Arizona Daily Star from Tucson, Arizona • Page 77

i fje Arizona Batlg Star Sunday, January 15, 1984 Art 5-I Books 7-I 1W You are in a dark cavern, trapped inside a tiny room. The thief has taken everything you own, stripping you of your treasures and your weapons and leaving you with only a small brass lantern. He slashes you with a razor-sharp stiletto. Wounded, you fall into a corner. The thief moves in and delivers the lethal blow.

He even steals your lamp as he withdraws, leaving you to die in the dark. 1 xj 5 IMS MM) It (I V1 fy VK mm? 1 if a person were to make the same decisions that were actually made, the game's outcome would be identical to the historical outcome, Krogel said. However, pitted against the computer general, players can explore virtually limitless possibilities in the simulated conflicts. Fantasy games are a hybrid of the text adventures and arcade games. A small portion of the screen is devoted to a graphic display of the scenario, with the rest of the screen listing the status of the game's characters and the player's options.

The fantasies allow the player to create characters by inventing names, intelligence, strengths and so on, and form a party of characters, which, to survive, has to conquer foes, transact business, eat and sleep. However, the drawback to these gamesis that the commands are limited to one word or one character. 9 A recently released fantasy game, "Exodus: Ultima III," by Origen Systems Inc. was the hottest-selling game last Christmas at Simutek computers, 4897 E. Speedway, said John Gariepy, manager of the store's software department.

Bruce Subeck, manager of Computer-land, 6177 E. Broadway, said his sales of the the non-arcade games also are rising rapidly. The sophisticated new games appeal to an older audience that wants more challenge than arcade games offer, he said. Gariepy, who says he has beaten virtually every game on the market, feels the action and graphics of fantasy games are the wave of the future. "As far as I'm concerned, text is really boring," he said.

This view is not shared by Paul Fried-land, one of the experts at Datagame, 1010 E. Speedway, who said Infocom's "Zork" changed his life. On the first night Friedland spent in Tucson, two years ago, he left the YMCA, where he was staying, and went for a walk. Even though he had no experience with computers, he was intrigued when, on a whim, he stepped into Datagame. "They showed me a game called and I've been hooked ever since," Friedland said.

He has become so good at the games that he was recently crowned a "professional gamer" by "Softline," a computer-games magazine. His interest in the games prompted Friedland to learn programming, and he is now a free-lance computer consultant. "There's a lot of imagination needed to play the games," he said of the text adventures. "They're a combination of literature and board games." Nevertheless, two fantasies, "Exodus: Ultima III" and "Wizardry," are the most popular with players at Datagame, Friedland said. The Datagame gamers are becoming known in the industry as among the best in the country and have beaten some new games in six days.

'Wizardry is to computer games what the Beatles were to rock 'n' roll," Friedland said. The games can be played by the hour at public-access computer outlets such as Datagame, or at home but they can be an expensive proposition for the home-user. The programs range in price from $30 to $60, assuming that one already has a home computer, which is another $600 at least. To compound matters, not all games can be played on all machines. The exception to this are Infocom games, which can be played on almost any computer with a disk drive.

But, once equipped, players should beware: 'Zork' is an obsession," Friedland warns. "When they capture your imagination, that's it." if- fA 1 I-' 1 1 Fortunately, your resurrection is inevitable, because this scenario is one of thousands possible in "Zork," one of an ing style of computer games called, perhaps pretentiously, "interactive fiction." Interactive fiction and its sisters, strategic simulations and role-playing fantasy games, are redefining the meaning of the term "computer games." Unlike arcade shoot-'em-ups, the new breed is played without joysticks or hysteria. In fact, several of the most popular ones don't have any pictures at all just The new games don't last just a few minutes. They can take weeks to complete, with the computer saving the player's place between sessions. Nor are they merely designed for adolescents with twitchy wrists.

They are for adults with long attention spans Who take notes and leisurely ponder strategy. The new games are for thinkers and dreamers. They present complex logical puzzles, historical dilemmas, and, at their very best, aspire to become mini-novels in which the players are active characters. And the games are sweeping the country. In a list published by First Software one of the nation's largest computer-program distributors, nine of the top 15 games in the country, including the No.

1 seller, are non-arcade games. Non-arcade games fall into three categories: adventure, text games that place a player in a setting with little or no graphics; strategic, with limited graphics that either re-create historic military confrontations or pose future ones; and fantasy, which basically are computerized versions of the popular Dungeons and Dragons, in which players invent their own characters and move through a series of computer-generated" scenes. The player of any of these games controls the action by typing instructions on the computer keyboard. "People really are looking for more complicated, non-arcade games," said Linda Lawrence, marketing coordinator for Info-corn the maker of "Zork." The company produces only text games, relying on vivid description, complex problems and sophisticated player interaction to keep the games interesting. Infocom, based in 'Massachusetts, is unique in that its games will accept full-sentence commands, rather than the two-word orders employed by other games.

This is accomplished by the development of a highly advanced "parser" the portion of the program that translates what the user types on the keyboard into terms that can be understood by the computer which has a 700-word vocabulary and can even account for several meanings for a single word, Lawrence said. "We feel very close to the book industry," Lawrence said. Traditional computer SHr MnrMM by Mm Frtfrtckun the multiple players required by board games, said Chuck Krogel, director of research and development at California-based Strategic Simulations which pioneered the field with its "Computer Bismarck." "You don't have the headaches (of the board games), the computer games are fun-ner," Krogel said. "You set the stage and you allow the players to determine the outcome." All the games are designed to depict the real world as closely as possible, both in terms of historical accuracy and capabilities of the forces and weapons portrayed, Krogel said. The screens of these games scroll across a map of a battlefield, illustrating the deployment of forces and terrain.

The historical games are designed so that i Since the ground-breaking "Adventure," written by programmers for mainframe computers in the late '00s, sources for all-text games have been culled from genre fiction. The most popular themes are science fiction, fantasy and mysteries, in which the player is a detective who must gather evidence, interrogate witnesses who can get upset or lie if the tone of the questions is wrong and finally, it is hoped, get a conviction. Military and civilian war-gamers, on the other hand, were responsible for computer-operated military simulations. The simulations were an outgrowth of the traditional board-played war games, with the computer handling all the calculations and regulations that once filled book-length rulebooks. "War games on the computer can provide you with solitaire play," as opposed to that face off against either computerized German defenders or another player.

The objectives and composition of forces for both sides are identical to those of history. With excellent graphics, the screen displays a map of Normandy upon which the players move their forces. The game is difficult to learn at the beginning, but once rolling, it is thrilling and teaches players a good deal about the invasion itself. (Strategic Simulations Inc. $39.95) Infidel: The first part of Infocom's new "Tales of Adventure" series, Infidel should become an instant classic.

The fiction values are even higher than Infocom's al singer isn't programmers are not writing Infocom games; the 5-year-old company's principal authors include a physicist, a novelist, a political scientist, an architectural engineer and a doctor. "We have the capability of working with outside authors," Lawrence added. "We are completing such a project right now." Infocom's text games quickly draw players into their imaginary worlds by presenting complicated puzzles and, lately, complex characters that the player must deal with. The earlier text games moved rapidly from one problem to the next as the story unfolded around the player's decisions they were "plot-oriented." Infocom's newer games, however, place more emphasis on description of the scene and development of the characters in the text. will guide through the complex adventure.

i The game has color graphics and accepts simple commands. In this game, one of the best of its type, players of Exodus: Ultima III must find gold, purchase weapons, eat and sleep to survive. The excitement of these games is sometimes diminished by their somewhat primitive player interaction. (Origen Systems $54.95) Battle for Normandy: A strategic game for one or two players, Battle for Normandy faithfully re-creates the pivotal Allied invasion of World War II. The player controls the American and British forces Light Side' A sample screening of some of the non arcade computer games ready high standards, and the problems are beguiling.

Abandoned at an archaeological dig in the Egyptian desert by native workers, the player must first find and enter a buried pyramid. Once inside, the player must uncover the mystery of the pyramid. In an extension of the genre, which enhances its games with innovative packaging, provides an actual map and a snatch of translated hieroglyphics that must be used to solve the mystery. Planetfall: The player is dutifully swabbing the interior of the space freighter Feinstein when the ship malfunctions. interested A brief guide to several of the non-arcade computer games available: Zork This is one of the first and best-loved of all the adventure games.

The player must enter a dungeon and recover the 20 treasures hidden there. In order to accomplish this, the player must first overcome a variety of adversaries and solve logical and occasionally illogical puzzles. Zork is one of the more difficult text games. (Infocom Inc. $49.95) Exodus: Ultima III: A fantasyrole-playing game, Exodus: Ultima III is the current vogue among gamers.

The players create a group of four characters that they 'On the By Larry Harnisch TYm Arizona Dally Star Sit down with Earl Wrightson for a cup of coffee, and an interview suddenly becomes a one-man show about tha career of a journeyman singer and actor. Wrightson, 68, will appear with soprano Lois Hunt in "On the Light Side" next Thursday through Sunday and Jan. 28 and 29 at the Tucson Community Center Music Hall. The program, which also will feature members of the Southern Arizona Light Opera Company, will show Wrightson doing what he does best selections from one "Man not the Escaping in an emergency pod, the player falls to a once-inhabited planet. Whoever lived there met with a terrible calamity, and your mission is to discover what doom befell the inhabitants of the planet before you, too, suffer their fate.

You are assisted in this enterprise by Floyd, a mischievous, 4-foot-tall robot who is the most delightfully memorable character ever to grace a computer screen. This comical space adventure is ideal for beginners and amusing enough to keep the attention of more-experienced gamers. (Infocom Inc. Robert S. Cauthom in 'new could read music and told him to go see so-and-so." At the same time, Wrightson studied voice with Robert Weede, who originated the role of Tony in the musical "The Most Happy Fella." Wrightson shared living quarters with Weede, who was then a soloist at Radio City Music Hall.

The result was "four or five voice lessons a day, whether I wanted them or not," Wrightson said. "People say to me "God gave you the voice. Well, God had a lot of help from my teachers." As with other NBC pages, op-See SINGER, Page By 1937, Wrightson had moved to New York, where he became one of the NBC pages, a group that included such future entertainment figures as Dave Gar-roway, Gregory Peck and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Although a page's paycheck was relatively small, the job brought the possibility of business contacts and job opportunities. Wrightston told a story about singer Gordon MacRae's first "MacRae was in the men's room and a producer heard him singing," Wrightson said.

"The producer came in, asked him if he Lerner and Loewe wrote great shows, with hit after hit," Wrightson said. "Then it stopped." The reason, he added, is one of finances. Because musicals are expensive to produce, producers have come to rely on recognized names to draw an audience. "Where do they come from? Movies or TV," he said. While even Ezio Pinza had to audition for "South Pacific," a modern composer must tailor his songs to fit the "name" star, he said.

As a result, a composer writes "non-music" for a "non-singer." But that is not his only complaint about today. Wrightson operettas and Broadway musicals. He is quick to point out, that of the newest selections he performs is "The Impossible Dream" from the 1965 show of La Mancha." "There's no point in singing something because it's new if it's worth singing," he said. Wrightson is not pleased with current trends in Broadway shows. "Whistle me a tune from Woman of the is Wright-son's friendly challenge.

To him, what's happening on Broadway today is mostly a matter of economics rather than music. "Rodgers and Hammerstein, added that unlike audiences of previous people today are afraid of sentiment, of showing their feelings. "It's not neat to be moved," he said. "My favorite shows are ones where I feel the characters have substance. You really care about the old man in 'Man of La If I haven't got them crying at the end, I haven't done my job." Wrightson has been "doing his job" since he began performing at age 16 under the encouragement of the famed baritone John Charles Thomas, who was a friend of Wrightson's family..