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

[Pedro Lambrini]

I know it sounds pretentious but you really are an artist! That skeleton is as cool as anything I've seen on the Vic's younger sibling...

[English Invader]

These graphics wouldn't disgrace the C64 (or the Atari ST, for that matter).

[Moloch]

Ghislain wanted the first version to be completely his creation, using his own graphics. For the second version, he's asked me to remake all of his monsters (in addition to the ones you see above). I've gotten a few done... here's one of my favorites, as something of a preview:

Looking good, amazing that you could find time for this stuff!

[gklinger]

Saehn's skills are widely known and appreciated. You guys should check out some of his other work. You'll end up scratching your head trying to figure out how he does what he does on such limited hardware.

[Ghislain]

Ghislain wanted the first version to be completely his creation, using his own graphics. For the second version, he's asked me to remake all of his monsters (in addition to the ones you see above). I've gotten a few done... here's one of my favorites, as something of a preview:

Sweet... that is really awesome. Looks like C64 scener graphics, much more elaborate than the "early 1980s" look I was going for in the 32K version. Looking forward to getting a D64 koala pad file by email so I can transfer them.

My chief game tester has solved the quest once and he's on the verge of doing it a second time (game resets itself randomly so you can play over and over again).

[Ghislain]

I finished the routines that allows you to transfer the saved game from Realms of Quest III --> Dunjon Crawler and vice-versa. Now RQ3 is playable on both 16K and 32K memory expansion configurations.

The manual is more or less finished (save for minor edits and corrections in the future) and is 36 pages (size 5" x 5").

The disk will have games on both sides:

Side 1:
-Realms of Quest III (32K required)
-Realms of Quest III: Dunjon Crawler (16K)

Side 2 (all for the unexpanded Vic-20)
-Realms of Quest (1991)
-Realms of Quest II (Unfinished Demo) (1993)
-Dunjon I & II (2003)
-Realms of Quest II (3 versions) (2004)
-Ringside Boxing (1996)
-Ringside Wrestling (1990)
-Break-Fast (1988)
-Dunjon Master (1990)
-Haunted House (1990)
-Ice Hockey (1996)
-Meteor Zone (1996)
-Monkey Kong (1993)
-Napoleon Simulator (2006)
-Paratrooper (1990)
-Vicfall! (1993)
-Vicfall II (1996)
-Vicside Boxing (2004)
-Worm-Out II (1990)

[Ghislain]

saehn was kind enough to send me the first graphic today (kobold) for Dunjon Crawler (16K). This is how it looks like on a real VIC-20:



(disregard "DWARF" on the screen -- I created a special code that allows me to select any graphic that I want to)

[darkatx]

OWN that pixel Saehn...OWN THAT PiXEL!!!

[Ghislain]

OWN that pixel Saehn...OWN THAT PiXEL!!!

His stuff is great, and I'm glad that I found a way to use his graphics in my game.

I'm working on side 2 of the "Realms of Quest Trilogy" disk that will be published by Psytronik. It will have every single VIC-20 game that I have ever worked on, as well as a Realms of Quest II (1993 incomplete version) demo that shows what I got done for the game (map, 20 monster portraits).

The loader looks like this:



It's very old school, which is the effect that I'm going for here.

Here's a screenshot of the 1993 edition/demo of Realms of Quest II (not the 2004 one which I submitted for the mini-game competition). This will be option "B" from the screen above:



In a way, Realms III is the game I've always wanted to make almost 20 years ago. Kind of like Brian Wilson's "Smile" -- only years after the fact was I able to finally finish this project.

Realms Demo 93 has 7 features: create character, travel on the map, instructions, view monsters, random maze generator, 3D dunjon viewer and mock combat screen (the picture I just uploaded).

[saehn]

Thanks for the comments! I have eighteen done as of tonight, not too many more to go. Here's another preview, this is obviously (I hope?!) the giant spider:

[DanSolo]

Inspired by this perhaps? Don't worry, I'm not telling...

[Ghislain]

Inspired by this perhaps? Don't worry, I'm not telling...

I did that as an "homage" to Monster Manual I, of course

I figure there should be a way to preserve all of that hi-res artwork (all with an ad-hoc editor I programmed in BASIC, one pixel at a time) that I did 16-17 years ago.

You know, as I was looking at the abandoned version of Realms II yesterday, I was thinking that with about a week's worth of programming I could actually make a completed game out of all the disjointed parts and connect them all together. I unearthed quite a bit of stuff yesterday, looking at all of the files and turning them into something presentable. You can create a character and travel on the map (even with a boat), and there are 3 cities that can be explored.

I put a "History of Realms of Quest" section in the manual where I talk about RPG projects that I was overwhelmed and then abandoned them altogether. After I failed to complete the original Realms II, I did more simple RPGs like Dunjon II and the mini-game competition version of Realms II because they were easier to do.

Realms III started off slowly in February (and I did that on a whim) of this year but it was really in the month of May where I spent on average 8 hours a day getting the damn thing done.

Programming an RPG is a very labor-intensive process. To do a follow-up (say Realms IV) I don't really want to do a clone of Realms III, I'd probably want a full 3D world like Pool of Radiance or Bard's Tale (with fancy artwork, not wireframe) along with tactical combat.

To do something like that, I'd need about 4 times as much free time to do it and I don't want to have to go through another project like this one again. If someone wants to do a "grander" RPG than Realms III for the VIC-20, I'd be more than happy to privately send them my source code (all I ask is for a name in the credits) but because it's my first 100% assembly language game, there's a lot of spaghetti code.

To outdo Realms III could only be realistically done by a team of competent VIC-20 programmers. I suppose it could be done as a 100% solo project, but something like that would take at least a year. I kind of cheated by using sheet music from the classics (Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky--all public domain) and delegated Dunjon Crawler's artwork to the amazing saehn.

After this is all done, I'm announcing my "retro programming retirement" (I'll allow myself another swan song if I change my mind in the future) and I want to program stuff for Linux.

[Moloch]

Thanks for the comments! I have eighteen done as of tonight, not too many more to go. Here's another preview, this is obviously (I hope?!) the giant spider:

\o/

[saehn]

All done! With alternate colorings, it comes to 63 monsters total. I'm very happy with how they've turned out, Ghislain likes them and I hope you all will enjoy seeing them in the game. Now I just have to transfer each one to Koala Paint format and deliver to Ghislain (but don't need to send all the alternate colorings). Exciting

[Ghislain]

All done! With alternate colorings, it comes to 63 monsters total. I'm very happy with how they've turned out, Ghislain likes them and I hope you all will enjoy seeing them in the game. Now I just have to transfer each one to Koala Paint format and deliver to Ghislain (but don't need to send all the alternate colorings). Exciting

I got the png image last night and the pictures looked pretty impressive. If saehn wants to show them off, he can post it here

I asked saehn if he wouldn't mind if I used his graphics in the full 32K version. Now, I *did* work several hours on my graphic images as well. I'm not proposing that I completely throw them out, I'm rather fond of these, and they do have a cool "early 1980s" feel about them. Since the game is going to be distributed on disk (side 1 with Realms III/Dunjon Crawler, side 2 with Realms I+II and a complete collection of my VIC-20 games), there is a lot of room to showcase all of the graphics work that was done. So, if saehn accepts, the boot menu would have the following options:

1-REALMS OF QUEST III (ENHANCED GRAPHICS)
2-DUNJON CRAWLER (ENHANCED GRAPHICS)
3-TRANSFER PARTY
4-REALMS OF QUEST III (ORIGINAL GRAPHICS)

The only drawback of course, is that I have to ask saehn would have to do 4-5 more "sea-based" monster portraits...