TGA - The Great Adventure

e5frog · Post by **e5frog** » Fri Aug 13, 2010 3:39 pm

Mike wrote:When the picture is loaded while text mode is still on, the bottom half of the text screen is written with the first bytes of the picture bitmap. This data was not visible on white background before, because the VIC-20 kernal initialises Colour RAM always with white colour (and not the cursor colour!) on a screen clear.

Too bad... I guess you have to use white background on the loading screen then - unless you like the garbage.

BUG:
I noticed there's no "loading-warning" after refusing to rescue the kidnapped son, it just says SEARCHING FOR INN and loads the picture.

bug:
"THE DWARVES ," -> "THE DWARVES,"

The dice rolling is wrong again when rolling against dexterity, it says I need to get MORE (than 12), I get more (14) but I fail.

And again:
AMBUSH get MORE than your intellect (16), I rolled 7 and made it!

bug:
"YOU´RE BACK TO THE INN" -> "you're back at the inn" ?

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Fri Aug 13, 2010 3:54 pm

e5frog wrote:Too bad... I guess you have to use white background on the loading screen then - unless you like the garbage.

I already gave a solution to both your suggestion of 'showing the picture as it is loaded', and 'apparent garbage on screen with non-white background': switch to graphics mode, and clear the screen with '@ON:@CLR' before loading the picture with '@LOAD'.

Then both issues go away.

I really don't want to clutter this thread about TGA with technical details about MINIGRAFIK, but just for you to know: The extension is included with TGA, just load, and run MINIGRAFIK from the VIC-20 start-up screen. If you're so inclined, and want to try out MG for yourself, here's a description of the new commands:

http://www.sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web ... 2&start=49

MINIPAINT is an editor for pictures in that mode:

http://www.sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web ... php?t=3752

And VICtoria Gold is a game Alessandro, and I wrote already in 2008, and which uses MINIGRAFIK:

http://www.sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web ... php?t=3046

e5frog · Post by **e5frog** » Fri Aug 13, 2010 4:11 pm

I tried the @ON:@CLR before the @LOAD - looked pretty nice, picture is loaded in white only from top to bottom one character at the time and one column at the time from left to right and then turns into color after all is loaded.

Perhaps it's just me that like it? I guess it's up to Orion70 to decide.

Kananga · Post by **Kananga** » Fri Aug 13, 2010 11:29 pm

I played v5 yesterday and noticed that some of the screens in Babbakesh are not readable anymore (View hero and return home is missing from the menu & the hero stats are invisible) Must be due to the new colors.

Then I loaded v3 and got an "out of memory" after a while.

Although I die a lot I like this game very much. Thanks!

e5frog · Post by **e5frog** » Sat Aug 14, 2010 9:31 am

Kananga wrote:I played v5 yesterday and noticed that some of the screens in Babbakesh are not readable anymore (View hero and return home is missing from the menu & the hero stats are invisible) Must be due to the new colors.

Yup, I wrote that here a few posts ago:

Bug 2:
When getting to Babbakesh and visiting the alchemist the game seemed to lock up with a blue/black screen and no text. After doing a RUN/STOP (break in line 6350), changing the cursor color to white I could backtrace and see that there's text - but it's blue. Using POKE36879,232 you would not have to set the text color, blue would work fine.

You can run/stop, change the colors and then continue the game with "CONT".

Better play the v4 or v5 that doesn't have the out of memory error as far as I have seen.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Sun Aug 15, 2010 3:04 am

I read everything, thanks everybody for your play-testing. Will try and work on a v6 ASAP (I'm on the beach now

).

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 9:52 am

Here I am, back home. I will try and re-write the whole game, optimizing the code to save memory and implementing the suggested corrections - just give me some extra time for v6

.

e5frog · Post by **e5frog** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 12:03 pm

Sounds tricky... there's a chance for entirely new bugs.

There wasn't really that much to change, the text at dice rolls needs to be changed from "MORE" to "LESS" and then that's solved. Color correction at Babbakesh and move the comma where it says "DWARVES ,".

Perhaps you could make a subroutine for the color change.

If you don't like the "watch while loading" picture option you could change back to default colors (also with a subroutine) when writing the loading-message to make the garbage invisible (or at least a white background).

And then it's done, maybe - unless someone finds anything else.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 2:40 pm

You're right. Let's say I will release v6 soon with those adjustments, and then I'll work in the shadow for a more polished v7

.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Thu Aug 19, 2010 1:08 am

TGA_v6 is ready for downloading

.
Bugs corrected:

e5frog wrote:The lower half of the screen is now filled with garbage while waiting to load the pictures.

e5frog wrote:I'm thinking, if there's lack of memory, perhaps it's possible to reuse the text lines that appear more than one time.

e5frog wrote:It says I need to get MORE than my intellect to escape an ambush but if I roll less I manage to escape and if I get more I don't escape.

e5frog wrote:When getting to Babbakesh and visiting the alchemist the game seemed to lock up with a blue/black screen and no text. After doing a RUN/STOP (break in line 6350), changing the cursor color to white I could backtrace and see that there's text - but it's blue.

e5frog wrote:I noticed there's no "loading-warning" after refusing to rescue the kidnapped son, it just says SEARCHING FOR INN and loads the picture.

e5frog wrote:"THE DWARVES ," -> "THE DWARVES,"

e5frog wrote:The dice rolling is wrong again when rolling against dexterity, it says I need to get MORE (than 12), I get more (14) but I fail.

e5frog wrote:And again:
AMBUSH get MORE than your intellect (16), I rolled 7 and made it!

e5frog wrote:"YOU´RE BACK TO THE INN" -> "you're back at the inn" ?

The last one was not corrected on the basis of Google results (BACK TO THE INN, about 47,900,000 results vs BACK AT THE INN 10,900,000

).

As a final note, I'd say I'm proud of this little game. I tested it on the real VIC today for the first time, and it's quite fun even with slow disk loading (used 64HDD and loaded with XE1541 cable from my PC).

Kananga · Post by **Kananga** » Thu Aug 19, 2010 7:54 am

Great, thanks!
And close to the weekend...

You should be proud! When do you start selling it?

e5frog · Post by **e5frog** » Thu Aug 19, 2010 10:17 am

orion70 wrote:
e5frog wrote:"YOU´RE BACK TO THE INN" -> "you're back at the inn" ?
The last one was not corrected on the basis of Google results (BACK TO THE INN, about 47,900,000 results vs BACK AT THE INN 10,900,000 ).

Well, if you google for the whole sentence "you're back to the inn" you get NO hits... "you are back to the inn" you get two.
"You´re back at the inn" gets eight hits and "you are back at the inn" gets six.

If it had said "you go back to the inn" that would have been fine, but when you already ARE there you are "at the inn" or "in the inn".

So you GO TO and ARE AT but you don't GO AT and ARE TO.

Again, I'm not a native English speaker but this sounds right to me, not that it matters for the game though. I could easily change it myself if I wanted to.

Great game anyway - I'm looking forward to trying it again.
I'd like to see this sold, preferably with a nice printed label, cover and box! I guess a disk with a disk cover (pocket ? ) would be enough though.

I hope the 1541U-II will allow for standalone mode, or I might just write a disk or use the C64 as server (1541U-II connected to it and then the 1541U-II connected to the VIC).

So, did you manage to save some memory?

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Thu Aug 19, 2010 11:31 am

e5frog wrote:So you GO TO and ARE AT but you don't GO AT and ARE TO.

Yup! You're most probably right. Will correct this in future versions, or else leave it as a feature (game done by a non-English member

). (*)

e5frog wrote:I'd like to see this sold, preferably with a nice printed label, cover and box! I guess a disk with a disk cover (pocket ? ) would be enough though.

I did cassette or disk covers before, so why not for TGA?

e5frog wrote:So, did you manage to save some memory?

Well, sounds strange, apparently there's less RAM free at the beginning, but the game seems to use less during the play (v5 went quickly from about 1000 to 100-200, v6 starts with about 900 but after 30 min play it's still at 500).

(*)EDIT.
I found this discussion about the use of AT or TO or IN propositions HERE:

Hi teachers,

"Please call Mr. Yuen when you are back to / in the office."

So often I have heard this phrase, but which preposition is correct in use? Thank you.

Hi

It depends on what you're trying to convey.

You could say:
* "Please call Mr. Yuen when you are back in office." (when you resume your working activities after having been 'out of office')
* "Please call Mr. Yuen when you are back at the office.'' (does not imply that you've been 'out' of office for a while; only that you've been away/elsewhere for some time). Maybe you just went to the bank for half an hour and then returned.
* "Please call Mr. Yuen when you are back in the office. (when you've been away and when you're physically back inside the building (i.e. the office.)

So maybe BACK IN THE INN?

e5frog · Post by **e5frog** » Thu Aug 19, 2010 12:13 pm

I rescued the kidnapped son and in the process at least one week passed (end of week 1, +1 endurance) but when I got back home it's still "week 1". Then I got the end of week 1 again and then it changed to week 2.

After the inn picture is shown it jumped to week 5.

Going on a mission seems to switch between week 1 and 2 and not get corrected until after you have returned to the inn.

No picture was loaded when visiting the rich merchant to rescue his kidnapped son. I seem to remember that there was one before??

If you press Y several times in the initial roll, it keeps outputting new results until all presses are done - don't know if it's meant to do that.

Noticed that the $ sign is sometimes close to the numbers and sometimes there's one space between them. It would look nice if it was close all the time and also the dot after.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Thu Aug 19, 2010 1:06 pm

e5frog wrote:I rescued the kidnapped son and in the process at least one week passed (end of week 1, +1 endurance) but when I got back home it's still "week 1". Then I got the end of week 1 again and then it changed to week 2.

Geez, why do you find new bugs a few hours AFTER a new version is issued? I'm joking, I'll take a look at that.

e5frog wrote:No picture was loaded when visiting the rich merchant to rescue his kidnapped son. I seem to remember that there was one before??

No, there wasn't.

e5frog wrote:If you press Y several times in the initial roll, it keeps outputting new results until all presses are done - don't know if it's meant to do that.

Of course no, but you aren't supposed to press Y several times, why should you?

e5frog wrote:Noticed that the $ sign is sometimes close to the numbers and sometimes there's one space between them. It would look nice if it was close all the time and also the dot after.

This needs some patience, since there are many recurrences of the $ symbol. I'll take a look at them, too (although I wonder if people can survive with some exceeding spaces popping up from time to time).

The weeks problem seems critical. I'll work on it ASAP, also checking if it was present in the C64 original version.