File | 1991-10-31 | 11KB | 213 lines

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WIZARD games                      4 Hoselaw,Kelso,TD5 8BP,Scotland
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SHAREWARE Summer 1991 releases
==============================

At last, a mere two years after it was started, GOAL, our game
of international soccer management is finished, bringing our
shareware releases up to seven, plus a freeware compendium of
smaller games.

In addition we have complete rewrites of both THE SOCCER GAME
and GRAND PRIX (the ascii help files for these games: SOCCER.HLP,
and GP.HLP give detailed information on all the improvements
made in these new versions). Our other games have had only minor
changes since last Autumn: mainly bug fixes to cope with
incompatibilities in certain so-called PC compatibles.

We now use only shareware  for distribution of our software, and
we are committed to raising the standard of leisure software
available through shareware and the public domain, worldwide.

Our releases are now:

1) GOAL - international soccer management: our latest release,
   and we believe our best game to date, from the amazingly
   talented New Era Software. This is the first of our games
   to be MDA/Hercules compatible, amd it should work on
   absolutely any PC compatible.

2) THE SOCCER GAME - league football team management: our first
   release, and biggest seller to date. Now on version 2: a
   complete rewrite with a great many enhancements over the
   original. Another superb game from New Era.

3) GRAND PRIX - formula 1 car racing team management: the Hole
   in the Wall team do for formula 1 fans, what New Era do for
   football fans! This game is also now on version 2: again a
   complete rewrite incorporating many features requested by
   customers since the original GRAND PRIX became available.

4) GREYHOUND - dog racing and kennel management. This is a very
   well presented, slick and addictive offering from Dogware.

5) ROCKSTAR - the crazy world of sex,drugs and rock 'n roll.A
   Wizard original. There's nothing else remotely like this.

6) CAPITALIST - a business management game, with a variety of
   gambling games included.

7) INSANITY - this unique, bizarre, and highly original maze based
   adventure/action game with its many puzzles and challenges is
   starting to generate a lot of very positive feedback.

8) THE WIZARD COMPENDIUM - a freeware sampler of our game-writing,
   containing 5 games not available elsewhere.

All our games are started up by the RUN.EXE program. Be careful
that SHARE files do not get mixed up, as these are different for
each game: keep the games in separate directories, or they won't
work!  The WIZARD files supplied with previous versions of the
games are no longer required.

A detailed descriptions of each game is given in the WIZARD GAMES
catalogue, included in the RUN.EXE program.

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What is WIZARD GAMES anyway?
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Wizard Games is a collective of enthusiastic (ie addicted)
computer game writers (the term 'programmers' we consider
inadequate to describe what we do - we don't want to be
confused with the poor creatures who write a few lines of
COBOL a day within a large data processing department, and are
more interested in their pay cheque than in the quality of what
they are writing). Our membership varies, currently numbering four
writers and several supporting game testers, technical advisors
and general helping hands.

Our eccentricities are many. We are a pretty reclusive bunch,
trying to keep a low profile, so that we get peace to program
and get on with our lives. The various names we write and have
written under (New Era Software, Back Street Software, Hole in
the Wall, Dogware, Wizard etc) reflect different authors and
partnerships within Wizard Games, and are basically pennames to
maintain our personal anonymity.

We believe that our games are each in their own way unique,
highly challenging and disturbingly addictive (and sorry but we
cannot help you with marital problems and the like caused by
loading up GOAL or whatever and being subsequently unable to
tear yourself away..). Most of our games (GOAL, THE SOCCER GAME,
GRAND PRIX, GREYHOUND, CAPITALIST) are management simulations,
treated in a light hearted but in-depth fashion, and we have
certainly never seen any competing game which comes anywhere near
them for depth of detail. THE SOCCER GAME, for instance, was
written as a direct result of frustration at the poor quality of
all existing football management games, and begins where the
others (Football Manager, Football Director and the like) left
off: we have a stack of letters from satisfied customers
testifying to our success in making the competition look like
no competition at all (and disgracefully overpriced to boot).
ROCKSTAR is a fairly seedy and very original role-playing game
(be warned,broad minded adults only for this one..). INSANITY is
very different from our other games, being a maze based adventure
filled with puzzles, riddles and challenges designed to drive you
up the wall, and this is perhaps the only one of our major games
suitable for all the family. Any of these games may take you
several hours to play, and you are unlikely to be able to resist
having another go... you have been warned!

We write whatever takes our fancy, with games simply providing
our bread and butter (and draining off our creative juices).
We will turn our hands to anything in our constant search for new
computing challenges, and if you are at all impressed by what you
have seen so far then 'you ain't seen nothin' yet!'.The potential
of computers for entertainment is enormous, and hardly tapped by
the 'software industry', who stick conservatively to tried and
tested formulas. We aim to blow their cosy world apart: it is
time for genuine artistic flair, craftsmanship and innovation
to triumph over hype,packaging and gross commercialism.

We program for the love of it - striving to break new boundaries
with our coding: we use our own editors and utility programs
(some of which may be released to the general public one day...),
to enhance our basic workhorse which is Borland Turbo Pascal
(aided and abetted by some very fast machine code).
We are developing our own fourth generation games-creation
language and programming environment (known to us as 'Z'), and
much of GOAL and the new version 2 of GRAND PRIX were written in
it. When Z is complete, Turbo Pascal will be consigned to the
dustbin ,or maybe given the decent burial due to an old friend.

We have decided (after various mishaps and burnt fingers) to keep
control of our own distribution, and to sell our games
exclusively via shareware: ie no advertising in the commercial
rags, and no dealings with the shark-infested commercial software
houses. We now sell registered copies of our games to
enthusiastic shareware supporters from all corners of the planet,
and we greatly appreciate the wealth of praise and constructive
criticism we receive. We applaud the rise of shareware, and
particularly the efforts of those dedicated shareware
distributors who weed out the gems from the chaff, and promote
this radical, ecological and sensible alternative to traditional
marketing methods. The only way to get hold of a genuine
registered copy of one of our games now is to send your money to
us at 4 Hoselaw, Kelso. This is the only way we receive any
payment for our efforts, and thus the only way we can afford to
maintain our computers, keep our landlords at bay, and support
our local public houses (oh and occasionally buy some food..).

We write only on and for IBM PCs and compatibles, causing some
frustration to Atari and Amiga owners who are used to having
things their own way, and have difficulty believing that there
can be worthwhile games for the PC which they cannot obtain
versions of! This is largely an accident of fate, as we all
independantly started off owning PC compatibles, and now we are
sticking with what we know for several reasons: PCs are by far
the most widely used computers in the world; there is a
lamentable lack of good leisure software for these machines (a
problem we are addressing in our own small way); and there is a
far better range of language and program development software
for these machines than for any other.

We don't bother with graphics (not yet anyway), although those
unfamiliar with the inner workings of the PC might well think
otherwise when lost in the highly visual world of our INSANITY
game. Our reasoning is that CGA graphics are so limited that
they are not worth the effort, and the myriad of different
enhanced graphic cards found on PC compatibles is such that
worthwhile PC graphics are inordinately time-consuming and
expensive to create (we would have to have a variety of machines
far larger than our bank accounts allow).But come on all you
shareware supporters, if you do your bit then we will enter the
world of high resolution graphics in due course. Meanwhile we
are sticking with the CGA standard, using text mode only, as
this allows us to quickly write fast-working compact games that
work on the vast majority of modern PCs.

Wizard Games is a very different animal from the commercial
software houses that seem to dominate production of computer
games these days. All they seem interested in is the latest
megabuck licensing agreement they have been able to land, and
the quantity of product they can shift in the Christmas market.
We raise our collective fingers at this sordid attitude, and
hark back to the early days of personal computing when all the
best games were written by fanatical kids in their bedrooms for
the sheer fun of it (remember MANIC MINER?). We regard ourselves
as artists and definitely not as businessmen. That is why you
cannot contact us by telephone (we want to be left in peace!),
and that is why we can take risks and continually break new
ground: we have nothing to lose except our eyesight and sanity!

We hope that you find our games entertaining, and if you have
never played any of them, even if you 'never play computer
games' we urge you to give them a TRIAL.. and that is what the
shareware concept is all about: try before you buy. So, welcome
to the world of Wizard Games!

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WIZARD games                      4 Hoselaw,Kelso,TD5 8BP,Scotland
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