Paul "Dunric" Panks has passed away

RobertBe · Post by **RobertBe** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 1:47 pm

Paul "Dunric" Panks, programmer of C64/C128/Plus4/VIC-20 adventure games, passed away on July 5, 2009. His obituary can be found at

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/azcent ... =129569950

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 2:31 pm

My sincerest condolences to all who knew and loved him. God rest.

matsondawson · Post by **matsondawson** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 5:31 pm

He was only 33! How terribly sad.

Post by **Jeff-20** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 9:22 pm

Wow. That is young. I had never heard of him before now. As many of you know, despite my unending respect for Lemon64, I'm not active on that forum. There's an interesting page that fills in some of the details for others like me:

http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2063

It's sad to lose any member of the classic community.

RobertBe · Post by **RobertBe** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 10:08 pm

Jeff-20 wrote:http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2063

Thanks for the link. I didn't know that Jason Scott had dealings with Paul.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug

Bacon · Post by **Bacon** » Sun Jul 19, 2009 12:50 am

That is so sad.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 1:11 am

Sad news. Although he possibly never became a member on this forum, he seemed interested in RPGs enough both to wait for VIC-20 Gauntlet and play a round of Realms of Quest III. To me however he will be best remembered for his floppy disk experiments. Insane or genius, you decide.

Ghislain · Post by **Ghislain** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 8:01 am

carlsson wrote:Sad news. Although he possibly never became a member on this forum, he seemed interested in RPGs enough both to wait for VIC-20 Gauntlet and play a round of Realms of Quest III. To me however he will be best remembered for his floppy disk experiments. Insane or genius, you decide.

Yes I did email him a few tips about RoQ III. I did not know him that well, but I was familiar with his name because his would come up whenever I would search for Commodore web pages. I probably visited his website a few times.

Best wishes to his family. RIP.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 8:35 am

So sorry for that. How could it happen? Seems like it was a sudden death... Anyone knows more about the circumstances?

As a VIC text adventure geek, I know him for his VIC-20 version of Westfront, of which he wrote

Westfront VIC-20 - A version of "Westfront PC: The Trials of Guilder" for the Commodore VIC-20. This one was a toughie to implement, but I trimmed it down as much as possible and released it in early 2003. For the Commodore VIC-20 (with 16K memory expansion).

Westfront is a great game. The C128 version was impressive, albeit re-written after having lost the original one:

I have been programming on computers since I learned to type (about 1983 or so). Many of my early programs were quite simple and even laughable -- but they were indeed building blocks to improved programs and games later on down the road. One of my earliest programs on the Commodore was a text adventure named Enchanter: Westfront to Apse. 'Westfront', as I called it, evolved from a fairly spartan dozen or so rooms to a mammoth text adventure spanning over 80 rooms. The game was set in Norway and included a mythological Smurf Village. I incorporated several towns and villages into the game, including Oslo, Trondheim, Stavanger and Bergen. Additionally, I added a Flora Island just off the coast of Norway (complete with a functional lighthouse for incoming vessels).

The game included a sprite title -- WESTFRONT -- as well as a 3-D fractal map of the surrounding countryside (actually just 8 sprites joined together). Finally, I added a scrolling, WINDOWed text display and function keys for easier movement. All in all, the game occupied 206 blocks on disk, leaving approximately 7,000 bytes free (the game was written for the Commodore 128's 40-column mode). Although I lost the original version of this game some time ago -- due to the notorious SAVE-WITH-REPLACE bug -- I rewrote much of it from an earlier version that I found lying around. The result was a game very similar to the original version, albeit without some of the original rooms (Smurf Village was replaced with a 'golden elf' village), commands (a few misc. commands were removed) and a slightly different fighting engine (more balanced than the original).

Another remarkable work is "the smallest text adventure ever written", aka B-venture. In his words:

For many years, I've been striving to write the smallest possible text adventure.

[...]

The game is remarkably large for such a small program, spanning nearly 20 full rooms, with a forest, castle, meadow, lake, town and even a tree you can climb (where a small hut rests atop a branch). The game verbs include GO,GET,DROP,USE,INVENTORY,LOOK and others. There is even a fighting mode where the player can engage other monsters in battle.

[...]

Did I mention I squeezed all of this into only 2,638 bytes of RAM?

Here are Paul's adventures in the if-archive, and his personal website.

darkatx · Post by **darkatx** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 8:39 am

I can't believe this...maaaaannnn!
That man loved the RPG and text adventure games...he lived and breathed the stuff...I admired that about him.
He'll be remembered for a long long time.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 8:54 am

I made more comments more over at Lemon but still... strange, sad and with a bang is how he seemed to conduct his life. I can't remember if I've added Westfront to GB20... if not, then well seems a fitting time (when I get back from holiday) to do so...

Post by **Jeff-20** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 11:35 am

Any game programmer's death diminishes me, because I am involved in game programming.

Who is Muffy St. Bernard? It's sad to think that conflict stuff continues even in these times.

RobertBe · Post by **RobertBe** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 11:48 pm

Jeff-20 wrote: It's sad to think that conflict stuff continues even in these times.

Yeah, that is not the way to treat a grieving family.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug

d0c · Post by **d0c** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:15 pm

this is sad news indeed, his last adventure was vampire cross, i made a loading screen for that game... rip paul panks

Stinky · Post by **Stinky** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 8:26 pm

Very sad news. Paul was a unique character and definitely an individual on the C= scene. May your dreams bring you data.