The Making of Stunt Island(fabiensanglard.net)

116 pointsby ingvevor 6 Jahren27 comments

http://fabiensanglard.net/stunt_island/index.html

27 comments

hvsvor 6 Jahren

I can't remember why I bought this game (I was in the middle of high school at the time), but I logged hundreds of hours in this game. It's hard to appreciate games from a generation before you because you've developed a certain expectation of how games are supposed to look, features you've come to expect in every game, etc. But there was really nothing like this game at the time. 3D games barely existed (they were mostly flight sims, as this game nominally is), but it had so much more. You have to remember that this was before the web (actually one year after its creation), and most people weren't on the Internet. Some of us nerds were on BBSes, Compuserve, etc. But discovery of new games came from gaming magazines, friends, and just going to the game store and seeing what was on the shelves (which, as I think about it, is probably how I ended up with it. I probably thought it looked cool on the shelf).

I don't really have a point, but this article brought back some memories of that time.

neuronexmachinavor 6 Jahren

Same here, I spent hundreds of hours on it when I was around the same age. I also thought it was pretty cool how detailed the instruction manual for it was (108 pages): https://manualmachine.com/gamespc/stuntisland/1119422-user-m...

leetroutvor 6 Jahren

If memory serves me This was an upgrade for me from Corncob 3D.

readwindvor 6 Jahren

Corncob was the shit. What was that other Amiga game? With the cones, and everything, it looked like corncob, but it was something else. I bet someone knows. Good times anyways.

readwindvor 6 Jahren

Backlash? Is that the title? Internal view, tons of cones, etc, pretty good gfx, fucking cannon shots out of your mouth/view. Backlash? The corncob person gave me memories. Loved backlash, it was fantastically graphic for its time.

readwindvor 6 Jahren

Djeeah, guess we're fucking back-lashing, or backlash, as the title is and goes: enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOG1p2DbDCI thanks corncob most valued person enjoy

Jaruzelvor 6 Jahren

> And I had an extra hercules graphics card that allowed me to debug on a separate monochrome monitor.

For anyone wondering how that worked... Hercules graphics cards had their screen RAM in a different part of the memory map than CGA/EGA/VGA. So a bit of clever coding could get you 'dual screens' even at the DOS level.

There's a few YouTube videos showing ancient IBM XTs running with two simultaneous monitors - one CGA, and the other Monochrome.

danparsonsonvor 6 Jahren

As it happens it was also possible (although not really practical :-) to run two VGA cards in the same machine. The secondary card was left uninitialised by the boot process (since it would have conflicted with the primary), but it was possible to download the ROM, call into the initialisation routine (thus firing up the card and making it the primary), and thereafter switch which card was the one currently mapped into the PC address space to control which display you were writing to.

Source: I managed to achieve it once, although only with a great deal of help from people on Usenet...

lonelygirl15avor 6 Jahren

I had/have dual MDA and CGA compatible video cards in my 8088 PC, and used it extensively for debugging. There were debuggers that would run well on MDA, while the program displayed on the graphics adapter. Additionally, I soldered a pushbutton switch to the NMI and ground on the CPU, and hitting that would break out of whatever might be locking the system and give control back to the debugger. For the 80s, it was a delightful setup.

Razenganvor 6 Jahren

I can still recall its intro and sound bites.

That was such a weird era in gaming history; all these cool ideas being explored, but average computing power was not quite enough to do them justice. An odd limbo between the era when most games didn't attempt to be realistic, and before games could actually be realistic.

So you had all these games that thought they were being realistic, and we did what we had always done: nodded along and pretended that they were indeed realistic, and helped them by sticking to their rails. :)

drewbeckvor 6 Jahren

“Just a bruised ego!”

neuronexmachinavor 6 Jahren

I still remember one of the amusing sound bites it would play if you crashed your plane while filming a stunt:

"Wait a minute, uh... up is down, down is up, and left is left... right?"

thomvor 6 Jahren

This was so much fun. I mostly just flew planes through canyons and did cool loop-the-loops, but my brother created a whole mini film called Attack of the Killer Christmas Trees... just because he could.

It's worth noting that the slightly less slick and less fun, but possibly more powerful 3D Construction Kit predated Stunt Island:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_Construction_Kit

penciljencilvor 6 Jahren

> Disney put me in an apartment nearby from which I could walk to their offices, and I tended to get in in the afternoon and work long into the night. Corporate America is not my natural habitat and I think I was regarded with bemusement by most of the Disney employees. We were receiving no money from Disney during this period, and I couldn’t afford to eat, so I lived on whatever I could find in the office kitchen.

It seems odd that Disney was willing to provide housing, but unwilling to spend even a dime for this man to eat.

VHRangervor 6 Jahren

Could be bureaucratic categories he fell into

unixherovor 6 Jahren

The graphics kind of remind me of the car game STUNTS.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/stunts

tincholiovor 6 Jahren

It was pretty much the same style of play, too, only more elaborate, and with planes. Both were great games, really.

dividuumvor 6 Jahren

Still available on GOG: https://www.gog.com/game/stunt_island

I regret not getting into it back in the day as I was too busy with Flight Simulator 4 and all its expansions :)

smclvor 6 Jahren

I love the minimum hardware requirements they list on GOG. I suspect you can get away with a slightly less powerful machine

cpachvor 6 Jahren

I like the picture with they guy standing on the boat deck.

Does anyone here know how pictures like that where made? With Deluxepaint...?

It doesn't really look like a photo, but close enough. But I doubt it was scanned? On the other hand, doing it by hand seems quite tricky :)

http://fabiensanglard.net/stunt_island/leaving_the_island.pn...

underwatervor 6 Jahren

The cloud and water look like photographs. Everything else, including the island, seems to be digital drawings.

fabiensanglardvor 6 Jahren

It is a highly likely the photograph were modified with Deluxe Paint 3. I don't see what else they would have used at the time.

readwindvor 6 Jahren

I wish he would run through "Midwinter" and "Midwinter II Flames of Freedom," though there are probably greater and more acute games. I love this guy and his work.

peignoirvor 6 Jahren

Oh so many memories, I spent so many hours as a kid setting up my own stunt. Would def want a new version running with a modern 3d engine (GTA V is a little like that)

GrumpyNlvor 6 Jahren

I love this quot under a 16 pixel image, A Mirage 2000 approaching the Golden Gate. Notice the city made of hundreds of polygons and the Gouraud shading.

recursivevor 6 Jahren

It looks like at least 320x240.

christkvvor 6 Jahren

This is a game I would love to see a modern remake off. It would be great for my kids as a sandbox to play in and make their own movies.