**New Release** REALMS OF QUEST 3 (available for order!)

[Ghislain]

Stupid question time, how do i get off the character screen with the castle?

Assuming you mean how do you exit the castle -- you just press the SPACE bar until you've switched to PARTY MENU and then you select the MOVE ABOUT option.

If that's not the case, please provide a screenshot and another description? The VIEW CHAR screen does not have the image of the castle.

[darkatx]

Thanks for the swift reply...
You mentioned you may have room for an extra pic or two - maybe when you change screens with the Spacebar - the graphic screen changes as well - like maybe a party menu screen with a group portrait of adventurers to indicate that.

Also, will there be option to 'sell' weapons for cash? Or to totally discard weapons instead of dropping them into inventory?

Just wondering, if you slowly start to build up your armoury you may not have anymore room for the bigger and better stuff since the smaller weapons will be taking up precious space in your inventory....by the way how big is the party's inventory?

[Ghislain]

Here's a blast from the past (when I posted about Realms of Quest II: Special Edition in 2006):

http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... php?t=1056

I've been modifying Realms of Quest II (a game I submitted for the 2004 minigame competition) and I've made the following modifications/improvements...

... I was originally going to call it "Realms of Quest III" but seeing that I re-use 95% of the code that it wouldn't be distinct enough for it to merit it's own chapter in the "series".

My plan for the real "Realms of Quest III" will be a game of the scope of Ultima III or IV. It will have 3D dungeons like in Wizardry, a proper map like in the Ultima series (as opposed to the current map of RQ2 that is generated by the VIC 16K rom space), background music, monster graphics like those in the SSI Gold Box series (Pool of Radiance) and it will allow the player to have up to 6 characters in the party. I haven't decided whether the combat will be generic like in Wizardry or if it will be tactically detailed like the Gold Box games.

I thought about making all of this for the unexpanded VIC (multi-load from disk), but I decided that 16K expansion should be required. If such a game came out in 1983 for the VIC-20, it would have required it anyhow. Nowadays, most people have access to emulators and those who still use real VIC-20s have at least 16K memory expansion.

I'd say that I met most of the goals except for making it a 16 K game. All those hours I would spend scribbling ideas into a notebook 20+ years ago about a grand RPG haven't gone to waste. Honestly, I hardly used any handwritten notes--maybe 4 pages. Everything I wanted to put in the game was already thought about in my head all those years ago.

A Gold Box combat system would have been much harder to program than the simplified portrait combat system that I came up with (2 rows of monsters, melee/spell attacks the front while missiles attack the back).

Perhaps 32K expansion is not 'true' retro (although third-party companies did offer hardware to provide this), but the "save to tape" option certainly gives it an air of retro authenticity. How long would it take to load a 32K game from Datassette?

The font in this game was actually originally designed by me in 1988 for a Commodore 64 RPG I made with my friend called "Ultimate Quest" (I should put a link to it, it's nothing much, just a curiosity more than anything). I'm kind of tempted to put in a fake (c) date of 1988 at the title screen

[Ghislain]

Thanks for the swift reply...
You mentioned you may have room for an extra pic or two - maybe when you change screens with the Spacebar - the graphic screen changes as well - like maybe a party menu screen with a group portrait of adventurers to indicate that.

That's a pretty good idea and something that I will consider. I'll see how much memory I have left after the music has been put in.

Also, will there be option to 'sell' weapons for cash? Or to totally discard weapons instead of dropping them into inventory?

No, the shop keep does not like to buy used items from customers, unfortunately (at least in this current iteration of the demo, it seems). Something I might consider putting in there if memory permits. Another opportunity/excuse to put in a portrait there perhaps? A good way to obtain a lot of cash when you sell magic items that you find.

Just wondering, if you slowly start to build up your armoury you may not have anymore room for the bigger and better stuff since the smaller weapons will be taking up precious space in your inventory....by the way how big is the party's inventory?

Your inventory has 10 free slots to place your spare items, but you can drop these items with the DEL key, or if you equip them on one of your characters, the item is removed from the inventory. Make sure that you have some extra free spaces there for when you find magic items in a treasure chest.

[darkatx]

Aw man - I finally tried out the Haste spell and that caused my thief to do double attacks...that was really cool!

[Mayhem]

No, the shop keep does not like to buy used items from customers, unfortunately (at least in this current iteration of the demo, it seems). Something I might consider putting in there if memory permits. Another opportunity/excuse to put in a portrait there perhaps? A good way to obtain a lot of cash when you sell magic items that you find.

Most RPGs do allow for the selling of extra weapons back to shops, although for 30-50% of the selling price usually. I do concur such a mechanism should be present, it would take the edge of gaining items you can't or don't want to use a little, if they can be used to generate cash.

[Ghislain]

Aw man - I finally tried out the Haste spell and that caused my thief to do double attacks...that was really cool!

Thanks! That part of testing was a lot of fun for me--especially when I tested spells like SLEEP and POWER WORD KILL just to watch an entire row of monsters fall down one by one.

All of these past months of programming were finally vindicated when I watched that for the first time

Most RPGs do allow for the selling of extra weapons back to shops, although for 30-50% of the selling price usually. I do concur such a mechanism should be present, it would take the edge of gaining items you can't or don't want to use a little, if they can be used to generate cash.

It's something that I _should_ implement but I'm kind of reluctant to. Not for any design or philosophical reasons it's just that if someone were to ask me what was the hardest and most frustrating part of programming this game I would say that it was the inventory management system. I will most likely implement this, but I want to see how much memory I've left after I put in the music. Anyway, it won't be as hard to do it because I can just re-use other parts of my code (JSR to it),

And another thing I will probably do is charge money for 'resting at the inn'. Not a popular decision for sure, but a lot of other CRPGs actually age your characters and charge a mint for resting and recuperating. But it will probably be too high of a cost -- 5 GP for the entire party to be reset to maximum hits and spell points. The reason for this is to place a value on having to heal the entire party to maximum.

There are two extremely powerful magic items in this game:

-RING OF WIZARDRY (wizards and necromancers who wield this can cast all of their spells at the cost of 1 spell unit)

-ROD OF RESURRECTION (priests and monks who wield this can resurrect the entire party to maximum hit points using a single charge).

While at first glance, these might make the game wildly unbalanced, keep in mind that there are monsters (hobbits, elves, etc) who can steal any equipped magic item or potion.

All I've left to do for the basic game mechanics now (before I proceed to program the "Quest" part of the game) is the DRINK POTION option. All 10 magic items have now been programmed and tested.

[adamantyr]

Looking good... I really need to try the demo, been a busy week but I'll definitely have a look this weekend.

On the subject of balance (and imbalance), the one thing to avoid is the system under which it is unthinkable NOT to have this item, or this class, or this race, because they're so powerful and useful. The same goes the opposite way, no combination should be completely useless either.

A good case study in imbalance is the "Haste" spell from 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons. It was so powerful and useful that the joke ran that every wizard and sorcerer "inked" the spell in on their character sheet. When 3.5 came out the spell was greatly reduced in power and this no longer held true.

The "Darkness" spells from old D&D were also over-powered, in their original form they effectively blinded everyone in a given area. While it wasn't targeted permanent blindness like the higher level divine spell, in a small time window like combat it was deadly effective. These spells were changed in 3.5 to just "dim" light levels rather than black out entirely.

Adamantyr

[Ghislain]

Looking good... I really need to try the demo, been a busy week but I'll definitely have a look this weekend.

On the subject of balance (and imbalance), the one thing to avoid is the system under which it is unthinkable NOT to have this item, or this class, or this race, because they're so powerful and useful. The same goes the opposite way, no combination should be completely useless either.

Adamantyr

Thanks!

I changed the RING OF WIZARDRY so that level 1 spells cost 0 spell units to cast (basically making all first level spells 'free to use') and level 4 spells cost 4 spell units to cast.

Still makes for a powerful item. The thought of a spell like POWER WORD KILL only costing 1 spell unit to cast made the wizard even more powerful (and basically, the WIZARD is the most powerful class in my game at higher levels).

One most feel bad for the PRIESTS as most of their spells are defensive and you don't really get XP for healing. However, they're the only ones who can 'kill' demonic creatures (wizard kill spells are useless against them) so they should be able to gain quite a few XP when they reach higher levels.

Today was another milestone--I just finished programming the DRINK POTION routines and now all of the basic game mechanics have been programmed (save for selling items which I will do later on). The next step will be to program the "quest" (which is just basically: get 8 orbs of power that reside in the 8 dunjons -- then make your way to the boss dunjon and kill the final boss there.)

Anyway, here is the latest demo:

http://www.usaupload.net/d/0bhwd30ayn9

[adamantyr]

Played the demo a bit... Feedback time!

When entering character names, I noticed there was no check or stop for length, although the display automatically truncates to ten characters. Cursor input is always a pain to code. (My solution in my CRPG is... not to have any, an external program does character generation.)

I think you definitely need to increase starting wealth, or reduce the cost of things around 20-30%. Or, consider starting characters with base weapons and armor, like a dagger and robe apiece.

Wandering around close to town I had two encounters, one character died in the first and four in the second. Pretty lethal... weapons don't seem to make a great deal of difference in damage determination, maybe a higher base damage and lower randomness will help with this perception.

Also, how do you re-enter the castle from the outer world? I tried moving around in there with no effect. Posting a collected list of commands, possibly in a text file included with your zip, would be useful.

Graphics and play look great, by the way, very impressive work. I like the animated water and the reversal of the portraits to suggest action on the part of the monsters.

You may want to add sound effects to the game as soon as you're able... I think you'll find that coding decent ones takes more time and code-space than you think. My sound effects take up around 2 kilobytes.

Adamantyr

[Ghislain]

Played the demo a bit... Feedback time!

When entering character names, I noticed there was no check or stop for length, although the display automatically truncates to ten characters. Cursor input is always a pain to code. (My solution in my CRPG is... not to have any, an external program does character generation.)

Actually, the name is only truncated at the main screen and you can also have first and last names (or even 3 names) seperated by spaces. The name is truncated to the first 10 characters or the first space seperating first and last name. So if your wizard's full name is HAWKWIND DULAC, the main screen will truncate it down to simply HAWKWIND. If your name was SUPERCALAFRAGILISTIC, then of course the game would truncate to the first 10 chars as SUPERCALAF. You can see the full name when you choose the VIEW CHAR option. The maximum length for everything in the name is 20 characters.

I think you definitely need to increase starting wealth, or reduce the cost of things around 20-30%. Or, consider starting characters with base weapons and armor, like a dagger and robe apiece.

I'll probably increase the starting gold.

Wandering around close to town I had two encounters, one character died in the first and four in the second. Pretty lethal... weapons don't seem to make a great deal of difference in damage determination, maybe a higher base damage and lower randomness will help with this perception.

I haven't noticed any bugs when it comes to weapons damage. Bare hands do 1-2, daggers 1-4, staff 1-6 and of course there is double damage (a successful check against strength and a combination of other factors).

It is a bit difficult at first, but I kind of like it that way. When I playtested my game, I would rest the party at the castle or a town immediately after a battle even if the characters only suffered minor damage.

The first phase of the game is to build a party strong enough so that they can eventually enter the dunjons and survive long enough for those expeditions to fetch the orbs of power.

Also, how do you re-enter the castle from the outer world? I tried moving around in there with no effect. Posting a collected list of commands, possibly in a text file included with your zip, would be useful.

When moving around, press the RETURN (or ENTER key on your PC keyboard) and you can enter a town, castle, board a ship, climb a ladder (when in a dunjon), etc. That's all there is to it, one key to handle all of those actions. And then, there is the SPACE bar to switch back to the menu.

As for specifically entering the castle, just place the character icon in the dead center of it and press RETURN.

Graphics and play look great, by the way, very impressive work. I like the animated water and the reversal of the portraits to suggest action on the part of the monsters.

You may want to add sound effects to the game as soon as you're able... I think you'll find that coding decent ones takes more time and code-space than you think. My sound effects take up around 2 kilobytes.

Adamantyr

Thanks! I do plan on adding music and sound and I've 'budgeted' about 2 K for this. Right now as it stands, I've 4711 bytes free.

[Ghislain]

****** REALMS OF QUEST 3 beta version 0.1 is now out ******

Get it here: http://www.usaupload.net/d/l7y51mf9huw

This is the first playable version of Realms of Quest 3 that has all of the elements I had planned for the game.

Use cursor keys to navigate menus, SPACE bar to switch menus and RETURN to activate menu item. You can also use the first letter of a menu item to activate it.

When in combat mode, you'll be given options to choose from (just press A for Attack for example).

When in movement mode (MOVE ABOUT), you can use the cursor keys of IJKL to move. Pressing RETURN while in movement mode will make your party enter a city, climb a ladder, etc. Press the SPACE bar while in movement mode to go to the menu.


GOAL OF THE GAME
----------------
There are 8 dunjons with each having an orb of power. There is a 9th dunjon (within a field of molten rock and lava) that can only be entered if you have all 8 orbs of power. The orbs of power are located on the 15th floor of the 8 dunjons -- go there and kill the demon bride to collect one of the orbs.

After you've obtained all 8 orbs of power, you can go to the 9th dunjon in the 15th floor to kill Nikaedor the demon wizard.


Things left to do:

-Background music
-More graphics
-8 save game slots (currently there is only 1)
-Ability to sell weapons
-Charge 5 GP for staying at the inn.
-Joystick support
-Proper Manual (the current one is incomplete!)

Other than the preceding, all of the game mechanics and goals of the game are completed. If you save your game and there is an upgrade to this one, you will be able to safely upgrade Realms of Quest 3 and re-use your previously saved games.

[Ghislain]

I've come up with my own IRQ music player. While it is limited to 2 1/2 octaves (values 0-31), I'm able to make the music sound rich by lowering the bass key down by 1 octave so I trick the ear into hearing 3 1/2 octaves.

Each note has duration information (bits 5-7) and pitch information (bits 0-4 as described above). So it will only cost me 1 byte per note. I'll also put in a toggle music/on off option for those who don't want to hear the music.

So far I've transcribed a portion of Beethoven's 7th for the title screen and I'm in the middle of transcribing Bach's Intervention 13 for the menu screens (latter was used in the VIC-20 commercials and the Gauntlet arcade game)

I'll try to fit in as much music as possible.

[carlsson]

I've already transcribed Bach's Two-Part Invention 13, in case you have any use at all of my version. However it spans over a such large interval that I had to use all three voices to cover two parts.

http://www.cbm.sfks.se/files/vplay.zip (version 5.2 = the player routine used on Mega-Cart, not the most recent one used in Albert's demo)

[Ghislain]

I've already transcribed Bach's Two-Part Invention 13, in case you have any use at all of my version. However it spans over a such large interval that I had to use all three voices to cover two parts.

http://www.cbm.sfks.se/files/vplay.zip (version 5.2 = the player routine used on Mega-Cart, not the most recent one used in Albert's demo)

Thanks... I've done quite a bit of music work today. These are the following pieces of music that now work with my game:

Title screen: Beethoven's 7th
Menu screens: 2-part intervention 13 (Bach)
Dunjon theme: Swan Lake (Tchaikovski)
Combat: Toccata et Fugue (Bach)

I really like how great Bach's music sounds on the VIC-20.

3200 bytes free! I'll try not to overdo it with the music and leave some space for other things that I want to put in the game.

There will be an option to toggle music on/off but since I've run out of space for menus, I might just cheat and use a shortcut key (say "V" when you're moving around). Besides, as much as I like the music, having no music adds retro authenticity to the game.