other high-level languages like C or C++

How times have changed...

I know the OpenTTD folks have been trying to deflect any ire from being directed at Atari, but man... fuck Atari for forcing them off of Steam and GOG. I really don't think they have any legal leg to stand on and are just saber rattling to scare the OpenTTD folks into submission.

Running OpenRCT2 on a Raspberry Pi is probably one of my favorite pastimes. It’s such an incredibly well-crafted game that it will run on nearly anything.

I seem to remember some chess game that was written that accounted for the memory drum hardware that used it which i would think would be the gold standard... might be this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1K_ZX_Chess

Btw the optimization for random walking of park guests makes for kinda shitty gameplay. Parks aren't designed at all like real parks, and transportation rides are almost useless. It's impressive for its time, yes, but the park simulation only visually looks good enough, it's not really good enough.

If you play it like a model building game (not a theme park simulator) then it's almost perfect.

Interesting article! You should cross-post to some retro gaming communities, I'm sure they'd love it. I still never okayed this game as it came out when there was too much heat in Sims in the 90s, but probably would have enjoyed it more than some of the sim games I did play.

If you are into game optimization tricks you might like this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lC4YLMLar5I&pp=ygUhdGhlIGdhbWUgdGhhdCBjb3VsZG4ndCBiZSB3cml0dGVu

It's about the original Elite, and all tricks needed to create a full virtual galaxy on 8 bit computers

I dunno, I'm sort of underwhelmed.

• use the smallest data type you need for a given purpose (which you don't really need to worry about on modern hardware for integer types)
• use bitwise arithmetic when possible
• use fake pathfinding when possible (in this case random walk), and when not possible, limit search depth
• don't do collision detection on thousands of guests; allow them to phase through each other

This is all fairly basic stuff I would hope any game dev would be aware of.

I want to optimize MR BONES WILD RIDE

RCT made my night classes in 2003 tolerable.

Programmer friend years ago broke it down for me like this. Yes, he did it in assembly, but similar to all computer things; he used large chunks of copy pasta. In no way does it diminish the achievement. But for layman, hearing that it was all written in machine code conjured images of vacuum tubes and Margaret Hamilton standing next to a literal person sized stack of typed pages. He moved mountains efficiently and intelligently with clever acumen. A real feat!

Now if you will excuse me, a handyman is drowning.

Chris Sawyer the GOAT