[HN Gopher] Sadist - An old DOS game from 1998
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       Sadist - An old DOS game from 1998
        
       Author : nathell
       Score  : 47 points
       Date   : 2023-05-20 19:55 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | loa_in_ wrote:
       | Fun! Wasn't on the other submission, a list of retro Polish
       | games. Maybe it doesn't qualify as retro though.
        
         | nathell wrote:
         | Submitter (but not original author of the game) here.
         | 
         | Sadist (and its sequels) was little-heard of among the Polish
         | gamers of the late 90s and early 2000s, but it did manage to
         | amass something of a cult following. IIRC there was a small but
         | vibrant forum in its heyday, and the game's online fanbook (now
         | read-only) has 700+ entries.
         | 
         | The author, Grzegorz 'GAD' Drozd, was a frequent poster to
         | pl.comp.lang.pascal in its heyday. In addition to Sadist, he
         | also produced many other DOS and Windows freeware games, most
         | of them single-handedly. His site (gadz.pl) is well worth
         | checking out.
        
           | Tade0 wrote:
           | I learned of its existence when someone installed it on all
           | the PCs in my school's computer lab. For some reason it was
           | common knowledge that it was written in TurboPascal, even
           | though back then none of us knew what the hell was a Turbo
           | Pascal.
        
           | hrpnk wrote:
           | Is this the right gameplay video?
           | https://youtu.be/yZi7GF4NsNg
        
             | kbenson wrote:
             | I was wondering what the game looked like. From that video
             | it seems to be "lemmings with the weapons of worms", which
             | actually looks like it would be fun to play, for a bit at
             | least.
        
             | nathell wrote:
             | It is indeed!
        
       | atum47 wrote:
       | I can relate to the author. First code i wrote was a complete
       | mess also. Variable name in my natural language. I don't hide any
       | of my old code also, it's a testament of improving over time.
        
       | wtfdeer wrote:
       | The code itself is a mere curiosity, but it has two key
       | takeaways.
       | 
       | First, writing code in national languages is mostly a shit idea.
       | Here we can at least recognize and match some words, but what if
       | it was Arabic or Chinese script? Even with source code, you just
       | might've been better off with a disassembly.
       | 
       | Second, don't underestimate Pascal. For all its faults, the
       | language is very readable, and its build and module systems are
       | still more convenient than most of what we have today. I dearly
       | miss the time when you could just download some code, hack on it,
       | press Ctrl+F9 and see the result.
        
         | canadianfella wrote:
         | [dead]
        
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       (page generated 2023-05-20 23:01 UTC)