Advanced Dungeons and Dragons overlay question

[+atari2600land]

So on the top of my overlay stack is AD&D. I look at the numbers 3, 2, and 1 on the arrows. Then I look at the INTV keyboard. The numbers on it are 1, 2, and 3. Why are they backwards?

[+fdr4prez]

Why are they simply not numbered the same as the actual keys?

 

- those programmers were fresh outa college and they were still partying too much?

 

- That's the reason there are overlays, so you can know what functions the buttons are used for... I mean why tout overlays if they really aren't needed, yeah?

 

- the overlays were finished before the game was completed, and they thought it was easier to change the game than redo millions of overlays and manuals?

Edited December 8, 2015 by fdr4prez

[+intellivotion]

The numbers on the overlay are related to the difficulty levels, where, if I remember well, 1 is the easiest and 4 the hardest (by pressing the disc).

[+atari2600land]

OK, so why didn't they make 1 3 and 3 1?

[+intellivotion]

OK, so why didn't they make 1 3 and 3 1?

Dunno. Sub Hunt and Night Stalker have the inverted numbers, other games like the Tron's have 1, 2 and 3

Edited December 8, 2015 by intellivotion

[mr_me]

The guy that did the EXEC programmed four game speeds into it. He decided that keypad '3' would be slow, '2' is medium, '1' one is fast, and the 'disc' is fastest. The earliest games used the EXEC speeds to save memory. Some people, such as the AD&D programmer, may have been okay with this convention. Others, like the guy that did the AD&D instructions or overlays, or the guys that programmed some other games, must have thought it's backwards and '1' should be the easiest/slowest level.

 

I'm not sure if AD&D uses the EXEC game speeds. Either way, I guess the programmer thought best to stay with the standard.

[Eric7100]

I like bananas too!

[Walter Ives]

On 12/7/2015 at 6:52 PM, mr_me said:

The guy that did the EXEC programmed four game speeds into it. He decided that keypad '3' would be slow, '2' is medium, '1' one is fast, and the 'disc' is fastest.

Can't blame "the guy that did the EXEC" for the details, the decision to include this feature was above his pay grade. Pressing "1" increased the game cycle by 1 frame interrupt (1/60th of a second), pressing 2 by two interrupts, etc. The slow speeds were intended just for learning—users weren't expected to play the games at these speeds for long. This EXEC-provided feature cost the cartridge zero decles.

Individual game cartridges could easily turn the slowdown feature off. For some games, such as checkers, difficulty had nothing to do with the game cycle rate, so there was no point in using the EXEC slowdown feature and the "difficulty keys" were co-opted to select the game mode (one or two player). For others, difficulty was altered by means less crude than simply slowing the game down.