Island of Secrets Graphic Adventure

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 7:39 am

Too cool! That was really fast - you must have worked like a demon! I'm downloading it now and can't wait to give it a try later.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:02 am

Thanks! It took every minute of my spare time in the last few days - but it was such an interesting application of the new VIC graphic tools, and in my favourite game genre, that I just couldn't stop

.

Hope my effort was worth the result. Of course, a split-screen half picture and half 40-col text would have been the best solution, but I did this kinda "hybrid" to prove the immense potential of hi-res screens on the VIC.

Let alone adventures, imagine how many arcades and even utilities could benefit from intro screens, or funny pictures between levels, and so on.

Last note: I've tried the game in VICE with the default palette and with the "closer to real" one, and I think that screens are not bad with both. The default colours are overcharged, but the result in some of the graphics is even better!

Ivanhoe76 · Post by **Ivanhoe76** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 10:36 am

Hope my effort was worth the result.

Sure it was, orion!!! Finally we can enjoy a good graphic and textual adventure on the vic, even if we still haven't a split-screen, half picture and half 40-col text... Thanks a lot... P.S.: I wonder if we could ever see something similar for "Pirate's Cove" or "The Count", my favourite Scott Adams adventures!!!

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 10:38 am

Wow!

One question though: on my *.d64, the file "9" shows up with 0 blocks, was this intended? I hope it's not some form of data corruption.

To those wondering about the random characters in the bottom half of the text screen, while loading a picture - this is perfectly normal, and caused by MINIGRAFIK. There would have been means to prevent that (showing an empty screen instead), but this release seemingly wanted to come early.

Won't happen in the forthcoming 40 columns release.

formater · Post by **formater** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 12:07 pm

Great!. very very good work, Thanks Orion

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 12:34 pm

Thanks guys, I'm glad you like it. I will add graphics to other games / adventures in the near future.

@Ivanhoe: I guess I could do it, if someone is able to crack the code and modifiy it in order to recall the correct screens... Difficult, but not impossible, given the programming skills of someone here...

BTW Mike, you're right, the file was corrupted: PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE GAME AGAIN, AS ONE OF THE LOCATION FILES WAS DEFECTIVE !!!. Thanks.

fgasking · Post by **fgasking** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 3:46 pm

This is great work!.... all from those wonky scans to a fully graphic adventure on the Vic!

I've just literally finalized my retro setup here with my Vic 20 and C64 both connected via scart to my 14" TV, so i'll give it a blast now

Well done!

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 4:19 pm

Having played for a wee bit earlier this evening I can honestly say this is awesome! If this was released in the Vic's heyday it would've transformed the adventure game industry on this humble machine...I mean that.

Mike alludes to a future 40 column release. Is that back on the cards then? If so, will it run much slower than the 22 column version. Regardless, I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Well done buddy, mate, pal!

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 4:41 pm

Pedro Lambrini wrote:Having played for a wee bit earlier this evening I can honestly say this is awesome!

Me

Mike alludes to a future 40 column release. Is that back on the cards then?

That project never was said to be written off ...

If so, will it run much slower than the 22 column version?

The speed of text output in the game is currently dominated by the parser of IoS. You won't see any speed difference with the 40 column routines of MINIGRAFIK in charge.

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 5:01 pm

That's all good to hear.

Who would've thought 25 years ago that we would one day play text adventures with graphics and in 40 columns! This is stunning work guys.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 2:08 am

This is too much! All I did was to use Mike's PGM Import, take some scans of the manual or pictures from the Internet, and choose the appropriate colour/contrast scheme and colour combinations.
I finally added some lines to the main program, et voila!

I agree that these tools could have been a big improvement for VIC's market back in the day, but they would have been limited to machines with 16K+ RAM expansion - quite rare then.

Quiz: in the adventure there are six screens which are taken from actual tourist spots (or natural wonders). Can you identify them?

formater · Post by **formater** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 1:52 pm

I recognise at least three
F is the French Sain Michel mount/island
R is a "mesa" from the USA desert
U is the british ruins of stonhenge

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Thu Feb 18, 2010 4:42 am

formater wrote:F is the French Sain Michel mount/island
R is a "mesa" from the USA desert
U is the british ruins of stonhenge

Correct!

Good observation skills Formater...

The remaining spots to identify are quite difficult, indeed:

S (VERY difficult!)
G (quite easy for Italians)
V (again, VERY difficult)

nbla000 · Post by **nbla000** » Thu Feb 18, 2010 6:02 am

Hi Orion, very nice work

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Thu Feb 18, 2010 6:05 am

Thanks and welcome back! Been busy lately? Hope you'll identify the column in G screen - it's not so far away from you, another region and another sea though...