Jump to content
IGNORED

Any chance of manual for or further info on The Great Word Race by John Phillips?


pixelpedant

Recommended Posts

This is an educational game I've had since the late 80s, and not really touched in the many years since, though I certainly played it then.  I popped it in (well, popped it in, determined the contacts were not cooperating, cleaned them, popped it back in, and played), for the sake of reminding myself how it played, today.  I can barely find reference to it online.  It's mentioned, but only in name, on this page, regarding John Phillips games.   Mine, looks like this, at this point:

 

image.thumb.png.cb65699810db14cd0e64c3e670c9c79f.png

 

Lode Runner/Midnite Mason sort of thing, but in which you're collecting letters to assemble words in letter order.  Has the ability to edit word lists and save/load them from disk, so that's neat. 

 

Anyone know anything more about it?  Any chance of a manual?  Can't find one in the places I've checked so far. 

 

Here's a recording of the basic gameplay:

 

 

I know it's not the sort of game people care much about, a few decades on.  But I was always a word nerd.  So it found a very fitting audience in me, at the time. 

 

Edited by pixelpedant
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So from what I can see (it's one I'd heard mentioned plenty of times, but never owned or played), Face Chase is the same design, just collecting faces instead of letters of a word?  Does seem like it takes away the main thing that drew me to the other (the word game aspect, with an editable word list). 

 

Though it seems to have a fancier death animation (in which the character is enlarged).  Then again, it's possible I'm missing just about anything at all about either one, since I have the manual for neither. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That'd be awesome!  Maybe nobody else who's excited about this game, in 2020.  But I've fond memories of it, and it's been fun rediscovering it.  Funny I never gave it another whirl in recent times until today.  But I guess I'd kind of dismissed it out of hand as an educational game, which must therefore be uninteresting.  And left it in the mostly ignored pile that also includes Early Learning Fun and what have you.  Which in retrospect, doesn't really make sense.  Because I did get a fair bit of fun out of it, at the time.  And the design itself is fairly clever. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, pixelpedant said:

I know it's not the sort of game people care much about, a few decades on. But I was always a word nerd. So it found a very fitting audience in me, at the time.

I think I have stuff like Hangman and Crossword on my list (or slightly off the list). Would you be interested in new word oriented cartridge games for the TI-99/4A ? Do you have anything in particular you'd like to see ?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I figure a Wordtris clone for TI-99/4A would be cool, and very doable.  Particularly if it had the same ability as The Great Word Race has, to edit the vocabulary and save to and load from disk. 

Actually, if nobody else does that, I might even get around to doing that myself, at some point.  But all the better if somebody else puts in the work ;)

Word games are definitely my jam.  Family played a lot of Scrabble, growing up. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

Following up on this question: John Phillips commented on the video the following things (in the YouTube comments), one of which is an answer to that question:

 

 

Quote

I really enjoyed designing and programming this one. Still one of my better creations.

Quote

As I recall you can press the space bar to engage an emergency umbrella to float down to safety. You have to be on a crossbar in order to engage an umbrella.

Quote

There was a question on another post what the VM stands for. It stands for Video Magic, the company name of my video game creation business that I registered in Collin County, TX back in the late eighties. Face Chase and The Great Word Race were created from the same base code. One was intended to be educational and the other entertainment.

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...
  • 1 year later...
On 1/23/2020 at 6:00 PM, pixelpedant said:

This is an educational game I've had since the late 80s, and not really touched in the many years since, though I certainly played it then.  I popped it in (well, popped it in, determined the contacts were not cooperating, cleaned them, popped it back in, and played), for the sake of reminding myself how it played, today.  I can barely find reference to it online.  It's mentioned, but only in name, on this page, regarding John Phillips games.   Mine, looks like this, at this point:

 

image.thumb.png.cb65699810db14cd0e64c3e670c9c79f.png

 

Lode Runner/Midnite Mason sort of thing, but in which you're collecting letters to assemble words in letter order.  Has the ability to edit word lists and save/load them from disk, so that's neat. 

 

Anyone know anything more about it?  Any chance of a manual?  Can't find one in the places I've checked so far. 

 

Here's a recording of the basic gameplay:

 

 

I know it's not the sort of game people care much about, a few decades on.  But I was always a word nerd.  So it found a very fitting audience in me, at the time. 

 

What can I help you with? John Phillips.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/24/2020 at 10:11 AM, pixelpedant said:

Oh, one more thing about The Great Word Race and Face Chase: anyone know what the "VM" logo on the destination point (to which words are collected) signifies? 

VM stands for Video Magic, the DBA entity I formed in Collin County, TX after I had left TI.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, John Phillips said:

VM stands for Video Magic, the DBA entity I formed in Collin County, TX after I had left TI.

Oh, hey John. Nice of you to show up here!  I have another couple quick questions for you:

 

A bunch of your games were advertised by Sunware/Exceltec for a little bit circa 1984, long before DBT sold them.  Do you know if those carts (Face Chase, Star Trap, Stargazer 1 2 & 3, Beyond Space, etc.) were actually sold by Sunware/Exceltec? 

 

And were you duly paid by Sunware and Databiotics for the ones that sold, in each of those cases?  Kind of an ugly question, but people not getting paid for their work certainly did happen in that era.  Possibly a moot point in some of the Sunware cases though, since I'm not sure they even built any carts, for many of their announced titles. 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, pixelpedant said:

Oh, hey John. Nice of you to show up here!  I have another couple quick questions for you:

 

A bunch of your games were advertised by Sunware/Exceltec for a little bit circa 1984, long before DBT sold them.  Do you know if those carts (Face Chase, Star Trap, Stargazer 1 2 & 3, Beyond Space, etc.) were actually sold by Sunware/Exceltec? 

 

And were you duly paid by Sunware and Databiotics for the ones that sold, in each of those cases?  Kind of an ugly question, but people not getting paid for their work certainly did happen in that era.  Possibly a moot point in some of the Sunware cases though, since I'm not sure they even built any carts, for many of their announced titles. 

I personally have Exceltec versions of the three Stargazer cartridges, so I know that some of them made it into circulation before the company's demise. . .

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...