5 ms·

Sadist – An old DOS game from 1998

59 points by nathell 3y ago

loa_in_ 3y ago
Fun! Wasn't on the other submission, a list of retro Polish games. Maybe it doesn't qualify as retro though.
- nathell 3y ago
  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.
  - hrpnk 3y ago
    Is this the right gameplay video? https://youtu.be/yZi7GF4NsNg https://youtu.be/yZi7GF4NsNg
    - nathell 3y ago
      It is indeed!
    - kbenson 3y ago
      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.
  - Tade0 3y ago
    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.
atum47 3y ago
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 3y ago
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 3y ago
  [dead]
- zokier 3y ago
  > First, writing code in national languages is mostly a shit idea Is English not a national language?
  - Koshkin 3y ago
    That’s not the point. For all intents and purposes English is an international language, and I’ve always had a strong doubt that UNIX, for example, or C, could become as wide-spread if they were based on some other language.
    - FartyMcFarter 3y ago
      We're not talking about UNIX, it's a personal project. Saying it's a "shit idea" to choose a particular style for a personal project is a huge stretch, and quite rude to be honest.
- shrimp_emoji 3y ago
  Imagine if we had to write `整数 i = 0`.
- msla 3y ago
  > Second, don't underestimate Pascal. One of the problems with Pascal is that practically nobody used it. They used Pascal-ish languages like "Borland Pascal"™ and "Delphi"™ and other proprietary systems that flat-out don't work on modern operating systems without a lot of annoyance and expense such that it's easier to rewrite the code. Pascal was a teaching language from the 1960s which was good enough to steal ideas from but not good enough to actually copy.
nathell 3y ago
The sequel, Sadist 2 (2000), has also been open-sourced. It shares many things with its predecessor, but, according to the author, the code is much more interesting. :) https://github.com/gadzombie/sadist2 https://github.com/gadzombie/sadist2

59 points by nathell 3y ago

loa_in_ 3y ago

Fun! Wasn't on the other submission, a list of retro Polish games. Maybe it doesn't qualify as retro though.

nathell 3y ago
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.
- hrpnk 3y ago
  Is this the right gameplay video? https://youtu.be/yZi7GF4NsNg https://youtu.be/yZi7GF4NsNg
  - nathell 3y ago
    It is indeed!
  - kbenson 3y ago
    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.
- Tade0 3y ago
  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.

atum47 3y ago

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 3y ago

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 3y ago
[dead]
zokier 3y ago
> First, writing code in national languages is mostly a shit idea Is English not a national language?
- Koshkin 3y ago
  That’s not the point. For all intents and purposes English is an international language, and I’ve always had a strong doubt that UNIX, for example, or C, could become as wide-spread if they were based on some other language.
  - FartyMcFarter 3y ago
    We're not talking about UNIX, it's a personal project. Saying it's a "shit idea" to choose a particular style for a personal project is a huge stretch, and quite rude to be honest.
shrimp_emoji 3y ago
Imagine if we had to write `整数 i = 0`.
msla 3y ago
> Second, don't underestimate Pascal. One of the problems with Pascal is that practically nobody used it. They used Pascal-ish languages like "Borland Pascal"™ and "Delphi"™ and other proprietary systems that flat-out don't work on modern operating systems without a lot of annoyance and expense such that it's easier to rewrite the code. Pascal was a teaching language from the 1960s which was good enough to steal ideas from but not good enough to actually copy.

nathell 3y ago

The sequel, Sadist 2 (2000), has also been open-sourced. It shares many things with its predecessor, but, according to the author, the code is much more interesting. :) https://github.com/gadzombie/sadist2 https://github.com/gadzombie/sadist2