Two Days to the Race

[DarwinNE]

Name: Two Days to the Race
Author: DarwinNE (D. Bucci)
Released: Feb, 17th, 2019
Requirements: PAL or NTSC VIC-20 with 24K-expansion

Description: A text adventure game that takes place in a somewhat steampunk Turin, in three files. Your name is Emilia Vittorini, you're the daughter of Augusto Vittorini, who founded the Industria Torinese Automobili (ITA) with his brother Tullio. Your father is abroad trying to raise funds, but something went wrong and you heard your uncle coming back slamming the door. Your mission is to find what happened and how you can help your family. I will be your ears and eyes. Good luck.

Screenshot:

Cover:

Free download and instructions: http://davbucci.chez-alice.fr/index.php ... ge=English

Since the little Innuh's pyramid has been appreciated here, I thought someone would like a much larger text adventure. I had some real fun working on it during the last few months.

[highinfidelity]

I have to LOVE the idea of setting the game in Torino!

[DarwinNE]

Thanks! Turin is a charming city: I was born not too far from it and I studied there for three years.
There're plenty of things about steampunk London and Paris, but not very much about Turin. One day I was discussing with that with my girlfriend and we begun to shape the story together. I think that the city fits very well to such an atmosphere.

Play the game if you haven't yet done it!

BTW, I wrote a post about the city background and the research I did for the game:

http://davbucci.chez-alice.fr/index.php ... ground.inc

After all, the game ended up containing several things that are historically accurate.
You'll need to post the game passwords to read it, as it contains some spoilers.

EDIT: by the way, the game is now available in Italian even for the VIC-20+24KB expansion.

[orion70]

EDIT: by the way, the game is now available in Italian even for the VIC-20+24KB expansion.

And this is great news
Thanks so much for your huge effort, we are always missing new adventures for the beloved VIC (not to mention Italian adventures!). Also, Turin is a wonderful city, and it has in its history and architecture something so XIX Century, and something about advancements in technology reached in the end of 1800s, which fit perfectly with the plot.

You're giving us hours of sheer fun my friend, so cheers again

[DarwinNE]

You're giving us hours of sheer fun my friend, so cheers again

My pleasure! If you finish the game, send my the final password (by PM!) and I'll put your name in the hall of fame in the webpage.

[Kweepa]

This looks lovely.
I started playing - haven't got far yet, but it's atmospheric and interesting.
I may play the PC version for the columns

[DarwinNE]

I started playing - haven't got far yet, but it's atmospheric and interesting.

That's cool! I'm happy you're appreciating it!

I may play the PC version for the columns

It would be interesting to see if the game can be combined with a 40 columns routine.
If you wish to remain on Commodore computers, I just released the version for the C128. It works on the 80 columns display.


(mod: follow-up discussion about 40 column routines split off here: link)

[DarwinNE]

Hello,
following the useful discussion about the 40 column driver, I thought it would be nice to let you play a little with a first alpha version.

http://davbucci.chez-alice.fr/varie/two ... 2-DAYS.d64

This version requires the 32K memory expansion, so I will keep the 22 column version for those who only have a 24 KB expansion available.

KNOWN ISSUES:
- You can play only to the first part of the game FIXED: now you can choose which part you want to play in the loader.
- The backspace does not work (del), use SHIFT+horizontal cursor instead FIXED
- Loader is in three files, I still have to understand how I can pack it to a single file with Exomizer Maybe this is not sooo important, check messages below!
- Scrolling is cumbersome, due to the way screen memory is organized, see http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... 15#p103696 FIXED, but I think the code can still be improved.
- Screen is off-center on NTSC machines. FIXED
- An input pasting the last column of the screen is accepted without return. It's a minor annoyance, but it should be corrected.

[DarwinNE]

I could upload a disk image that contains the game that is now complete and can be played in a 40-column mode with the VIC20+32KB expansion

I was wondering if proposing three single file to load is important for the VIC-20 community or not or if the current solution with the loader is acceptable.

I still have to review the way the screen is organized. I think with a better code one may obtain a much faster scroll with less garbage shown in the last line. However, I think the game is currently playable.

[Mike]

I was wondering if proposing three single file to load is important for the VIC-20 community or not or if the current solution with the loader is acceptable.

Not quite sure for myself in what way this might be related to the memory allocation - low portion of each game part in $1201..$7FFF and "high" portion in $A000..$BFFF -, but having a (boot) loader solves that problem in passing: the user can select, which part of the game he is about to play, and the loader takes care to load the two necessary files into memory.

Thus, IMO it doesn't matter whether there are three single-load parts on the *.d64, or a boot loader/menu and those three single-load parts, or another boot loader and six files, i.e. two for each part. If the "high" portion is the same for all three parts of the story, that could even be 5 files in total: loader, the "low" portions of the three parts, and the common "high" portion.

Regardless what arrangement you choose, the disk image keeps everything together, which is already fine.

[DarwinNE]

Regardless what arrangement you choose, the disk image keeps everything together, which is already fine.

Indeed, I agree with this: my perplexity was motivated by the fact that I was discussing with some friends in the C64 community (TDTTR runs on a C64, Plus 4 and a variety of other machines) and they tended to prefer to have a single file (I used a separate loader there to display a graphical image when the main game file is being loaded).

Unless there are many people insisting to have onefilers for the VIC20 too, I think the current system works sufficiently well for enjoying the game:

The loader (written in assembler) is very simple, but checks for the presence of the 32KB expansion nonetheless:

[highinfidelity]

Seen the speed at which you performed this 40 columns conversion, I foresee that you're not going to be satisfied until your game will remain in three parts - you know you can do better than this, and this worm will dig your brain over and over and won't let you sleep at night. So I think I'll wait a little bit more and then download your forthcoming "one-filer" release.

[DarwinNE]

ROTFL!

To say the truth, highinfidelity, the worm that currently is digging is the way the screen is organized for the 40 columns and the inefficient scrolling mechanism

I would like to have a cleaner solution, because I'd like to share the code for the 40-column driver, as it can be easily interfaced with C and may interest other people.

I'm not puzzled very much by the fact that there are multiple files, to say the truth Do you think it would be important?
In any case, don't hesitate to download and play the game, it will be improved, but the gaming experience should not be too bad right now.

[Mike]

Not everything need to be one-filed, IMO.

Those people who 'insist' on one-filing each and everything are most probably just too lazy to learn the ropes of interfacing their program/game with the OS - i.e. doing the right KERNAL calls and keeping clear of vital bytes in zeropage and other OS workspace.

That viewpoint clearly shows its limits as soon as the whole program body and all its data can't conceivably fit into available memory. You'll end up with a multi-load procedure anyway (i.e. you *have* to keep the KERNAL and its workspace *alive*), and then it's not really anymore important how many files are there 'in flight'.

[Kweepa]

The presentation to the user is different for a single file though, so it's cleaner that way.
Now the next challenge is a proportional font