**New Release** REALMS OF QUEST 3 (available for order!)

[Ghislain]

Very promising comments!

I don't know in which game it was, maybe Bard's Tale(?), but at least in one of the uncounted CPRGs I played over the years there was the option of getting ambushed from behind - this basically reverses the character order. Suddenly the robe wearing and always mumbling caster characters where in front of the tough monsters. I always had lots of "fun" when this happend and of course your group looses initiative because they are surprised. So basically in this case it would be better to have the caster classes in the middle of your group, maybe the ranged fighters at the end who could suffer a little more than the casters.

That is a fiendishly evil and awesome way of making my game more interesting! I'll seriously consider doing something like this and it shouldn't be too hard to write the code for this, nor do I imagine it taking a lot of memory (50 bytes or so?).

Actually, if I'm going going to put something like that in there where player 6 becomes player 1, etc. I should also put in the option where the party gets ambushed from the side -- then the entire party's position gets jumbled around in a position that that is completely random.

Of course 80% of the time, the party gets to fight in the order that the player defines it, but putting things like this makes it unpredictable and more interesting.

MY PROGRESS SINCE LAST TIME:

I didn't draw any graphics yesterday... I mostly worked on code for creating male/female characters (with the aforementioned STR and CHA bonuses that these get).

As well, I started writing code for item management; so far characters can move their weapon or armor to the common inventory pool. Basically, if characters want to trade items, they will be doing it as follows:

Player 1 --> 'moves' sword to inventory pool
Player 2 --> goes to inventory pool and equips the sword from there

There will be about 15 'slots' for storing items in the inventory.

[Ghislain]

I've got half of item management completed (characters can move their personal items to the common inventory pool). It only took me 400 bytes to do it or so.

When you now view your character, the screen will look like this:



You just use the cursor keys to highlight the item that you want to remove and then press the RETURN key. Any other key will take you back to the previous menu.

This option won't be available in combat mode when you view your character, of course.

I'll upload a demo here once I have the other half of item management completed (the INVENTORY screen that lets you equip characters with items that are stored there)

[yakumo9275]

How are you going to deal with stacks and multiples? (ie: 200 arrows)

[Ghislain]

How are you going to deal with stacks and multiples? (ie: 200 arrows)

Arrows will be held in the common inventory pool. Every time an arrow is fired, it is taken out of there.

Not realistic in terms of each player having their own quiver, but I don't want to create too much code overhead to spite my own face (and go over the 32K limit--I am getting worried somewhat about memory already). The view character screen was planned to fill every space with useful stat and item information (as you can see in my previous example), I don't want to create more seperate screens for ammunition.

Keep it simple, in this case.

I could go the Ultima IV way and not have ammo at all, but that would be too unrealistic. However, I will probably impose a limit on the number of arrows and sling bullets that a party can possess (say 1000). This way, the party eventually has to make their way back to town to re-supply.

There won't be any food in this game--basically, it is assumed that the party knows how to forage for stuff to eat and keep themselves well fed on their own. Besides, the party HAS TO return to an inn and 'rest for the night' in order to replenish their spell points (there will be no 'encampment' feature). This will perfectly simulate overall party fatigue and lack of resources. If you've played Realms of Quest 2 and found yourself several levels deep within a dunjon, a sense of foreboding doom and demise hung over you as you ran out of spell points and healing potions. Sure, those kobolds and gnolls are easily dispatched, but they would occasionally score a few points of damage and bringing you closer to 0--a death by a thousand cuts.

The maximum number of items a character can carry is:

one weapon
one armor
one shield
one special magic item
one potion (number in parentheses denotes the number of usable units--so a single healing potion with a (9) next to it can be imbibed and used 9 times)

So if you're wearing the crown of might, you can't combine that with a ring of protection. While this is a designed and technical limitation that I imposed myself ("keep it simple"), the manual will state that the reason why only one magical item can be used at a time is because having 2 of these used at the same time would cause each other's aura to cancel the other out.

[Ghislain]

I've finished item inventory management (finally)

**** You can download the demo from here *** REMOVED ***

EDIT: fixed an inventory bug. NEW DEMO HERE: http://www.usaupload.net/d/c309hhsaosy

Basically, you go to view the character move items from there to the inventory. Just use the cursor keys to select and return key to remove the item to the common inventory pool. Press any other key to exit.

And then go to main screen, select the character you want to equip, then choose the INVENTORY menu. You select the item with the cursor key and then press return to equip. any other key will exit.

Reasons why equip fails:

-active character is already equipped with that type of item (make sure to unequip them first)

-active character failed the race check against the item:

Code: Select all

RACEWEAPON:
	;BYTE OGRE ORC SPRITE GNOME HOBBIT DWARF ELF HUMAN
	;      OOSGHDEH
	.byte %11111111		; no weapon
	.byte %11111111		; dagger
	.byte %11010111		; staff
	.byte %11011111		; mace
	.byte %11000111		; flail
	.byte %11001111		; short sword
	.byte %11011111		; long sword
	.byte %11000101		; battle axe
	.byte %11000011		; two-handed sword
	.byte %01011111		; sling
	.byte %01011111		; bow
	.byte %01000111		; crossbow

-active character failed the class check against the item:

Code: Select all

	;BYTE NECROMANCER MONK PALADIN RANGER THIEF PRIEST WIZARD FIGHTER
	;      NMPRTPWF
	.byte %11111111		; no armor
	.byte %11111111		; robe
	.byte %01111101		; leather
	.byte %01111101		; studded leather
	.byte %00110101		; ring mail
	.byte %00110101		; chain mail
	.byte %00110101		; plate mail
	.byte %01111101		; elfin chain

Anyway, I'm not going to post all of the possible race/class weapon combinations, but you get the idea. If you can't equip a battle axe onto an elf, that is because I programmed it so that the elf can't use a battle axe.

If you guys find any bugs, please let me know I challenge you all to break it!

[Ghislain]

One thing I forgot to do was to verify that you can't equip two handed weapons with a shield and vice-versa.

I'm a bit tired, but I'll finish that part of the code tomorrow!

[Ghislain]

I've come up with a list of spells for the game:

******* Wizard Spells *********

level 1
LIGHT
MAGIC MISSILE
SLEEP
STRENGTH

level 2
INVISIBILITY
LIGHTNING BOLT
PASSWALL
WEB

level 3
FIREBALL
HASTE
PHANTASMAL FORCE
WATER BREATHING

level 4
DIMENSION DOOR
FLESH TO STONE
HOLD MONSTER
ICE STORM

level 5
DEATH SPELL
MASS CHARM
MASS INVISIBILITY
TELEPORT

level 6
GATE SPELL
LIMITED WISH
METEOR SWARM
POWER WORD KILL

******* Priest Spells *********

level 1
BLESS
CURE LIGHT WOUNDS
PROTECTION/EVIL
TURN UNDEAD

level 2
CURE POISON
DETECT TRAPS
PRAYER
SPIRITUAL WEAPON

level 3
CURE SERIOUS WOUNDS
DISARM TRAPS
SPIRITUAL SHIELD
REMOVE PARALYSIS

level 4
BLADE BARRIER
CURE ALL WOUNDS
FLAME STRIKE
PROTECTION/FIRE

level 5
ASTRAL SPELL
HOLY WORD
TRUE SEEING
WORD OF RECALL

level 6
FINGER OF DEATH
RESTORATION
RESURRECTION
WALL OF FIRE

[Schlowski]

Sounds cooler and cooler with every post!

[Jeff-20]

I have only played maybe one game like this, so forgive me if this is a bad idea. How about a STOPSPELL spell? I remember it from Dragon Warrior (NES).

[Ghislain]

I have only played maybe one game like this, so forgive me if this is a bad idea. How about a STOPSPELL spell? I remember it from Dragon Warrior (NES).

Monsters don't cast spells in my game, unfortunately. Though I might consider this if I can find a way to do it without it taking up too much memory.

However, they do have the following 'special attacks':

paralyze
poison
gaze turns to stone
breathe
drain level

Of which you can use the spells to counter the effects of these.

[Ghislain]

Sounds cooler and cooler with every post!

Thanks. One caveat though, working on this game these past several weeks has made me hate Realms of Quest, if you can believe that. I think I'm starting to know about the whole "familiarity breeds contempt" thing:

http://www.thesimpsonsquotes.com/charac ... uotes.html

Man: I'm telling you the light would work better if it pointed out to sea.
Sea Captianr: Arr, shut up. I know what I'm doin'.
(a boat crashes in the distance)
Sea Captian: Arr, I hate the sea and everything in it.

[Ghislain]

I'm still working on the game -- right now, I'm working on the 'general store' where the player can buy items for the party, and everything fits on a single screen!

I had to figure out out how to perform < = > operations with floating accumulators in ML which took me a while to do (see the Programming "ROM calls and other tricks" thread where I posted how I did it).

I think the next time that I post a demo will be when the combat engine is finished, so I imagine it will be quite some time before this is done.

[Ghislain]

Just finished the 'buy equipment' routines. You can buy all available weapons and armor in a single screen! It's a happy coincidence that it happened this way -- I didn't even plan it as such.



Elfin chainmail is the best armor to have -- there are no racial restrictions and all classes (except the wizard and necromancer) can wear it. Although it's only slightly better than plate, it costs 4 times as much. I might increase the price for this item at the store if only because it is considered a very rare magic item (that can fit on a sprite as well as an ogre).

The following is a screenshot of the party inventory screen. There are 10 empty slots available for you to place items here that are not assigned to any player (in this example, the inventory is full).

The party can have a maximum of 1000 units of ammunition each for arrows and sling bullets.



If the player hits return, the game will attempt to equip the highlighted item on the active character that is viewing the inventory screen. At this point it will check to see if the weapon/armor/shield/item/potion slot is empty as well as to make sure that there are no racial or class restrictions on the item that is selected.

With the inventory, view character and 'buy equipment' screens, the cursor keys control where you highlight the item that you wish to buy/move/etc.

[Ghislain]

Right now, I'm working on a spreadsheet for the list of monsters in the game. The spreadsheet contains the following data:

Name
-Graphic Pointer
-# of hit dice (how many 6 sided die are rolled to calculate hit points)
-# of attacks per combat round
-Damage per attack
-Type of creature (normal intelligence, very low or non intelligent, underwater, undead or demonic) -- this determines where players can meet these types of monsters as well as what types of spells work against these
-Special attack*
-Auxiliary color
-Character color (there are 35 monster portraits in total and most of them will be used twice--but no more than two times save for in the case of the dragon because I don't want to overuse the graphics in my game)

Experience point values for the monster will be calculated with a special formula on a semi-exponential scale.

Monsters can have the following special attacks:

POISON: if a monster hits you, a check against that character's CONstitution will be made. Poisoned characters suffer one hit point of damage per non-combat movement.

STEAL: sometimes a monster will attempt to steal a character's equipped item (potion or special magic item). A check against DEXterity is made to determine if the monster is successful or not.

CHARM: Some monsters try to use their alluring personalities (such as the succubus) to cause a character to be paralyzed. A check is made against CHArisma to attempt to resist this. So characters with strong personalities have a better chance against these types of attacks

PARALYZE: Powerful magic with a check against WISdom is used to determine if a player resists paralyzation.

DESTROY ARMOR: If a character is hit, there is a small chance that armor can get destroyed.

GAZE TURNS TO STONE: If a character fails their INTelligence check when a monster employs this attack, they turn to stone.

ENERGY DRAIN: If a monster hits, the character in question must roll a save against their CONstitution or otherwise, he or she will lose a level

BREATH WEAPON: When a monster employs this attack, characters will perform a check against their DEXterity as to whether or not they avoid this.


So as you can see, I've found a way to make every single one of the 6 basic attributes (STR, INT, WIS, DEX, CON, CHA) useful during combat. In other CRPG games, players would roll basic 'grunt' characters with high STR and CON without regard to intelligence, wisdom and charisma. So having good attributes in these areas will be useful for all characters.

While special attacks against charisma will be rare, they will still occur!

[Ghislain]

I've decided to make a major change to my game. It will run on a VIC-20 with 16K memory expansion. It will be a single-file loading game and you'll have the option of saving to disk.

Basically, it's going to be a dungeon crawl. I'll probably take out a few of the graphic pictures, but I'll keep the best looking ones.

If I want to make a really big extravagant game, I'll make a disk-based multi-loader (170K) for 16k expansion. That way, I can put in bigger graphics (such as 44x88 multicolor portraits or even an 88x184 loading splash screen).

I've abandoned my dream of making a cart because I do not have the tools or the knowledge to properly make these. And I don't want the game to require 32K expansion because not that many VIC-20 users have this. Anything bigger than 16K is probably best served by loading routines and graphics from floppy disk.