Nostalgia trip

[enismirdal]

Did anyone else have the Pod game at school? It was a really simple game for DOS I think, about this little tomato guy called Pod. You typed in commands to finish the sentence, "Pod can...", and if the command was in the database, he obediently did it.

Things like, "Pod can walk", "Pod can whistle" - and, of course, everyone's favourite, "Pod can pop"! Then he blew himself up really huge and exploded in a shower of tomato droplets.

I loved that game. But Google seems unable to provide pictures to feed my desire to remember the good old days!

Comments

[wednesdayschild.livejournal.com]

Hah, yes! I remember :D

[(Anonymous)]

It's ancient. It may even predate my moving to Hertfordshire...
Abner

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes - I played it when I was 5 or so, after all!

[ilanin.livejournal.com]

There might have been a DOS version, but the one we had at school ran on the BBC micro.

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Oh, it might have been that. I tend to call anything that's pre-Windows, doesn't have a mouse or pretty pictures "DOS", regardless of what it actually is.

[ilanin.livejournal.com]

For all that it matters I think you might as well. The BBC micro wasn't quite that "sophisiticated" in most respects, IIRC. To run a program you put the floppy disc in the drive and pressed ctrl+break.

[senji.livejournal.com]

shift+break on a "default" configuration.

[ilanin.livejournal.com]

Close enough for government work.

[sonicdrift.livejournal.com]

I remember it on the BBC! I'm not sure I got him to pop though.

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Oh, you missed out! Pop was far and away the best command!

[ilanin.livejournal.com]

I also never saw the pop. I'm jealous now.

[senji.livejournal.com]

The best I can find is this page, which only has a couple of "Oh no I can't"s.

[natsci-mark.livejournal.com]

Here's how to resurrect Podd:
You can download a BBC Model B emulator for Windows here, and a disk image containing the game here. Unzip both files into the same directory, then run 'modelb.exe'. From the File menu, choose Quickstart and then Add Dir. Locate the directory containing the disk image, and press OK. Choose Podd from the Available Games list, and press OK. Have fun - apparently there are about 100 possible animations!

(Yes, I'll do anything to avoid real work!)