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

[vic user]

Are you guys getting bored of my posting updates? I think I would as I wait for me to finally release the damn thing

no way!

and the 3d look you got going on, reminds me very much of my fav. game of all time... Treasure of Tarmin

i am super impressed by your work!

[Ghislain]

and the 3d look you got going on, reminds me very much of my fav. game of all time... Treasure of Tarmin

All right then, I'll keep posting updates as I get 'em!

Treasure of Tarmin? I have a lot to live up to, for certain.

In the dunjons, you can encounter 'jewel-encrusted thrones' and water fountains (in the tradition of Telengard, Moria, Avatar, dnd, etc) :



Clashes a bit with the 3D view, but because the lack of sprite graphic capability, it will have to do.

I'll keep the movement controls as simple as possible. Whatever you see on the screen (ladder, fountain or throne and you press RETURN (or fire button on the joystick), then it signals to the program your willingness to climb the ladder or go to the throne or fountain.

In those cases where there is 2 ladders or an up-ladder with a throne/fountain, then the game will prompt you if you wish to climb the ladder--otherwise the item at the bottom will be 'enter'-ed (a down-ladder will never appear at the same time with a throne or fountain).

[ral-clan]

I actually really like that throne (big Telengard fan!).

But how are you getting the colour brown? I didn't think the VIC had that colour.

[Ghislain]

I actually really like that throne (big Telengard fan!).

Thanks! I'm a big fan of Telengard as well. In fact, RofQ1, Dunjon 1+2 and RofQ2 adapt many elements of that game (especially the single-character and generic class aspect of it).

Telengard is one of those games that is a dungeon crawler that doesn't apologize for being a dungeon crawler. And it doesn't care if it's difficult -- you can spend 30 minutes rolling a character with the most awesome stats,and then get flamed to bits by a level 4 dragon as soon as you step out of the "Worthy Meade Inn".

Brilliant concept!

But how are you getting the colour brown? I didn't think the VIC had that colour.

Ah, but the VIC-20 really has 16 colors - of which 8 of these (orange, light orange, pink, etc) can only be shown in MULTICOLOR mode.

Perspective is everything, and this game has it. Here the player stands below a ladder and just ahead is a water fountain:



And when the player moves ahead (which moves him west because that's the direction he's facing) :



Would you trust drinking from a water fountain with a funny-looking statue of a cherub that's located deep inside a dunjon? It could be helpful and heal you or the water might be poisonous -- what will you decide when your party is bruised and battered?

[Mike]

But how are you getting the colour brown? I didn't think the VIC had that colour.

Ah, but the VIC-20 really has 16 colors - of which 8 of these (orange, light orange, pink, etc) can only be shown in MULTICOLOR mode.

Ah, not quite. Foreground, and the multicolour source %01 (which is the same as the exterior border colour) can only use the first 8 colours, while the background and auxiliary colour do have all 16 colours available.

However, it is possible to exchange foreground, and background by clearing bit 3 (value 8) in 36879 ("reverse-mode"), so that all characters are displayed with only one colour, but can have different backgrounds:

Code: Select all

POKE36879,16*8+0+3:POKE646,1:PRINT"{CLR}";

This line results in white background, and orange/brown foreground colour for the text.

Greetings,

Michael

[Jeff-20]

is brown one of the VIC's colors??

[Mike]

Colour numbers 8, and 9 are labeled "Orange", and "Light Orange" in the border/background programming scheme for 36879 of the VIC manual.

However, I find Orange is rather dark and could quite as well labeled Brown, while Light Orange in my opinion much more resembles a "normal" Orange. Both don't have the green shade that is present in Yellow.

There are also Light Red ("Pink"), Light Cyan, Light Purple, Light Green, Light Blue, and Light Yellow available as background colour, or auxiliary colour.

I wrote this in a note to my MINIGRAFIK extension:

In High-Resolution mode (M=0) the allowed logical colours are:

0: clear pixel to background colour G
1: set pixel in foreground colour F

In Multi-Colour mode (M=1) two extra logical colours become available:

2: set pixel in border colour B
3: set pixel in auxiliary colour A

[...]

The foreground colour (F=0..7) and Multi-Colour enable (M=0..1) are set individually for each 8x16 pixel cell. The background colour (G=0..15), border colour (B=0..7), and auxiliary colour (A=0..15) apply to the whole screen.

To assign a physical colour to the logical colours, issue the following POKEs:

Code: Select all

POKE 36879,16*G+8+B (set background, and border colour) 
POKE 36878,16*A     (set auxiliary colour) 
POKE 646,8*M+F      (set foreground colour, 
                     and enable/disable MC mode) 

Physical Colour Table: 

 0  Black        8  Orange 
 1  White        9  Light Orange 
 2  Red         10  Light Red 
 3  Cyan        11  Light Cyan 
 4  Purple      12  Light Purple 
 5  Green       13  Light Green 
 6  Blue        14  Light Blue 
 7  Yellow      15  Light Yellow 

(Aside: for MINIGRAFIK, I exchanged the numbers of border colour, and foreground, so that foreground is always 1, irrespective of hi-res, or multicolour mode for a cell)

Greetings,

Michael

[Ghislain]

Ah, not quite. Foreground, and the multicolour source %01 (which is the same as the exterior border colour) can only use the first 8 colours, while the background and auxiliary colour do have all 16 colours available.

That's true, but thanks for providing the elaborate explanation to everyone else

You can do a lot of cool stuff by playing around with the VIC chip registers (36864-36879).

However, it is possible to exchange foreground, and background by clearing bit 3 (value in 36879 ("reverse-mode"), so that all characters are displayed with only one colour, but can have different backgrounds:

Code: Select all

POKE36879,16*8+0+3:POKE646,1:PRINT"{CLR}";

This line results in white background, and orange/brown foreground colour for the text.

I might just use this for when a player casts a spell.

[carlsson]

Remember if you have erased graphics with different "colour" of the space, it will show when you toggle to inverted mode.

For a demo effect, it might be quite psychedelic and fun, but in a game you should watch out for undesired side effects.

[Ghislain]

I'm taking a break for a couple of days from working on Realms of Quest III because I'll be playing with my brand new MEGA CART

[ral-clan]

I just got mine too!

[Ghislain]

I just got mine too!

Well, my RofQ3 sabbatical didn't last too long. Today, I modified the code so that the game checks if the 'active' character can legally move (only characters with a status of 'good' and 'poisoned' can do so). In this game, the player chooses a 'leader' (by pressing the keys 1-6 while in menu mode) so that the game can check to see who will speak to more intelligent monsters before a battle (basically a check against charisma) as well if a character has 'boots of elvenkind' -- then the active character is the one the game checks to see if the party moves silently, etc.

Not exactly accurate, but it's the easiest way to make use of the magical items in the game. I think I posted this before, but the list of special magic items are:

Code: Select all

	.byte "BOOTS OF ELVENKIND",0		; move quietly - active character reduces chance of random encounter by half
	.byte "CROWN OF MIGHT",0	;(F)	adds haste + save + damdef + fire prot bonus
	.byte "GIRDLE GIANT STRENGTH",0	;(F)	adds attack bonus
	.byte "GAUNTLET OF THIEVING",0	;(T)	adds + 20 to thieving abilities
	.byte "RING INVISIBILITY",0		; invisible during combat (until attack takes place)
	.byte "RING OF PROTECTION",0		; magic armor bonus during combat
	.byte "RING OF REGENARATION",0		; cures 1 hp per round of movement
	.byte "RING OF WIZARDRY",0	;(W)	spells only cost 1 su each to cast
	.byte "ROD OF RESURRECT.",0	;(P)	resurrect spell
	.byte "WAND OF FIRE",0		;(W)	fireball spell
	.byte "WAND OF LIGHTNING",0	;(W)	lightning bolt spell

Also, I improved the fountain graphic so that there isn't as much blank space that clashes with the 3d dunjon behind it:

[/code]

[Ghislain]

Alright gents, some more updating goodness:



On the way to entering one of the dunjons, the party walked through poisonous marshes and 2 of the characters got poisoned. When a character is poisoned, they suffer 1 HP of damage for every non-combat movement and he or she dies when 0 HP is reached as shown in the image above.

If a character is equipped with a RING OF REGENERATION, they will recover 1 HP per non-combat move. (this part has not been coded yet, but it will be shortly)

What happens if a character is poisoned and they're equipped with such a ring? Well, it's a wash then--they neither gain nor lose hit points while they move.

[Ghislain]

***** I"VE UPLOADED ANOTHER DEMO *****



It's been a while since I uploaded a DEMO, but I've accomplished quite a few milestones that I feel one is warranted.

You can download the latest DEMO here: http://www.usaupload.net/d/y6lp5m704c4 (link updated with bug fix)

To play the demo, you need 32K of RAM expansion (emulator or real hardware). You load it as follows:

LOAD"RQ4.PRG",8,1 (return)
NEW (return)
LOAD"RQ3.PRG",8 (return)
RUN (return)

There are 2 modes for commands: MENU and MOVEMENT mode.

If you're at the castle (the main starting point), you can press the SPACE bar to select between 3 menus: GUILD, SHOPPES and PARTY.

It's pretty intuitive--you use cursor keys to move through the menu options, press RETURN to select. You can also press the first letter of the menu option to activate it.

This demo starts you off with 10,000 GP (the official game release will start you off with 500). Roll your characters and buy your equipment. You can even buy a boat at the SHIPYARD for 8000 GP

When in movement mode, the cursor keys move your party. The RETURN key will make your party enter the castle or a dunjon. When in a dunjon, you can use the RETURN key to climb ladders. Entering cities or 'entering' thrones/fountains is not supported yet.

To go back to menu mode when you're in movement mode, just press the SPACE bar. The only menu available outside the castle is the PARTY menu.

Joystick (to substitute the cursor keys) has not been supported yet. If you choose a menu item that does not do anything, that probably means that the option has not been implemented.

You can SAVE GAME now (to tape or disk--see the screenshot above).

Other things not implemented yet: combat, magic spells. But you can move around and walk into molten lava and into poisonous marshes to see the disastrous effects



I'd need to write a novel to explain how everything works. Just keep in mind, that when you buy an item, it goes into a common inventory pool that can be accessed from PARTY-->INVENTORY. To equip the item, you set the active character by pressing 1-6 and then going to the INVENTORY menu. To unequip an item, you just VIEW the character and then use the cursor keys to select the item to remove (which then, the item goes back to INVENTORY). The inventory/view screens are controlled by the cursor keys. Look at the bottom of the screen for what other keys you can press as well as special messages (for example if you try to a wizard with a plate mail armor--it will let you know that you can't)

You can permanently remove items from INVENTORY by pressing the DELETE key in that menu.

To exit the castle, select MOVE ABOUT from the PARTY menu. You always use MOVE ABOUT to exit menu mode to go into movement mode.

Let me know guys what you think so far. Please let me know if you find any inconsistencies and/or bugs!

[Ghislain]

I'm starting to worry about running out of memory -- only 9900+ bytes free or so now.

I noticed a bug in the demo I uploaded, if you changed the order of the characters, the game would crash when you would quit to the main menu and then start the game over. I've fixed that:

http://www.usaupload.net/d/y6lp5m704c4

Basically, the bug was that when changing the order of the characters, the pointers would change and I forgot to look up the new location of the pointer--so the program overwrote pre-existing code.

I'm getting better at debugging now though, this would have taken me a good day or two to debug, and this only took me about 30 minutes or so.