Denial

Welcome to the friendly forum Elderling! Have a nice stay, I hope you'll find every info you're looking for here. Please search the forum, and if you don't find enough help, feel free to post questions in the appropriate section.

Believe it or not, my username is as old as the Vic. Back in the 80's I was a bit of a hacker/cracker. I couldn't afford an Apple ][ until much later, so was labled a "victim" because I had a vic-20. It stuck to this day. I did some Apple cracking along with The Glitch, you might see The Victim on a few of those games. Set the way-forward machine to around 2009 when I discovered the RLSH (Real Life Super Hero) community. I was at a loss for a moniker so opted for my old standby. I hosted a number of "build meets" where Seattle area RLSH would gather and I would supply tools and materials to build body armor and other equipment.

As for vic development, I'm almost finished with my first game in 35+ years, Gravity Ball, an upside-down breakout variant without a paddle. You shoot the ball in the direction of your choice at numbered blocks, and it bounces around until it drains from the open bottom. Reducing a block count to zero destroys the block. You get unlimited balls, BUT the blocks advance up the screen after each shot and you lose if a block reaches the top. I needed to do something simple to blow the cobwebs out of my 6502 asm. I've done projects in BASIC before, but mostly for other machines and am now almost exclusively an assembly programmer, at least on the Vic.

Hi Victim, and welcome
Great to have an old-school hacker here, hope to see your game finished soon. Sounds like a very original gameplay indeed.

It's hardly original, it's a ripoff of the Gravity mode game from Brick Ball Crusher, one of those predatory mobile games that leeches money from people for "lives" and powerups that add nothing to the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqlbu84ceBk

Mine's spectacularly unoriginal: doug_in_nc - My name is Doug and I live in North Carolina

Funny thread
My nick is "fraural", from the initials of the names of my family members
f stands for francesco (me)
r stands for rossana (my wife)
aur stands for aurora (my daughter)
al stands for alessandro (my son)

Pretty simple or ugly

Nice! If I chose my nick the same way, it'd be ASEM - well, Fraural is way better

I noticed that after more than 11 years on the forum, I never introduced myself

My username is based on the first syllables of my first and last name: Torsten Kracke = tokra

I have that alias since the early 90s I think, and some years before Stargate SG1 made the word "Tokra" popular.

orion70 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 13, 2021 7:29 am Nice! If I chose my nick the same way, it'd be ASEM

Well... "ASEM" would be "asino" (donkey?) in my country... no offense of course

tokra wrote: ↑Wed Oct 13, 2021 7:58 am I noticed that after more than 11 years on the forum, I never introduced myself

ROTFL! Never say never...

Hiya. I'm Don (though my nick-name online for some places, such as for my YouTube gaming-channel, "Mystic Sword Gaming" / https://www.youtube.com/mysticsword /, is MysticSword and my artist-nickname I usually go by is Mystix.

Anyways, I'm a new member to the forums here (though I've occasionally lurked here and found a lot of good Vic-20 related info).
It's wonderful to see a community (as we have on this site) that still actively has an ongoing interest, passion and love for the Vic-20 (and older computers and gaming-systems from back in that era), and I figured I should become a Member here.

For most of my life I've had a fascination and interest in video-games, gaming systems, computers and technology in general. My first computer (many years ago when I was but a young teen) was a Vic-20. I had a paper-route at the time and it took me about half-a-year to save up enough to buy it. I dove right into teaching myself BASIC on the Vic-20 (with the help of the wonderful friendly user-manual that came with it then anything else I could manage to get my hands on, more books, magazines, examining other programs, etc...) and even went on to program several of my own homebrew games for the Vic-20.

During the following few years I went on to also own a C64 and Amiga computers, which I had much enjoyment with those systems as well. But the Vic-20 will always have a special place in my heart and I have much fond memories of it.

Alas, as time and life marches on, and moving a few times about, those old Commodore computers (along with all the hardware, software, games, books, etc... I had), are long gone, but not forgotten. Since then, computers I've owned (and currently) were desktop PCs (running an according version of the Windows OS).

For a good shot of nostalgia, I still do some retro-gaming (of Vic-20, C64 and Amiga games) with the use of emulator software on my current PC.
As I currently don't have extra funds or space (living in a small apartment) to get into collecting the real Commodore computer systems (and hardware, physical copies of games and such), when I want to re-visit using those systems, the emulator software will suffice instead.

I also enjoy watching some retro-gaming vids on YouTube, and even make some of my own videos of retro-gaming that I put on my 'Mystic Sword Gaming' channel there.

The last few months I've felt extra-nostalgic for, and an eagerness to re-visit / re-explore, the Vic-20. Perusing (and lurking) the forums here, I happened upon mention of the 'CBM prg Studio' software / http://www.ajordison.co.uk/ , which can help to write programs for the Commodore computers. So for about a week or so now (as I write this post), I've been diving into becoming familiar with that program and also re-learning the old BASIC as it was on the Vic-20.

Lately I've felt inspired and motivated (and with the help of that wonderful CBM prg Studio program) to try my hand at making a new Vic-20 game. It's been an exciting and fun challenge so far and I've been making good progress. When it's ready, I'll see about finding a way I can share it here with the community and some other places for anyone that might be interested.

I look forward to make some new friends here and to hopefully be an active part of the community here.
Cudos to the Owner(s), Moderators and other community Members of Vic-20 Denial. Cheers!

Welcome, Don!

Your introductory post striked me as not being entirely off-topic, though ... if you're okay with that, I might merge it into the sticky thread "Introduce yourself" in the General section.

While CBM prg Studio might be sufficient for first steps into the VIC programming experience, it has several shortcomings, one of them being a rather weak numeric expression parser. I suppose these will likely lead you to other more reliable workhorses like ACME, DASM or ca65 in the long term.

Greetings,

Michael

Oh yes please and thank-you.

I'm still familiarizing myself with some of the layout / sections of the forums here, and I guess I missed the "Introduce Yourself" section, which of course is where it should be.

And thanks for the kind welcome aboard!

MysticSword wrote: ↑Tue Nov 02, 2021 5:19 am Oh yes please and thank-you.

I'm still familiarizing myself with some of the layout / sections of the forums here, and I guess I missed the "Introduce Yourself" section, which of course is where it should be.

And thanks for the kind welcome aboard!

Welcome to Denial!. As you, I also came back to the VIC 20 world after something like 40 years. I was very lucky because I was able to rescue my original VIC 20 from my mother’s house. It still works OK so I can try the great stuff I find here in my ‘old’ computer.

Cheers

Lechuck wrote: ↑Tue Nov 02, 2021 10:08 am Welcome to Denial!. As you, I also came back to the VIC 20 world after something like 40 years. I was very lucky because I was able to rescue my original VIC 20 from my mother’s house. It still works OK so I can try the great stuff I find here in my ‘old’ computer.

Cheers

Aww, thank-yee! It's great to be here.
Over a couple decades ago, I was moving away from where I grew up (and didn't know for how long I'd be gone or if I'd even be back. But a few years ago I returned back 'home', well home of where I grew-up at I mean), and I had gifted my Vic-20, along with all I had for it (hardware, games and such) to my two nephews. From what I gather, they've long since got rid of it though (but alas, such is life, things come and go).

Yeah, currently it's been around 40 years ago for me since when I originally got a Vic-20. Even when I had my C64 and Amiga computers after that, I still spent plenty of time enjoying to use that good 'ol Vic-20. It still holds a charm for me and has a special place in my heart along with lots of fond memories of it. I'd say it helped to get me started and more interested in using computers, and since then using computers over the passing years has been a big part of my life.

Getting back to exploring using the Vic-20 again (more so recently, though through the use of emulator software) in some ways I guess makes me feel more youthful again, but then in some ways makes me feel older at the same time (if that makes sense). Still, I've been much enjoying myself diving into the world of Vic-20 again after all these years and that's the main thing, try to enjoy oneself and have a bit of fun in life.

PS: Haha, I really like your Captain LeChuck avatar.

Welcome to Denial, and welcome back to the Vic 20. This is a great place to be and if there's anything you wanted to know about the Vic 20 it's either here already, or someone will be able to tell you the answer. There's something magical about the Vic for me too, being the first computer I had it was where I learnt everything new, when it was all like magic.