… a hyperloop thru the world’s longest cave that’s hidden by nature’s i.o.
Here are a few interesting news/topics I came across this week:
Computer Scientists Achieve ‘Crown Jewel’ of Cryptography (Quanta Magazine): a new definition of i.o., a potential roadmap for the next 10 years of cryptography, with the threat from quantum computers, and a lot of math.
Virgin Hyperloop hits an important milestone: the first human passenger test (The Verge): remember that idea from Elon Musk and his Boring Company? It’s slowly but surely forming. But if someone told me previously that the video is a new ride being tested at a Six Flags them park I would totally believe it too.
This Woman Inspired One of the First Hit Video Games by Mapping the World’s Longest Cave (Medium/OneZero): This one sat in my Medium reading list for a while and I’ve finally got to it. It’s nicely written and educated me on the scary shift around 60’s and 70’s on the sharp decrease of female workforce in software development.
This week’s Nostalgic Game Review:
Zeliard
Throughout the past few decades, I have been wondering what’re those tunes stuck in my head from time to time. Recently I remembered it being this game.
What is it?
Zeliard was published in 1990, and I played it on my very first PC, a 286 with monochrome monitor running MS-DOS (or was it PC-DOS?). It’s a side scrolling, slash and hack, dungeon crawler action RPG game where you build the main character’s weapon, shield, magic power by solving quests and puzzles, eventually leading to the final boss fight to save the princess. (sounds familiar?)
What’s in it?
Other than the game itself, in 5 1/4” floppy disks (yes, this is 1990!), the package also included a manual, a map, and a cassette tape (;->) of all of its music! I listened to the music over and over again, until it’s merged into part of my soul.
My impression
I think I was too young to really get the gist of the game (and English wasn’t quite my language yet at a young age), but I still remember that I put in days navigating through the dungeons so vast and deep, I would just leap into the dungeon, shifting left and right, and see how long I can stay in the falling motion (you can’t die by dropping, but you can easily fall into an area with strong monster who may kill instantly). Almost like this:
All in all, the game is awsome and music was trully impressive.
Guess what? This game is playable on the Internet Archive!