Play Skyrim on Your Graphing Calculator

[Mike Kayatta]

Play Skyrim on Your Graphing Calculator


An ambitious TI-84 tinkerer has developed a mobile version of Skyrim that lets students Shout during math tests.

Bethesda's ability to cram all of Skyrim on one disc is pretty darn impressive, but as skilled as its development team may be, porting the mammoth RPG to anything mobile would be downright impossible without making one or two (hundred) critical changes. That math runs double for a device not even designed for gaming, so the possibility of Betheda making an official version of Skyrim for something like, say, a calculator, seems about as likely as Ulfric Stormcloak making out with General Tullius. But, if the idea of never being able to absorb a dragon's soul with your trusty TI-84 has been bringing you down, then say h3110 to YouTube user no9sniper.

Mr. no9sniper obviously hasn't recreated the full Skyrim experience, but he has done a somewhat remarkable job considering the hardware constraints. Players are able to choose their names, one of three races, and what to do within the troubled land of Skyrim. While there, math-minded Dovakhiins can shop for goods, look for quests, and smite bears, giants, and other pugnacious fiends of the frozen wilderness between reciting the quadratic equation in their head and trying to remember why someone needs to Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.

All in all, the game is pretty cool for being on a calculator. It may play more like Zork than the Skyrim you're used to, but that's not such a bad thing. After all, a calculator game is supposed to distract you for the fifteen minutes after finishing a test, not the whole of your high-school career. If you're interested in giving no9sniper's unique take on The Elder Scrolls a try, you can download all of the necessary files for free here. [http://www.mediafire.com/?vzz7umpobp1qc]

Source: Geek.com [http://www.geek.com/articles/games/skyrim-can-now-be-played-on-a-ti-84-graphing-calculator-20120120/]




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[Viper1265]

Neat. And now to watch the productivity of any students who get this plummet.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

And I thought having Tetris on my calculator was awesome...

I was about to say that it's a shame that I can't use this seeing as I don't have schooling anymore, but like that little detail is going to stop me.

At least my calculator will get some use out of it now since it's just collecting dust.

 

[Knusper]

That's a great achievement, although he didn't seem very into it. Too bad it's not the same make as mine.

 

[twistedheat15]

Now we can fos ro dah and divide enemies by zero!!!

 

[RA92]

I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I got eaten by a Grue.

 

[Kargathia]

That's a great achievement, although he didn't seem very into it. Too bad it's not the same make as mine.

Not everyone sounds like a used car salesman. Especially not after whatever they're describing lost all its novelty to them during development.

OT: He really should've come with this a few years earlier, when I still was using one of these on a daily basis. But nonetheless, it's a game which will no doubt do a fine job of wasting the time of a whole new generation of math students. Huzzah!

 

[deth2munkies]

It's a CYOA game on a calculator, I remember playing some of those in 7th grade on my TI-83+.

 

[tehweave]

It's like Zork! I love Zork!

 

[Dimitriov]

I was impressed... until I saw that the three possible races were Imperial, Khajiit, and Orc.

IT AIN'T SKYRIM IF YOU AREN'T A NORD: YOU'RE JUST LYING TO YOURSELF D:<

 

[coldfrog]

Given that the TI-84 Plus series of calculators has a processor which runs more quickly than an original model Game Boy (and, for that matter, than a Game Boy Color processor), has more RAM than the Game Boy and about as much user-accessible ROM than a mid-sized Game Boy cartridge, this isn't as impressive an achievement as it might seem, despite the limitations of the calculator. The main limitation that I can see is the small sizes of the binary files - not many instructions in there. If you pushed the size up to Game Boy cartridge sizes, you could probably get a half-decent RPG implementation on one of those calculators - or a full operating system on a 128kB model of the TI-84 Plus.

I've never understood the American obsession with graphical calculators, though. They're actually illegal at all secondary-school and university exams here, proving that you have to be able to remember functions, rather than simply put a few BASIC functions into your calculator and sit back lazily as your calculator does all the work. The only reason for graphical calculators is for learning embedded assembly language. Everything else is just an overblown waste of silicon.

I agree, but I remember a particularly detestable class in high school: "Statistics"

Now, it was taught by the football coach, which in itself isn't necessarily bad, but he clearly didn't give a shit about anything to do with it, and he basically gave us all one of these for class materials and said "here's some stuff, do it on the calculator".

Then later I learned about real statistics.

 

[Epona]

Since when does Skyrim have turn based combat? It's more like Final Fantasy but I guess that wouldn't make headlines would it. Lame!

 

[NLS]

Given that the TI-84 Plus series of calculators has a processor which runs more quickly than an original model Game Boy (and, for that matter, than a Game Boy Color processor), has more RAM than the Game Boy and about as much user-accessible ROM than a mid-sized Game Boy cartridge, this isn't as impressive an achievement as it might seem, despite the limitations of the calculator. The main limitation that I can see is the small sizes of the binary files - not many instructions in there. If you pushed the size up to Game Boy cartridge sizes, you could probably get a half-decent RPG implementation on one of those calculators - or a full operating system on a 128kB model of the TI-84 Plus.

I've never understood the American obsession with graphical calculators, though. They're actually illegal at all secondary-school and university exams here, proving that you have to be able to remember functions, rather than simply put a few BASIC functions into your calculator and sit back lazily as your calculator does all the work. The only reason for graphical calculators is for learning embedded assembly language. Everything else is just an overblown waste of silicon.

One of the limitations as well is the fact that he's doing this in TI-BASIC, which is extremely slow and unefficient for bigger projects. I did a 3D demo of a cube in TI-BASIC and it ran slow as hell when compared to stuff made in assembly.

 

[Eric the Orange]

It's like Zork! I love Zork!

Wasn't zork a text adventure? this has graphics to some extent so I wouldn't really call it zork. More like the earliest ultima games.

 

[Jahandar]

Graphing Calculators have had games like this (and better) for years. Just because someone slaps the name Skyrim on one, now its somehow amazing?


http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/405/40593.html
http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/272/27218.html
http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/410/41007.html