Category | Sans-serif |
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Designer(s) | Susan Kare (1984), Charles Bigelow & Kris Holmes (1991) |
Foundry | Apple Computer (1984) Bigelow & Holmes (1991) |
1999: Mac OS X DP2. The path to the Mac OS X project was littered with broken technological promises and missed ship dates. As it turns out, Apple was about to turn the corner and start actually. I am using Microsoft Office For Mac on my MacBook Pro (MacBook Pro Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014). Primarly Excel and Word. I recently (maybe 8 - 12 weeks ago) updated my Operating System (OS) to macOS High Sierra 10.13.3. For a while now, maybe 2 weeks, I have been unable to retrieve my documents in these appications.
Chicago is a sans-seriftypeface designed by Susan Kare for Apple Computer. It was used in the Macintosh operating systemuser interface between 1984 and 1997 and was an important part of Apple’s brand identity. It is also used in early versions of the iPod user interface. Chicago was initially a bitmap font; as the Apple OS’s capabilities improved, Apple commissioned the type foundry Bigelow & Holmes to create a vector-based TrueType version.[1] The typeface is named after the U.S. city of Chicago, following the theme of original Macintosh fonts being named after major world cities.
Susan Kare has stated that Chicago was the first font to be developed for the Macintosh. Before the team settled on the convention of naming fonts after “world cities”, it was called Elefont (Elefont is also the name of a bold semi-serif typeface designed by Bob McGrath in 1978).[2] The first bitmap version included only a 12 pt. version. This font, with only very minor changes to spacing, was used for menus, dialogs, window titles, and text labels, through version 7.6 of the system. The TrueType version had many differences from the bitmap version, which became more apparent at greater sizes. One of Chicago’s features was that it could remain legible while being made “grey” (to indicate a disabled menu item) by the removal of every other pixel (since actual grey type was not supported by the original Macintosh graphics hardware). The zero was slashed to distinguish it from capital “O”.
In Mac OS 8, Charcoal replaced Chicago as the default system font. Chicago continued to be distributed as a standard component of the system, and Apple even urged developers to keep designing user interfaces for the Chicago typeface, since the new alternate fonts used the Chicago metrics as a foundation.
German-language versions of the Mac OS, as well as all language versions of Mac OS 9, had a different rendering of the 12-point version of Chicago. The letter W had two dips instead of one at the bottom of the letter, the letter V had its lower tip at the centre instead of veering left, and the letter I (capital “i”) had serifs at the top and bottom, distinguishing it from l (lowercase 'L'). A mix of this and the original Chicago was used in the original iPod.
Chicago was also used in Apple marketing materials. It was common to find this font in early amateur desktop publishing productions, since it was available as part of the system. While Apple gravitated away from Chicago following the adoption of the relatively easier-to-read Charcoal as part of the platinum theme in Mac OS, it was later revived in the user interface for the iPod music player, where legibility on a low resolution two-color screen once again became an asset. With the introduction of the iPod mini, a smaller typeface was needed, and the Espy Sans font from the Apple Newton was used. Finally, with the introduction of the iPod Photo, the color iPod interface changed to Podium Sans—a bitmap font similar to the Myriad Pro typeface which Apple has adopted gradually for its marketing since 2002.
The Chicago pixel typeface was also adapted by Squaresoft for use in the English releases of their Super NES titles, such as Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger.[3]
Though the original font is no longer bundled with MacOS, two Thai-language fonts bundled with MacOS, Krungthep and Silom, use Chicago for their Latin letters and hence can be used as modern replacements.
Chicago is a registered trademark ('typeface fonts recorded on computer software'), belonging to Apple since August 1996.
Ingo Zimmermann designed the Chiq typeface, based on the Chicago typeface, supports Greek, Cyrillic, Turkish, and Pan-European languages.[4]
Neverwinter Nights | |
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Genre(s) | Role-playing video game |
Developer(s) | BioWare, Obsidian Entertainment |
Publisher(s) | Atari (formerly Infogrames) |
Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS, Android, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One |
First release | Neverwinter Nights (Microsoft Windows) June 18, 2002 |
Latest release | Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition (Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Xbox One) December 3, 2019 |
Neverwinter Nights is a series of video games developed by BioWare and Obsidian Entertainment, based on the Forgotten Realms campaign setting of the Dungeons & Dragonsrole-playing game. It is unrelated to the 1991 Neverwinter Nights online game hosted by AOL.
The Neverwinter Nights series take place primarily in the city of Neverwinter, located in the Sword Coast region of the fictional land of Faerûn.[1] Also commonly referred to as the City of Skilled Hands,[2] Neverwinter grew from a multi-racial settlement named Eigersstor founded several hundred years prior to the start of Neverwinter Nights.[3] At the time the first game takes place, the city of Neverwinter was beset by a magical plague named the Wailing Death,[4] whereas in the second game the city is threatened by an invasion from its ancient enemy named the King of Shadows.[5]
The Neverwinter Nights series is a franchise of role-playing games with a third-person isometric perspective.[6] The systems of the games are based on the rules of Dungeons & Dragons, a table-top role-playing game developed by Wizards of the Coast.[7] Both Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 contain three game modes: a default campaign, a multiplayer mode, and custom contents.[8]
Campaign
Both Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 include a default campaign, which focus on the development of the player character through a series of distinct acts.[9] In addition to the main story, the player also has the opportunity to undertake a variety of side quests, some of which form storylines that span the entire game. The player has the ability to make key choices in specific quests can affect combat encounters, key plot points, and the outcome of the overarching story.[10]
Before the player can begin the campaign, they must first create a new character through the game's character creation interface. The player may customize a new character from scratch, or select one of the pre-set characters provided by the games. If the player chooses to create a new character, they are then guided through a series of choices about their character, including race, class, appearance etc.. Some of the choices such as gender and appearance are purely cosmetic, whereas others such as race and class affect how the player character fights and what abilities they have access to.[11]
Custom content
In addition to the base campaign and the multiplayer mode, both Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 also included sets of software development tools which allow the players to create custom campaigns which they can then share with other players.[12]Neverwinter Nights shipped with the Aurora Toolset,[13] while Neverwinter Nights 2 shipped with the Electron Toolset, which was completely rewritten by Bioware using the programming language C#.[14]
The first instalment in the series, Neverwinter Nights, was generally well received according to review aggregator Metacritic, which gave it a score of 91/100 based on 34 critic reviews and a score of 8.1/10 based on 608 user reviews.[15] Greg Kasavin of GameSpot praised the game's accessibility, calling it 'one of those exceedingly rare games that has a lot to offer virtually everyone, even if they aren't already into RPGs'.[16] Gamezone appreciated the game's graphic and sound design, and that 'the musical score foreshadows game action (the music picks up in intensity when combat looms), and is well done'.[17]Allgame reviewer Mark Hoogland commended the Aurora toolset shipped with Neverwinter Nights, calling the breadth of level, story, environment, and module creation options 'impressive'.[18]Eurogamer reviewer Gestalt was less convinced, criticising the single-player campaign's emphasis on combat encounters over 'actual roleplaying', but was optimistic that the game's mod support will give it longevity.[19]
Compared to Neverwinter Nights, Neverwinter Nights 2 received a lower Metacritic score of 82/100 based on 46 critic reviews and 6.6/10 based on 633 user reviews.[20] The game's story continued to attract praise from critics such as Greg Mueller of GameSpot, who was impressed by the 'very apparent' impact that player choice has on the way the story unfolds.[21] Some critics like IGN's Charles Onyett also enjoyed the game's sound and graphics design, in particular the visceral orchestral soundtrack during battles.[22]
A common complaint from critics was Neverwinter Nights 2's numerous technical glitches. Eurogamer drew particular attention to the bugs surrounding 'pathfinding and NPCs' artificial intelligence', a problem which contributor Kieron Gillen found made precise control in combat difficult.[23] IGN also acknowledged the game's technical glitches, but commented that none of them 'hampered... gameplay experience'.[24]
The Neverwinter Nights series has been adopted by a number of educators for use in the classroom. University of Alberta's Professor Mike Carbonara and colleagues made use of the Aurora Toolset to develop an 'economics game' aimed at teaching the concepts of fixed price commerce, mark up, and supply and demand.[25] Squire & Jenkins at MIT Education Arcade created the multiplayer game Revolution, which allows players to roleplay characters with different dispositions and political views in 1770s colonial Williamsburg, with an aim to improve the student's understanding of the American Revolution.[26] In 2005, researchers Nora Paul and Kathleen A. Hansen designed a custom module for journalism students; players took on the role of a journalist investigating a train derailment in the fictional American town named Harperville, during which they must investigate and analyse multiple sources.[27]
Title | Release | Platforms | Additional Info |
---|---|---|---|
Neverwinter Nights | 2002 | Windows, Mac, Linux | |
Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide | 2003 | Windows, Mac, Linux | expansion pack |
Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark | 2003 | Windows, Mac, Linux | expansion pack |
Neverwinter Nights: Kingmaker | 2004 | Windows, Mac, Linux | premium module* (requires Hordes of the Underdark) |
Neverwinter Nights: Pirates of the Sword Coast | 2005 | Windows, Mac, Linux | premium module* |
Neverwinter Nights: Infinite Dungeons | 2006 | Windows, Mac, Linux | premium module* |
Neverwinter Nights: Darkness over Daggerford | 2006 | Windows, Mac, Linux | premium module* |
Neverwinter Nights: Wyvern Crown of Cormyr | 2006 | Windows, Mac, Linux | premium module* |
Neverwinter Nights 2 | 2006 | Windows, Mac | |
Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer | 2007 | Windows | expansion pack |
Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir | 2008 | Windows | expansion pack |
Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate | 2009 | Windows | adventure pack** |
Neverwinter Nights: Tyrants of the Moonsea | 2019 | Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One | premium module* |