Denial

Release Candidate 2 is in the original post.

The lead on RC2 is that you can now save and load cities to and from tape, which is (quite literally) a game-changer. Other than simply saving your work, it opens up the possibility of a scenario editor, additional downloadable content, etc. It also allows me to test various scenarios for revenue and maintenance costs without having to start from the beginning each time. There will be some adjustments to these numbers before the final cassette version!

Fires are now less likely for properties unprotected by a Firehouse. I wanted to make the lack of Firehouses a somewhat acceptable risk for strategic depth. As it was, you really couldn't live without them everywhere.

I made some tweaks to make Modpacks workable. I'll include some Modpacks in the repository, like an easy mode, and one with ridiculous disasters.

Impressive game!

orion70 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 27, 2021 6:19 am how could you squeeze everything in 3k??? Base RAM has been used very well to the last drop lately

The real answer to this is "zero page." Except for a few storage locations that need to be part of the saved game state, everything uses zero page. I think that's the best way to compress 6502 code without tricks.

orion70 wrote: ↑Sat Jul 31, 2021 10:54 am Emergence of complexity from small sets of rules is probably one of the most interesting fields of study, period . I have always been fascinated by this, especially because I'm a biologist and it has so much to do with life at all levels, from DNA to ecosystems.

Agree, I'd say it's right up there. Maybe not necessarily complexity itself from small sets of rules, but how that complexity remains useful and organized.

Vic20-Ian wrote: ↑Tue Jul 27, 2021 1:34 am Please enter it in the competition.

What's the process for this?

chysn wrote: ↑Mon Aug 09, 2021 10:05 am

Vic20-Ian wrote: ↑Tue Jul 27, 2021 1:34 am Please enter it in the competition.

What's the process for this?

Hi,

At this stage please signal your interest in this thread and keep on coding

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10130

I will develop the formal submission by end of November process once I review some other competitions and how they manage it.

Best regards,
Vic20-Ian

The real answer to this is "zero page." Except for a few storage locations that need to be part of the saved game state, everything uses zero page. I think that's the best way to compress 6502 code without tricks.

In rewriting Gravity Ball, I've noticed places where I can change the current character color to match the background color and then store data in screen memory where I don't need to display anything. This will shave a few bytes off the size.
I can store data in the blank lines between the scoreboard element and message window, and there will be 4-5 lines below the message window where nothing needs to be displayed. At 7 bytes per line, this will recover a fair amount of space. If I get desperate I can even store data before and after "Ball", "Level", "Drops" and "Score", recovering 8 more bytes. I gotta learn these tricks if I'm going to cut it programming the unexpanded Vic.

Victim_RLSH wrote: ↑Tue Aug 10, 2021 6:21 am In rewriting Gravity Ball, I've noticed places where I can change the current character color to match the background color and then store data in screen memory where I don't need to display anything. This will shave a few bytes off the size.

For the unexpanded VIC-20, the screen memory usually has to double as a game state database. In addition to the "background color" trick, I sometimes also use the "identical character" trick, where the same character data is used for multiple characters, so the game can differentiate states without the screen looking different.

Release Candidate 3 is attached to the original post.

Unless anything huge is wrong, this should be it. I have exactly one byte left

I've added a third major disaster type, the Pandemic. It seemed like a good monument to the times we live in. The Pandemic doesn't destroy any buildings like the Earthquake and Tornado do. Instead, it reduces the population in Homes unprotected by a Clinic (the Pandemic nerfs the Clinic a little, too, but you'd still rather have them) for between 1 and 4 years. The potential impact of decreased population is that it erodes Business confidence*, which may cause your Businesses to leave. Then, once the Pandemic is over, population spikes, but Businesses are empty and the unemployment rate goes up, causing recession (a sort of sad ping-pong between low Business confidence and low satisfaction). So, it's a rare but challenging disaster to deal with.

Modpacks are now supported fully, with an example Modpack in the archive (Easy Mode). Modpacks are just little 60-byte files that you install from tape with the game's built-in "Load" command, and can significantly change the rules and disaster risks. Each Modpack can also have its own music to set the mood.

The tape support is much improved, and I modified the revenue chart. See the Release Notes for other changes.

* Business confidence is proportional to the difference between how much tax a Business has to pay minus the population of the city, with a bonus for Education Level. The narrative there is that Business gets nervous if there aren't enough people to support it, but is willing to wait it out (to a degree) if the people are more affluent.

Really impressive! I have to try this out.

Getting ready for shipment!

I added a "Road Trace" feature, which is a visualization of the effective area of structures. This will be in the final cassette release, which should be ready by the weekend.

The cassette release is available on the original post. This includes the game as PRG and D64, the manual, the the Modpack tape file with four Modpacks.

The Modpacks are:

Default: In case you want to revert to the default ruleset without restarting

Easy Mode: More money, less problems!

Disasters: The year is 2012. The end times! Sea levels are rising! Arson is rampant! Tornadoes and Earthquakes are constant companions. Plague breaks out with alarming frequency! Can you master the Disaster Modpack?!

Homes: In this city, the residents pay for everything. There's no income from Businesses. But the residents who foot the bill still want to be employed, so you'll still need to let Businesses in.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1067039297 ... 0-download

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1066402797 ... for-vic-20

There's also a dead-tree version of the manual getting printed up, but it won't be here for a couple weeks.

Nice work, looks great!!!

Here's a way to maximize revenue from services (Schools, Clinics, whatever your priority is) to Homes. By placing the structure in the center of a comb-type arrangement, the four-road range can go pretty far. Notice how the Homes are spread out, and how Parks are placed between orthogonal Homes, which turns the Park into a profit center.

This type of arrangement wouldn't work as well with Businesses which, unlike Homes, like to be right next to each other.
(in this case, the structure under the pointer is a School)

Within the next couple weeks, ZEPTOPOLIS will be available on cartridge. The gameplay will be identical, with the difference being that the cartridge version supports disk (I really wanted an excuse to use the word "diskette"). I also needed to add a splash page because I couldn't think of a way to seed a pseudorandom number without timing some kind of user action.

I resisted the temptation to do all kinds of things that I really shouldn't do.