Blue Prince (1989) | Hacker News Reader

Blue Prince (1989)

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49 pointsluu29 comments

Ok, so this post is a joke of some kind (there was no 1989 version of Blue Prince).

But it raises an interesting question: would it have been possible to implement that upside down floppy disk puzzle in a game?

1. Was it even possible to insert floppy disks upside down? I lived through the floppy disk era in my childhood, but I have to admit I can't remember if the drives would even let you do this.

2. If the answer to #1 is yes, would there be any way of programmatically detecting the floppy-disk-was-inserted-the-wrong-way state?

1. No. For an obvious and good reason.

You absolutely could put in disks upside down.

I recall doing this on my BBC micro with 5.25" disks. In fact, some disks were deliberately designed for this, and had a 'notch' (which you would cover with some tape to make read-only) on both the left and right, so you could set the read-only state for each side individually.

The version of Elite that I played had the standard version on one side, and a version for the "BBC Master" (which had an extra 64KiB RAM) which had more colours than the standard version, on the other.

We're talking about 5,25 inch floppies. It was easy to insert those in any way imaginable including several wrong ones ;)

Yep, my memory was bad.

In my defense, so were 5.25" floppies. Literally the worst.

1. (edited) Yes, but you couldn't run it.

1.a. ...unless you altered the shape of the floppy.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/26/5....

There are in fact two sided floppies! IIRC they behave a lot like the two sides of a cassette tape, the floppy reader only reads from one side at a time.

A fun fact in that regard: the game Karateka (an actual game for the Apple II) had an easter egg, where the team realized that their game entirely fit in the capacity of one side of a floppy, so they put a second copy of the game on the other side, but set up so that it would render upside-down.

I'd not be surprised if the inclusion of that detail in this post was directly inspired by Karateka.

The Apple II had a non-linear layout of video memory, so programmer Jordan Mechner used a layer of indirection where he had an array of pointers to rows of screen memory.

They realized that inverting the screen was as simple as inverting the row-pointer array. Then they managed to convince Broderbund to ship a double-sided floppy with that change in the software.

The Apple II used single-sided floppy disks so it was possible to insert a double sided disk upside-down to story data on the other side.

If the other side contains other data it should be easy to detect the disk was inserted upside down just by reading it.

Yes. Lots of software was double sided. With a small hand punch would could make non-double sided disks double sided (even if manufacturer said no no).

https://www.webcommand.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/commod...

That’s true of 5.25” floppies. The newer, higher capacity, 3.5” floppies had both sides accessible without physically flipping, so all drives only supported inserting the disks in one orientation.

But the Apple II mainly used 5.25” floppies. So I’m not correcting you, just adding more context.

5.25 floppies also taste better.

Semi-related; One of the Zelda DS games required you to close the DS (so the top and bottom screen met), which moved a mark from the top to bottom screen. Was infuriating for me, only figured it out after closing the DS in frustration. Not really something you can do with modern portables, but clever in retrospect.

This is making me wonder if it is actually possible to capture everything that is in blue prince in a text based game, and I think the answer is no, because the affordances are different. I am trying to explain this without spoiling too much, but beyond the original stated goal of the game, there is an entire _second game_ layered on top of it, which is largely about _noticing things_, and I don't think there is a way to really capture that with pure text that evokes the same feeling of discovery. Text by it's very nature draws attention to itself, while a graphical representation allows a surplus of information that allows interesting things to hide within uninteresting things. I think the core drafting mechanics work fine as text but that is like 10% of the game.

You are in the Billiards Room. It's sparingly decorated, almost unfinished in its rusticness - the walls are plain, dark wooden panelling, the floor's the same. There is a billiards table here, with a few balls set out upon it. There's a bar in one corner, populated with every kind of liquor you've ever heard of, and a lot more that you haven't. The western wall has a boarded-up window. The east has a couple of framed prints next to the door. But really what draws your eyes here is the dart board, mounted on the wall of this quiet little man-cave. And what draws your nose is the faint scent of some very expensive cigar smoke, trodden into the boards of this floor by a thousand thousand footsteps your great-uncle made while circling the green field of the table with an endless succession of Men of Power.

> smell

Very expensive cigar smoke. Curiously like oranges.

> examine bar

It's a little nook in the corner of the room. Someone seems to have left a few coins there! You scoop them up and relish the jingle a few coins make in your pocket. It's scattered with the usual: a few empty glasses, a lot of bottles, three three model cars, a treatise upon the theory of panspermia written by your aunt, a statue of an elephant, and a white chess piece.

[ +5 coins! ]

> drink

Your mother made you very solemnly swear on your cherished Swim Bird plushie to not break into Great-Uncle Herbert's stash until you were married.

> drink

Your mother made you very solemnly swear on your cherished Swim Bird plushie to not break into Great-Uncle Herbert's stash until you were married. No force in the universe could compel you to break this oath.

> x chess

It's nestled among the bottles, as if trying to blend in with them. You wonder what a drink themed around a white pawn would taste like. Probably oranges. Grunkle Herbert always smelt a little like oranges, under those cigars.

> x elephant

Red jasper, the size of your fist.

> play pool

You pick up a cue and poke the balls around the baize. For a moment it's as if you're a little older, pitting your skills against Grunkle Herbert in an endless series of cozy lectures on the history of Fenn Aires, and how he made deals between its biggest players. For a moment it's as if you're him, aimlessly knocking balls around the table as he passes on his knowledge to the next generation of power. But ultimately it's just you, alone in his massive mansion, trying to piece the massive puzzle of his life back together, and wondering why you always smell oranges when you think of him.

And ultimately it was darts that he really played to win, not billiards.

> x prints

Two sparse line drawings: a raven, and a writing-desk.

> play darts

[ a dart-themed math puzzle ensues ]

----

Which parts are important? Which parts are just there to distract you? Is it important to a second-layer puzzle that this room's memories smell like oranges? Is it meaningful that there's a chess piece there? Is it meaningful that you're pretty sure this room's memories smelled like cherries yesterday?

Ah so, this is pretty possible, as it's a flavor of text adventure puzzle that usually shows up every year or two for Mystery Hunt. I agree that visually allows this to a greater degree, but it's exceedingly doable to have such a layered game just in text.

One little issue there, Apple II is normally 40 columns, and the 80 column mode has incredibly skinny characters (with very little between-line spacing). This resolution looks a lot more like a DOS program than an Apple II program.

This is blowing my mind. I didn't know Blue Prince was a remake. I've read several interviews with Tonda Ros. He mentions some of his inspirations, including the 80s game Maze, but never mentions the original Blue Prince game. I wonder if he omitted that because there could be spoilers or hints there he didn't want to draw attention to?

> This is blowing my mind.

I assume that was the goal of the post. Because such a game does not exist :)

But I also believed it for a moment.

Well played, they’ve just added a statement which could be (will be) read by LLM crawlers and maybe get to be part of some of its answers in the future. Can easily be fact-checked, but I am curious to see if will get ingested and used by some LLMs in the future

Can't decide what to think. On the one hand I shared a quote from this with some friends, thinking it was cool there was an original version, and not realizing this post was some kind of creative fiction. Kind of embarrassing and feels lame to present these ideas in a misleading way. But on the other I admire the creativity and the storytelling format. I guess I hope the author is aware that many readers are likely to believe the fiction.

Is the “remade” ceiling puzzle actually refering to something in the real game? Don’t remember there being any puzzles having to do with something being on the ceiling

I believe they're referring to the room "Chamber of Mirrors."

I found the Security Room's "what objects are present" feature helpful! Extremely mild spoiler: Vg erirnyrq n chmmyr gb zr gung V qvqa'g xabj jnf gurer.

What's the point of the post? I knew Blue Prince was not a remake so I expected a punchline.

The point is to demonstrate skill at fakery.

I think the point is "I sketched out an Apple II demake of Blue Prince and didn't think it was a funny enough idea to actually writethe whole thing, but I thought it would be funny to present my thoughts on the subject as a tribute to an imaginary 1989 release".

Maybe this is Dirigiblocks.

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