New Release: Doom

[Ghislain]

@Ghislain: So what's your point?

Perhaps I was rambling incoherently towards a-semi existential question:

"What is a VIC-20?"

or trying to expand on what rhurst was alluding to: "Is a VIC-20 running a 3D engine to emulate a 1990s game like DOOM really a VIC-20 game in the traditional sense?".

Maybe not, but I still think it's pretty cool.

rhurst still posed a valid question though (because it's a question I ask myself sometimes). I also agree with him that Jeff makes the very best "traditional" VIC-20 games in the context of what VIC-20 games were supposed to be.

[orion70]

Perhaps I was rambling incoherently towards a-semi existential question:

"What is a VIC-20?"

Hamletic question, indeed. I'm sorry this post is going slightly OT, but the matter is interesting.

Within this forum in the last few years we've seen countless hardware (Mega-Cart, FE3, S-Video mod, etc) and software wonders (ROQ III, excellent arcade conversions, and let me add all the games made with Minigrafik) - all of them being released for the original VIC-20 with the purpose of pushing it to its technical limits and/or amuse people with new entertaining products. One could argue that these products are not in the spirit of the 80s nor they were feasible back then, but here's my personal point of view: so what? Fiddling with the VIC is fun both with the latest generation Maxigrafik suite, Mega-Cart or Final Expansion 3, and with a 3k game written by Jeff.
If I was so brave and skilled to do it, I'd try and modify one of my machines with the VFLI hardware mod, without losing any point of purity as a VIC geek, I hope .

Is a VIC-20 running a 3D engine to emulate a 1990s game like DOOM really a VIC-20 game in the traditional sense?

If the hardware is the same available back then (including the RAM expansion, of course), it's definitely a NEW game for the VIC, just like e.g. Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders was the first point and click adventure for the C64, and eventually became a "traditional" game itself .

[Mayhem]

Is a modern VIC-20 game that requires full memory expansion + disk drive really a VIC-20 game?

Yes. The 1540 and 16k expansion were available at the time, so that justifies it completely. Having worked on GB20 now for quite a while, there are quite a few 16k titles in the database; in fact possibly more than 3k and 8k titles, making it the second most popular memory expansion after unexpanded of course.

[Ghislain]

Is a modern VIC-20 game that requires full memory expansion + disk drive really a VIC-20 game?

Yes. The 1540 and 16k expansion were available at the time, so that justifies it completely. Having worked on GB20 now for quite a while, there are quite a few 16k titles in the database; in fact possibly more than 3k and 8k titles, making it the second most popular memory expansion after unexpanded of course.

By full memory expansion, I mean 32K expansion required of course, or even in some extreme circumstances, 35K

[Kananga]

Is a modern VIC-20 game that requires full memory expansion + disk drive really a VIC-20 game?

We don't need to look at modern hardware like FE3 or MegaCart for huge RAM. Besides the more common 27/32K RAM expansions, there were at least two 64K RAM expansions in the 80s, one even stackable. I always wanted one after having read the reviews in the German magazine "64er".
So the argument more RAM than 5K is not original hardware is just nonsense.

Of course, I did only own a datasette and one 8K RAM expansion back then. But I also had no color TV, but a monochrome green monitor. Hence, color in games is against the true spirit of the Vic-20!

In the end it is just a matter of personal taste and there is no objective truth and as Orion already said: everyone should feel free to pursue the games genre he prefers.

So. what is a Vic-20?
Completely outdated, obselete, useless, and perhaps partly toxic garbage.

And I want to see DOOM on the Vic-20! Amazing stuff!
(This will show the C-64 crowd who is boss again... )

[Jeff-20]

Our beloved Jeff has captured that essence in a most eloquent manner. most of us will never achieve.

Thanks!

I was subscribed to the "2600 Connection" newsletter back in the 1990s. Once a year, they'd have an "April Fool's Issue" where it would contain mock screenshots of games and products that would be technically too advanced to achieve on the Atari 2600: Windows 2600, Doom 2600, Duke Nuk'em 2600, etc.

I had/have that issue!! They used to make fake box shots too.

[Ghislain]

So the argument more RAM than 5K is not original hardware is just nonsense.

Of course, I did only own a datasette and one 8K RAM expansion back then. But I also had no color TV, but a monochrome green monitor. Hence, color in games is against the true spirit of the Vic-20!

I did not own a Datassette. For years, all I had was a VIC-20 and with no means of actual means of saving any programs. Most of the games I "wrote" when I was a kid were wiped clean when my Dad wanted to watch TV. But at least it was a color one!

So in order to go back to to the "true spirit" of my VIC-20 childhood experience, I should type, and retype "Killer Comet" over and over again just to re-live the good old days

I think we can agree that we all have our different interpretation of what VIC-20 "retro purity" is. I recall Jeff D. saying that he feels guilty if he doesn't use Commodore-branded cassette tapes to store his programs. He's hardcore.

So. what is a Vic-20?
Completely outdated, obselete, useless, and perhaps partly toxic garbage.

And I want to see DOOM on the Vic-20! Amazing stuff!
(This will show the C-64 crowd who is boss again... )

DOOM on the VIC-20 will be pretty cool.

The VIC-20 has it over the C64 on a lot of things: the 22 column (and even that can be configurable) screen is a FEATURE not a bug. Wide multicolor graphic pixels are beautiful. I prefer square sound waves instead of fancy-schmancy ADSR. Sprites are for wimps, real programmers can think and dream in programming at the raster level (ok the last one, I couldn't even dream of attempting, but you get the idea).

[Kweepa]

And I want to see DOOM on the Vic-20! Amazing stuff!
(This will show the C-64 crowd who is boss again... )

Well, there's always MOOD to rain on our parade:
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=40255
The enemies are a bit ugly and it's more of a Wolf clone (walls at right angles, regular grid) than a Doom clone, but it is fullscreen and 7FPS! 40x50=2000 pixels, vs my 32x64=2048 pixels.
I tried playing it last night. It's hard. The enemies are difficult to pick out from the background. My plan to avoid that problem is to have the walls mostly green and blue and the enemies mostly red.

[ravenxau]

Do you plan an alpha/beta release?

Perhaps a nice "alpha" video on youtube, so we can get a "feel" for how the development is coming.

On a side note, I have tried to make a raycaster, a'la wolfenstein 3d, on the vic in BASIC - using all the programming tricks i know, never had any success though. I know it would never have a practicle use, but the dream is there

[Ivanhoe76]

I dont' want to offend anyone, but I don't like to criticize a person just because he's studying how to push our vic to the limits except to say something like "old time vic users had the computer with no expansions and just a datasette"....
Where's the problem if someone is trying to realize something that old time users only wished to have?
I love vic as it was once and what is going to be right now!! I always wished to see what our vic could have become if Commodore had continued to support it!!!
Go on supporting vic in any way you want: all future project are welcome, from Great Giana Sisters to Gauntlet and, why not, DOOM!!! Very well done Kweepa!

[rhurst]

@Ivanhoe76: I agree, and no criticism was offered. As Kweepa stated, it's his itch to scratch, go for it!
... and the fact that he's using a 6502 C compiler makes it that more interesting.

@Ghislain: "I recall Jeff D. saying that he feels guilty if he doesn't use Commodore-branded cassette tapes to store his programs. He's hardcore."

No, I think he's just plain whack for using tape.
And, yes, re-typing Killer Comet is still better than using tape.

I had tape, b&w TV, then later added 3k. When I got the multi-slot expansion card, I bought VICMon followed by an 8k expander. Never saw much need to beyond that on VIC.

Three years after VIC, I went the C16 route with a Cardco floppy; at the time, I found that machine more aligned with VIC 20 friendliness than C64. Improved BASIC, ML monitor, 40-columns, more colors, flash, same cool keyboard but with an improved layout, 16K RAM ... it was _everything_ I wished the VIC was and the C64 was not.

Of course, when C128 came out shortly after... it was the crown jewel of 8-bit machines, perfectly keeping that culture thriving through the end of the 1980s.

Very OT, sorry... looking forward to seeing some behemoth orange ball-busting in our near future! If it gets too complex to complete, though, consider slimming it down to do a Tunnel Runner like game.

[Ghislain]

And, yes, re-typing Killer Comet is still better than using tape.

I had tape, b&w TV, then later added 3k. When I got the multi-slot expansion card, I bought VICMon followed by an 8k expander. Never saw much need to beyond that on VIC.

Oh I don't want to go back to those days of typing in Killer Comet over and over again. At one point, I almost knew the program by heart. "Tank VS UFO" seemed gigantic and I never typed it in until I acquired some storage media...

A few years later, I got a Commodore 64 + disk drive. 6 months later, I put away my C64 and I had VIC-20 + disk drive

So to me, a VIC-20 + disk drive is a natural fit. Plus, a 3.5K program loads in mere seconds!

[Jeff-20]

@Ghislain: "I recall Jeff D. saying that he feels guilty if he doesn't use Commodore-branded cassette tapes to store his programs. He's hardcore."

No, I think he's just plain whack for using tape.
And, yes, re-typing Killer Comet is still better than using tape.

I didn't get a storage device until the 90s. I was quite used to retyping my own games over and over. I think this taught me how to crunch and make improvements. But I, too, didn't get to see what Tank vs. UFO was until I finally had the ability to SAVE it. So, even SAVEing is outside of my nostalgia.

I used a real vic and disk drive for ALL of my programming until last year when I got a uIEC. I'm not completely closed to things that are not "authentic" to my personal nostalgia. I love retro-active ports! I have a Game.com just to see Resident Evil 2 on it.

I really got a kick out of making some of our members dig out their old hardware to play my Denial collections (two on tape, one on disk).

[Kweepa]

Last night I finished the level editor and created the first proper level...
Still need to write the level export code though

[Kweepa]

Full level in and working.
Doors can be opened but don't close yet.
Also, you can't pick up the armor or shotgun (or anything else).

This morning I felt the urge to put in some sounds so in the hour before work I extracted some sounds from the doom shareware wad and had them playing on the VIC (the PC speaker effects, but still - official Doom sounds!).

The framerate has dropped a little. I need to do some more optimization.