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

[ral-clan]

Those ideas are good. They helmet is pretty darned close to a mockup I drew last night (but didn't submit).

[Ghislain]

Thanks to everyone's ideas for the player icon. I'll put that on my list of things to do soon.

Today, I worked on routines to deduct hit points and to make the party suffer damage when they walk through molten lava:



My bytecount is being eaten quite a bit (13,000 bytes free or so). But at least I can see what I've programmed so far can be re-used for other routines later on.

It's impressive all of the things I have to check: is the character dead (or immobile in the case where he/she is turned into a statue) so that dead characters can't cast spells, fight, etc. But once I have these programmed it's a simple matter of:

Code: Select all

JSR PREPARECHARPOINTER   ; routine to set hi/lo pointer to character data
JSR ISCHARACTERDEAD   ; returns accumulator: 0=no, 1=yes
BNE yes_he_is

Hopefully, I'll be able to find more and more ways to make my code re-usable and efficient as in the example above.

I said a while back ago that I wanted to program spellcasting before implementing combat and movement. But now I think that I'll put this in last--I'll be able to figure out which spells will be the most memory-efficient to program once everything else is in place.

[yakumo9275]

I like the helmet icon the best of the ones shown. The smiley face really throws out a lot of hardwork you have imo.

[Ghislain]

The smiley face really throws out a lot of hardwork you have imo.

In defense of 'smiley face' here, I don't think it does anything of the sort--it's just an abstract representation of a party (the arcade game Venture choice of the player sprite design was inspired in that regard). There is also another reason to include this -- the game will have 3D multicolor perspective graphics when the party travels underground.

Now, I've drawn 35 detailed multicolor graphical portraits for the monsters. They can be drawn in normal size or double size. The dunjon view will be 3 levels deep. The normal size portrait of the graphic can be shown at the medium perspective. The double size portrait will be used when the monsters are seen up close.

What shall be used for monsters that are farthest away before the party approaches them? I could design 35 8x8 custom characters for this, but that would use 35x8 bytes that I'd rather not have to use (plus more data memory to assign which character belongs to which portrait, etc). I could use a question mark (?) to basically denote a far-away monster as being unrecognizable from such a distance.

...Or I could use the opposite of 'smiley face' and make an 'angry face' (as a "catch-all") when you see a party of monsters that is far away. And as the monsters approach you, then the normal sized and double sized portraits are used.

I understand that my aesthetic choices will not please everyone. In fact, as I test my game, it doesn't really feel like an early 1980s 'retro' game -- the menu system allows you to scroll through the options with the cursor keys. As well, party movement will also be controlled by the cursor keys. On a Commodore keyboard, there are only two cursor keys -- DOWN and RIGHT (used in combination with the SHIFT key). The purpose of this is to also make the game 'emulator-friendly' (where normal PC keyboard cursor keys work nicely).

However, for those who will play the game on thre real hardware, you can also use the joystick for party movement (and to navigate the menus!). However, the active menu choices can be accessed quickly by pressing the first letter of the option (like "I" for inventory).

Do you guys want me to upload my latest demo that shows all of this? (save for the 3d dunjon perspective--I haven't started this yet).

[yakumo9275]

The smiley face really throws out a lot of hardwork you have imo.

In defense of 'smiley face' here, I don't think it does anything of the sort--it's just an abstract representation of a party (the arcade game Venture choice of the player sprite design was inspired in that regard). There is also another reason to include this -- the game will have 3D multicolor perspective graphics when the party travels underground.

well what I meant by my comment was that you have all these visuals and design and atmosphere in the game and then you chunk in a smiley face. its just out of place to me, like the rocket + space travel in ultima ii.

[saehn]

The smiley face really throws out a lot of hardwork you have imo.

In defense of 'smiley face' here, I don't think it does anything of the sort--it's just an abstract representation of a party (the arcade game Venture choice of the player sprite design was inspired in that regard). There is also another reason to include this -- the game will have 3D multicolor perspective graphics when the party travels underground.

well what I meant by my comment was that you have all these visuals and design and atmosphere in the game and then you chunk in a smiley face. its just out of place to me, like the rocket + space travel in ultima ii.

Right, it's the one thing that I've seen so far in RQ3 that's just simply out of character. You're making a story here, an environment. Smiley faces are associated with Forrest Gump, silly T-shirts, and children. Something that looks right in a relatively serious adventure where you're supposed to feel like you're "in the game".

How about making Mike's team icon to be the map symbol, and then your single warrior icon to be the "up-close" in-dungeon icon?

I like the question mark idea, though... could be used for just about anything "unseen". Monster, friend, point of interest... etc. Here's a simple design that you could reverse b/w to flash, if you wanted.

Code: Select all

........
..####..
.##..##.
....##..
...##...
........
...##...
........

[adamantyr]

Right, it's the one thing that I've seen so far in RQ3 that's just simply out of character. You're making a story here, an environment. Smiley faces are associated with Forrest Gump, silly T-shirts, and children. Nothing something that looks right in a serious adventure game where you're supposed to feel like you're "in the game".

How about making Mike's team icon to be the map symbol, and then your single warrior icon to be the "up-close" in-dungeon icon?

I personally associate smiley faces with games from the old "Compute!" magazine, of which I have a fair number. (Hard as heck to find those these days...) I agree that something generic is called for, but something less cutesy I think is in order.

In the TI-99/4a game "Legends", which is actually a clone of Phantasie, they use a diamond type shape for the party on both the world map and the dungeon maps, both of which are 2D, like this:

Code: Select all

...11...   ...11...
..1111..   ...11...
.11..11.   ..1111..
11.11.11   111..111
11.11.11   111..111
.11..11.   ..1111..
..1111..   ...11...
...11...   ...11...

Adamantyr

[Ghislain]

The "smiley face" is not set in stone, gents It's more of a 'working icon' than anything. I'll probably go with the player choice of 5 different icons and one of the more serious ones will be the default.

But yeah, it's true that I'm influenced by old COMPUTE! type-in programs.

Today, I worked on the castle graphic -- the main base of the game where the party can create characters, buy equipment, visit healers, etc.



Very generic -- I use 25 custom characters to draw on a 121 custom character area (11x11). I think I have the right color schemes for it as well.

I've now 13,000 bytes left (and counting down...)

[Ghislain]

One more thing guys...

I've also decided to change the theme and tone of the game to make it more appealing to the children, for the sake of the children.

For example, in order to get kids interested in retro gaming and the VIC-20, I'll remove references to demons, dragons and other violent monsters so that parents won't keep this game away from their kids.

So instead of 'fighting' against monsters, the player will go on quests to learn how to share and love and learn the values of being peaceful and kind to each other.

As well, instead of a sexy, alluring succubus who tries to seduce a knight who carries a bloody sword, players can go on quests to pick flowers so that they can become friends with the Princess:



Anyway, I hope you guys like this new direction for the game The little woman at home also approves of it and has erased all of my previous source code regarding the 'old' Realms of Quest III. She thought that it was much too violent and male-oriented.

It's still going to be good, guys. We can still have our 'retro' RPG game, but one where there are rules and one that doesn't offend the children and young girls who have been a severely neglected demographic when it comes to retro-gaming.

[Mayhem]

This is May not April

[saehn]

Today, I worked on the castle graphic -- the main base of the game where the party can create characters, buy equipment, visit healers, etc.

Wow! Well done!

[Jeff-20]

The "smiley face" is not set in stone, gents It's more of a 'working icon' than anything. I'll probably go with the player choice of 5 different icons and one of the more serious ones will be the default.

But yeah, it's true that I'm influenced by old COMPUTE! type-in programs.

Today, I worked on the castle graphic -- the main base of the game where the party can create characters, buy equipment, visit healers, etc.

Amazing. The castle looks awesome! I am forever influenced by Compute type-ins. Every game I make is targeted at a Computer reader. I admit I also do not like the smiley face for this game, but your solution of giving the player a choice is a great idea!

[Ghislain]

Amazing. The castle looks awesome! I am forever influenced by Compute type-ins. Every game I make is targeted at a Computer reader. I admit I also do not like the smiley face for this game, but your solution of giving the player a choice is a great idea!

Thanks for the compliments (and to you saehn as well). I've changed a few pixels around of the castle graphic since yesterday:



A bit more spaced out, so it doesn't look as squished. Actually, these emulator images don't do these graphics justice -- they tend to look too narrow on the vertical side. They will look much better on the real hardware (as seen earlier in this thread). I can't wait to get my Mega-Cart so that I can test my work on real hardware again (my compiled game now exceeds the capacity of my only RAM expansion -- a 16K cartridge).

If I were to calculate the amount of hours it's taken me to do this game, I think that if it was released in the early 1980s, that it would lose money even if it sold tens of thousands of copies (typical of a game that requires RAM expansion for the VIC-20 back in the day) if I was paid by the hour.

So this game is basically an experiment in "What would a CRPG equivalent to Ultima III, Wizardry on a souped-up VIC-20 look like?". As well, it's the CRPG game that I've always wanted to make with my favorite elements of Phantasie, Ultima, Wizardry, Telengard and Oubliette all rolled into 1.

[Ghislain]

Going through my earlier comments in this thread (I do procrastinate and change my mind a lot), I found a basic project timeline that I typed out:

1. Party, character and inventory management
2. Graphics
3. World map + displaying the map
4. Dunjons + displaying them in 3D using wireframe graphics
5. Combat
6. Background music + sound effects

I'd say that...

#1 -- 95% done -- the remaining 5% will probably be extra code for finding treasure and other items that I'll add to the game

#2 -- 85% done -- I've a few more portraits to do (treasure chest, jewel-encrusted throne, pool of water and maybe a tavern so your characters can get their fill of bread and wine).

#3 -- 90% done -- I might modify the map in the future to refine the look and feel of the world. I have some coding to do for when a character is poisoned and they lose 1 hp per movement turn as well as to being able to enter buildings, dunjons, etc.

#4 -- 10% done -- I designed the multicolor 3D perspective graphics, but I've to start coding this.

#5 -- not started yet

#6 -- not started yet. This is to be the very last thing that I'll do. If I can have about 1500 free bytes that should be enough for the music playing routine and a few tunes.

I'll add a new item to the list:

#7 SPELLCASTING -- 20% done -- Players can try to cast spells from the menu, but all it does is deduct spell points and they don't do anything yet. I want to finish movement and combat first so that I can then come up with a proper list of spells that can be more easily programmed within my source code as well as magic that makes sense within the mechanics of the game itself.

[Ghislain]

And here is version 3 of the splash title screen:



This may or may not change again in the future. Yellow and red logo was already used in RofQ1, so this one gives it a more icy, metallic look.

The tagline "THE CLASSIC RPG" is not meant to give it an air of self-importance, it's more along the lines of saying that it is a game like the classic 1980s RPG games from back in the day.