Conan: Hall of Volta

[andys]

I recently played through this one from the Apple II/Atari 800/C64. What does it have to do with Conan? Uh, not much. I guess you're a swordsman who, er, throws swords like boomerangs, and you take down an evil wizard. I don't remember Conan ever having an avian ally in the original stories. Honestly, it feels more like a Beastmaster game than Conan. I'm pretty sure they just threw the brand-name on an already designed game to give the sales a boost, but it's a pretty fun game that presents a decent challenge.

[sorcerer]

I remember that game! I beat it. That was so long ago I'd forgotten about it completely.

I agree it really isn't very evocative of the spirit of Conan with its science fiction themes, and particularly the way most foes needed to be avoided and the game revolved around puzzles to be solved with care. But it's still quite imaginative, and for all its dated graphics and sound it's interesting to watch through even today.

What emulator are you using to run it?

[andys]

Aug 2, 2019 16:38:42 GMT -5 sorcerer said:

I remember that game! I beat it. That was so long ago I'd forgotten about it completely.

I agree it really isn't very evocative of the spirit of Conan with its science fiction themes, and particularly the way most foes needed to be avoided and the game revolved around puzzles to be solved with care. But it's still quite imaginative, and for all its dated graphics and sound it's interesting to watch through even today.

What emulator are you using to run it?

I played it on AppleWin, although you could probably play it on one of those online emulators through your browser, too.

It's by the same company that made Bruce Lee and Zorro, which have a similar kind of vibe. I guess Datamost was really into licensed games. I do like the look of Apple II games. Despite looking garish, the games tend to have a lot of speed and movement in them, considering the limitations of the time.

[sorcerer]

From programming on the Apple II, I can tell you I still have the colors memorized:

0: Black1

1: Green

2: Magenta

3: White1

4: Black2

5: Orange

6: Blue

7: White2

It was actually a reasonable palette, better than the briefly contemporaneous CGA palette (though quickly superceded by IBM's EGA), and it was often creatively used; the eye could easily grow accustomed to "grey" walls made using blue, and "red" blood or "tan" skin using the orange color.

Speed was a problem, though. In simpler games like this rendition of Conan it could be rather good, but games attempting to display numerous sprites, such as Joust, quickly bogged down. The video games I programmed always struggled with low refresh rates, and I soon abandoned graphics on the Apple 2 entirely for text.