WIP: Dungeon of Doom RPG (Usborne Publishing, 1984)

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Sat Apr 25, 2009 7:00 am

It really is.

Incredible how far we got from here to your next creation, a huge hi-res, multi-colour RPG with nothing to share with Dungeon of Doom's simple BASIC code

.

If only Denial existed when the VIC was young...

nbla000 · Post by **nbla000** » Sat Apr 25, 2009 9:41 am

Hey Orion, Very good job !!! my compliments...

Looking the code of the first file (the loader), i've got an idea to automatically load a small menu program that asks the user which module he wants to load after the first reset so he doesn't need to reuse the BASIC to load a new module... just load and run the first file, that's all.

Do you like these feature ? If you want, i may do the job.

PS: When you will receive your Mega-Cart, please try it with my EasyLoad+ turboload program (just hold F7 on boot), it will load your game very fast, note that once EasyLoad is started you just need to press CBM+F1 to automatically load and run the first program on disk

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 2:03 am

nbla000 wrote:Hey Orion, Very good job !!! my compliments...

Thanks- it was fun. That's why I'm calling for other Usborne titles now

.

nbla000 wrote:Looking the code of the first file (the loader), i've got an idea to automatically load a small menu program that asks the user which module he wants to load after the first reset so he doesn't need to reuse the BASIC to load a new module... just load and run the first file, that's all.

That would be nice. Another improvement should be done- to use the disk instead of cassette player in every module. If you have spare time (I know you haven't much lately), it would be great if you could implement both the menu-driven choice AND the disk handling routines.

nbla000 wrote:PS: When you will receive your Mega-Cart, please try it with my EasyLoad+ turboload program (just hold F7 on boot), it will load your game very fast, note that once EasyLoad is started you just need to press CBM+F1 to automatically load and run the first program on disk

I surely will use EasyLoad. The only drawback in receiving a jewel like the MC is that it will force me to unpack the VIC and peripherals from the garage, use it, and pack it up again- and this almost every day, because I have no room in my apartment.

nbla000 · Post by **nbla000** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 8:27 am

orion70 wrote:That would be nice. Another improvement should be done- to use the disk instead of cassette player in every module.

I got another idea to avoid the additional mini menu program and to do all the job from the loader, contact me in PM...

The only drawback in receiving a jewel like the MC is that it will force me to unpack the VIC and peripherals from the garage, use it, and pack it up again- and this almost every day, because I have no room in my apartment.

What a pity, when you want, came at my home where i've a retroware room for my old commodore's babies (Vic20-C64-Amiga500/1200)

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:27 am

nbla000 wrote:What a pity, when you want, came at my home where i've a retroware room for my old commodore's babies (Vic20-C64-Amiga500/1200)

[OT] You're GREAT, man. Having a room completely dedicated to retro-computing has always been my dream. I had one for a while: a friend of mine went living in a big house, and left one room for old computers. We put a C64, an old IBM PC, and three Sun workstations on what we called the "SPARCtable".
Unfortunately, I was not yet in VIC-20 back then, and it lasted only one year, after which he came back to his parents'.

Anyway, maybe one day we'll meet - even if I guess we're some hundreds of Km away from each other...

There are news about my fiancee, she's probably changing workplace in 2-3 months, so maybe another house change will be done at the beginning of next year (this time, at least one small desk will be dedicated to the VIC setup

).

Ghislain · Post by **Ghislain** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 4:39 am

orion70 wrote:Incredible how far we got from here to your next creation, a huge hi-res, multi-colour RPG with nothing to share with Dungeon of Doom's simple BASIC code .

If only Denial existed when the VIC was young...

The advantage that I have of course is a lot of hindsight, memory expansion (32K!) and 6502 cross assemblers where I can modify source code, move everything around with simple copy and paste. And of course, emulators to test my source code on the fly...

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 6:57 am

@Ghislain - sure these tools make your life easier, but sometimes I feel like either the old-time programmers didn't know how to fully exploit the VIC's capabilities, or the standard of quality universally accepted was very low.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 7:12 am

Time constraints. Anyone who worked to make commercial releases would more or less have a deadline. Some deadlines may have been indefinite, but the longer you wait before launch, the more days you will have to eat whatever you can find in the forest, if you get there at all after spending many hours every day in front of the computer.

Anyway, Commodore et.al. could make the same claim Sony's bosses are rumoured to do today: on purpose they make the consoles hard to program in order to give programmers more of a challenge and weed out the mediocre ones.

It may be an evil rumour spread by non-Sony customers. On one hand it is great if the hardware is good for at least 10 years without being fully exploited but on the other hand it will make people say the same things as we say about the VIC-20: "Imagine if they had done that five years ago!"

Schlowski · Post by **Schlowski** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 7:16 am

Computers where quite new so nobody knows how to exploit them - it needed years to come to really understand what's possible with these machines. Everybody had to start at zero.
With every little step forward the expectations of users grow and the next program has to be better, bigger, more colourful and louder than before. Nowadays we know (or think we know) what is possible and expect at least that. In the early 80's colour character graphics where quite impressive if you take into account that prior to these mostly typewriters where used as output...

fgasking · Post by **fgasking** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 1:37 pm

orion70 wrote: You're welcome my friends, I'm always glad to help.
Now, if anyone has other Usborne books - especially the Mystery of Silver Mountain...

I thought I might have had it - but it appears not

... I did however find another similiar book called "Write your own Adventure Programs for your microcomputer" by Usborne.

It contains at the end an adventure game called "The Haunted House". Do we have this one preserved already? ... It's a simple text adventure and nothing too complex compared to the recent RPG game.

If we don't have it - let me know and i'll try and scan this one.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 11:11 pm

We should ask Mayhem... if it's not yet in the list, scan it at once, and another game will be preserved from oblivion - no matter how simple it is.

fgasking · Post by **fgasking** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 2:18 am

Right - i've asked and i'll await Mat's reply

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 2:42 am

Or I read this thread... I don't think I have this game, so a type-up would be appreciated.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 2:44 am

Let's go for it!

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 2:46 am

Speaking of haunted houses, there appears to have been a VIC-20 version of the COMPUTE!'s Gazette game Mystery at Marple Manor (or in Italian: Mistero a Villa Martini). Perhaps it is more a whodunnit game than regular text adventure, but for up to six players. It was published in the September 1984 issue. The article can be found scanned at Jim Brain's site, although I can't find the actual listing. I own this issue so it could be remedied.

The article says the VIC version is without sound effects and has been streamlined. Secret codes, keys and lockable doors were removed. If anyone is interested, the original C64 verision might be possible to re-port to VIC-20 without losing any features, now when we have lots of memory expansions.