The Sinclair QL Forum

For those who fancy something different on their QL (and may well remember the original game), we have now re-released QL Wanderer.

QL Wanderer is a mixture of a poker game, a space trading game, and an adventure, as you set off around the galaxy, travelling from planet to planet trying to collect five Aces, or 8,000 cats (the monetary unit in this system) in order to reach the all-powerful Sphinx which has kidnapped your Landlady's cat and taken it to the centre of the Galaxy. Cats can be earned by trading as you travel around the galaxy, or you may want to help out the inter-planetary poker game, by collecting and trading poker cards (hopefully gaining the Aces and jokers you need to gain entry to the Sphinx).

As you travel through space, you will come across other space ships that may be freindly or may try to shoot you down, so you need to decide whether to attack or speak with them!

The galazy is made up of 49 sectors, containing 10 planets, 2 black holes and the Sphinx's Ark (in the centre). You will have to try and navigate your way through the black holes at some stage which is no mean feat.

All of this is displayed on the screen in Anaglyph 3D, which requires you to wear the red and blue 3D glasses supplied (you may need to adjust your monitor to get the best image).

Buy QL Wanderer on SellMyRetro.com

This is very weird game, no idea how I'm going to learn it!

vanpeebles wrote:This is very weird game, no idea how I'm going to learn it!

What's the 3-D effect like? I've never seen a 3D game on a QL before.

Dilwyn

Like any other 3D effect really - it depends to some extent on your monitor / TV and also your eyes.

The game displays fine on my QL Vision monitor, but took a little while longer for me to see the effect on my LCD monitor - you may have to adjust your monitor settings to get the best effect.

My problem (as with any 3D effects) is that it causes eye strain too much so I get a headache after using it for about 5 minutes...

Is it displayed in high resolution (4 colors) or low resolution (8 colors) ?

I did some 3D anaglyph graphics, but used a special SCART cable letting switch the green and blue signals, so that in 4 color mode, you got Black-Red-Blue-White instead of Black-Red-Green-White : thus, the red/blue 3D glasses separated better the pictures for the left and right eyes.

Bye, Paul

In answer to your question, i believe the game is in mode 8 only.

I too have that same special SCART cable, which allows mode 4 display with blue instead of green and successfully demonstrated this at the QL AGM last year, however I have to admit this was due to not being able to solder properly and I mixed up the cables in the multi-pin DIN plug.

I have looked at the screen shots on RWAPs site at this program and the 3D depth is there pushing the border details way back in to the actual screen display, but is is tiresome on the eyes.

I think, that simpler solution is to use glasses with read and green color instead of the blue one.
This should work in high-res mode without cable modification.