Games With PETSCII Graphics?

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Fri May 24, 2013 1:30 pm

I have a real soft spot for PETSCII graphics. Last night I was playing Starbase (Commodore). It's really quite pretty and sets a great atmosphere even if the game is a bit simple.

What do you guys make of PETSCII? Do you like them? What games do you recommend?

I remember one game from about 20 years ago that had a huge spaceship made of PETSCII characters. I remember it virtually filling the screen... I'm just too senile to remember it's name though!

Vic20-Ian · Post by **Vic20-Ian** » Fri May 24, 2013 1:50 pm

Hi Pedro

It was probably Trader Trilogy by Pixel 16K

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTDWeaFYGeE

See also Zor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maSSjpKYYgY

Greetings from Muscat

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Fri May 24, 2013 2:10 pm

Hey Ian!

Hmm, it might have been Trader. I know it wasn't Zor as I still remember that one really clearly.

Come to think about it I think we might have actually played the game I'm thinking of when you visited a while back... Now, I'm not so sure it is Trader... Old age, eh?

Muscat?! You seem to have been out there for ages. Hope all's going well over there.

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Sat May 25, 2013 12:59 am

Pedro Lambrini wrote:What do you guys make of PETSCII?

In text mode, PETSCII is quite nice to draw boxes/frames. With other characters you can easily draw progress bars in 2D. Big captions for title screens (Sokoban, TRON) ...

I also have seen quite impressive pictures drawn from PETSCII characters, on the C64, though.

Do you like them?

They reveal at the glimpse of an eye, that the game/program runs on a VIC-20. I'm not sure whether that forms an argument for or against using them.

Unless I'm hard pressed for memory, I go for user defined characters or bitmapped graphics (<- not that I'm telling you something spectacularily new here

). Of course that requires some extra thoughts for design, you can't easily draw up or doodle the graphics anymore.

What games do you recommend?

I'll also chime in for the Trader Trilogy.

Spidey vs Doc Ock has a nice rendition of the New York skyline in PETSCII.

Vic20-Ian · Post by **Vic20-Ian** » Sat May 25, 2013 2:35 am

I used to love Nightmare park on the Pet, it is now on Android store in Petscii

Empa Kendo · Post by **Empa Kendo** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:27 am

I never liked PETSCII at the time (i.e. 80ies) as this often meant that the games were sloppy and poor. Besides, the possibility to define hires graphics was too alluring.

Nowadays PETSCII is retro-cool again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYe5Fyf2rm4

Post by **Jeff-20** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 11:51 am

Didn't Boray have a cool Space Trader game in PETSCII? I can't look it up at the moment, but I remember one.

Kweepa · Post by **Kweepa** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 2:19 pm

I love the look of PETSCII.
Dangerous Pyramid has some lovely PETSCII:
http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... 9&start=31
(It's in German but there's an English translation available

)

[EDIT] I went back and tweaked the doorways somewhat in Dangerous Pyramid, because, you know, why not:

http://www.kweepa.com/step/vic20/danger ... sm-16k.prg

Vic20-Ian · Post by **Vic20-Ian** » Tue Aug 06, 2013 4:05 am

Pedro,

Could it have been Sub Space Striker also by Pixel?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Commodore-Vic ... 5af3e0aca4

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Tue Aug 06, 2013 6:15 am

I missed this mod of Dangerous Pyramid - thank you Kweepa!

Kweepa · Post by **Kweepa** » Wed Aug 07, 2013 6:20 pm

You're welcome!
The perspective was bothering me

Victragic · Post by **Victragic** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 5:02 pm

I agree that back in the day, PETSCII was uncool. I based typing in games on whether they had user-defined graphics, and I probably missed out on a few gems as a result. User-defined graphics are one of the main features that separated our machines from PETs, ZX81s and other such machines at the time.

Vic-21, a Blackjack game by Commodore on cassette. It was one of the first commercial games I played, and to be honest, the graphics worked really well, and it was fun, 100% BASIC.

My favourite was the type in 'Gunslinger' (I think that was the name) where you shoot beer jugs falling off the bar. It was originally published in one of the Big-K magazines and then in a huge C&VG type-in Christmas special. Lush cartoony graphics, really well done.

rhurst · Post by **rhurst** » Sat Nov 09, 2013 12:58 pm

PETSCII graphics were cool on the onset, after all, it was about BASIC, the 8-colors, and PRINT and POKE those building blocks to create something magical on the screen quickly. But yes, it quickly got overcome as the 'alternate' characters you could use with a custom set -- once you learned how, that is.

It was the lowercase character set I despised, then and now. What a waste of 2kb(?) of ROM space.

Post by **Jeff-20** » Sat Nov 09, 2013 9:20 pm

rhurst wrote: It was the lowercase character set I despised, then and now. What a waste of 2kb(?) of ROM space.

I so very much agree! I now appreciate the loyalty to ASCII standards, but at the time, the lowercase seems like such a weak marketing effort to make the VIC look more flexible.

I would have loved an expanded character set. To me there seem to be several obvious gaps in PETSCII.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Sun Nov 10, 2013 3:08 am

Lower case was marketed as a distinctive advantage over concurrence, and I really like game intros with LC characters (looks so "professional"). I clearly miss some ASCII for games creation, but now that we have Mini and Maxigrafik, who cares about ASCII anymore? (teasing)

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Games With PETSCII Graphics?

Games With PETSCII Graphics?

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