Drug Wars, TI-83+ inspired game coming to your iPhone | Hacker News Reader

Drug Wars, TI-83+ inspired game coming to your iPhone

drugwars.mobi

34 pointsjmtame28 comments

As a point of contention, Drug Wars was popular back before even the TI-83 (not TI-83+) came out. My sister had it on her TI-82, and I had it on my TI-83, both long before the TI-83+ was ever released. Would be interested to find out who made the "original" version of the program, when they made it, and if the 82 was actually the first model they made it for, or if even that was an updated release...

Edit: as a btw, there has been a "drug wars" game available on the Android market for at least 3 or 4 months; long enough that I played it to the point of "beating" it and got bored.

The Android version is also open source :)

http://code.google.com/p/dopewars-android/

Hah, I remember the game on my TI-80, so I'm sure it must have old origins -- potentially a classic in the amiga days?

The TI-82 was the first model I ever saw it on, in the early 90's. Considering that the most readily available way to distribute the game was an audio cable, there were probably several versions from several authors floating around. A few kids at my high school wrote their own versions.

For the record, some of us played drugwars on our 8088 machines... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drugwars

Yup. I think I actually played it more often as a door/chain on some local BBSs. (Still, from my 8088.)

Vaporware. It's probably not going to get approved by Apple, unless they're easing up on their approval requirements these days.

Seconded. I actually considered making a clone of this game for the iPhone. It appears that there are actually lots of other people who thought they could do this, and needless to say, they were all denied.

Here's one of them, called Dope Wars, which was rejected and is now on the Cydia marketplace.

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2008/04/14/dope-wars-for-ipho...

there are already games that are considered violent which have been approved in the app store, like grand theft auto. i think with the new 17+ app rating, it's easier to get games like these into the store.

I believe there is an app called "Candy Wars" that is essentially a remake of dope wars... but without all the drug references so it would actually pass the approval process.

Yep, I just downloaded Candy Wars because I was looking for a Dope Wars clone...good luck with the project, though. I'm always interested in hustle games :D

Perhaps you could make a customizable "Candy Wars" that lets the user change the names of the candies. That'd probably be the best way to get it through the approvals process.

Ha, I remember having a version of this in TI-BASIC. I got tired of the cops busting me all the time so I modified the bust probability to 0.

I'd like to point out that I made hacky iphone web app back in Jan 09.

http://iphonedopewars.com/

I chose js/html because I knew that apple would never approve it. However, I wasn't really happy with the performance so I never did any marketing.

Well, I hope you make it to the iPhone, but, without Apple's approval it is still only a hope.

Special edition bag of weed? I've been promoting all wrong...

What looks awesome about this isn't quite that they've simply taken the TI-83+ game and brought it to your iPhone but that they've instead tweaked the game to take advantage of the iPhone's features. Adding a traditionally popular game to the social gaming / location based gaming sphere is a really cool idea.

For the Apple ][ fans there was Taipan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipan!

I spent many, many hours playing that game.

BAD JOSS!!!

I played Taipan a lot on the Apple II. Great game. I liked the overpay exploit with the moneylender. Many years later I heard about Drug Wars and played it. It looked like it was a mechanical clone of Taipan, just with a different world setting and superficial changes.

Various Apple ][ emulators do a fine job of playing this game if you are so inclined for a stroll down memory lane.

Drug Wars was my introduction to programming (probably not a good sign).

I started tinkering around with values and ended up making a notecard retrieval system that also simulated the OS clear programs function so my friends and I could cheat in geometry class even after the teacher caught on. There was also a tasteful Simusex-style easter egg game built-in.

how come no one did this already? i spent countless hours in calculus class in high school playing this. could be why i suck at calculus now...

though you could argue zynga's mobster games are all inspired by drug wars.

People have tried, Apple did not approve due to "adult" content. I doubt this one will get approved, either.

There's a Debian package for dopewars, which is pretty much just a remake.

Played it on the first 'computer' I owned: the palm m100

US only?

if there's enough interest outside the U.S., we'll figure out a way to make it work

And Apple's going to approve it for distribution? This is the company that rejected a dictionary for 'adult content.'

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