Realms of Quest: 20th Anniversary Edition

Discussion, Reviews & High-scores

Moderator: Moderators

User avatar
Ghislain
Realms of Quest
Posts: 1279
Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2004 12:54 am

Realms of Quest: 20th Anniversary Edition

Post by Ghislain »

Since August 2011 marks the 20th anniversary of the original "Realms of Quest I" (1991), I revisited some of the graphics I had done for the sequel back in 1993. I have thought of a way to combine the game engine for Realms II (2004) with the portrait graphics I had done for the abandoned version in '93. I figured, why should I let those portrait graphics I meticulously worked on go to waste?

Image

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Perhaps this is just a whim, and I might not follow through since I have very little free time as of late. But a few hours of work and I can finally complete the game I started to work on 18-19 years ago (the original unfinished Realms of Quest II).
Last edited by Ghislain on Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
"A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him." -- Ezra Pound
User avatar
Ghislain
Realms of Quest
Posts: 1279
Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2004 12:54 am

Post by Ghislain »

Back when I wanted to make Realms II in 1993, I designed about 20 monster portrait graphics with a 64x64 pixel editor (programmed in BASIC). I painstakingly drew every dot.

Image

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Since the Realms II screen design uses a 9x9 block in the upper left corner, I just wrote a simple program to shift the 64x64 pixel images into a 72x72 pixel frame by 4 pixels. It should make everything appear nice and centered when the combat screen is loaded.
"A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him." -- Ezra Pound
User avatar
orion70
VICtalian
Posts: 4337
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2006 4:45 am
Location: Piacenza, Italy
Occupation: Biologist

Post by orion70 »

Ghislain, thanks for this. Unfortunately I can't see the portraits from here (@ work :mrgreen: ), but I do think it would be another precious gem in the VIC's already populated RPG list :) .
User avatar
Ghislain
Realms of Quest
Posts: 1279
Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2004 12:54 am

Post by Ghislain »

orion70 wrote:Ghislain, thanks for this. Unfortunately I can't see the portraits from here (@ work :mrgreen: ), but I do think it would be another precious gem in the VIC's already populated RPG list :) .
If you got the commercial release of Realms III, you should be able to see them from the "Realms II - Demo '93" on side two of the disk.

Since I don't have much spare time to even do Realms IV, I'm going to be cleaning up some of the aspects of the trilogy (mostly I + II) and then putting it out there.
"A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him." -- Ezra Pound
User avatar
orion70
VICtalian
Posts: 4337
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2006 4:45 am
Location: Piacenza, Italy
Occupation: Biologist

Post by orion70 »

Excellent! Now that I see the graphics, I can't wait for it :) .
User avatar
Ghislain
Realms of Quest
Posts: 1279
Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2004 12:54 am

Post by Ghislain »

orion70 wrote:Excellent! Now that I see the graphics, I can't wait for it :) .
You're very kind :) It's pretty much going to be the same game as before, with just the graphics I had abandoned back then. Basically the minigame I made in 2004 will load additional modules like combat and if time permits, city maps, and final encounter added to it.

OK, so maybe it's an entirely new game. And like George Lucas, I'm taking a huge knife to what I did before. But at least I'm still allowing the original version to be available :)

Here's a screenshot of the character creation process.

Image

Uploaded with ImageShack.us
"A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him." -- Ezra Pound
User avatar
Kweepa
Vic 20 Scientist
Posts: 1314
Joined: Fri Jan 04, 2008 5:11 pm
Location: Austin, Texas
Occupation: Game maker

Post by Kweepa »

KEEP THESE?
YES, YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES!
User avatar
Ghislain
Realms of Quest
Posts: 1279
Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2004 12:54 am

Post by Ghislain »

I'm slowly continuing work on polishing up my games, but with the little free time that I have, I'm starting to question whether or not I'll be able to get this done by the end of calendar year 2011.

I did ask darkatx to make some artwork, so now I'm obligated to see this to the end ;)

Perhaps I shouldn't be so OCD about perfecting my previous work. There's an aphorism that is quite apt: "Art is never completed, only abandoned".

So I'm not going to do a complete ML-rewrite of Realms I and II or anything, just cleaning things up and improving them (while Realms II will have the most drastic change when I implement the abandoned 1993 graphics). While Realms II will be much different, there will be an option for the player to choose it's original version as it was released for the Minigame competition. Realms I + II will also be "emulator friendly" by allowing the cursor keys to be used.

I will also improve the "games on side 2" of my games anthology where I add additional splash screens, instructions, and where it is viable (since the games are for unexpanded mode), allow cursor key controls (for "emulator-friendliness").
"A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him." -- Ezra Pound
User avatar
Ghislain
Realms of Quest
Posts: 1279
Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2004 12:54 am

Post by Ghislain »

More screenshots of my progress:

Image

(the multi-loader game will be very use-friendly, with detailed in-game instructions)

Image

(the map module looks pretty much the same like the previous version of Realms II, but text will be slightly more descriptive)

Image

(the combat module will feature monster portrait graphics and even the RoQ font)
"A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him." -- Ezra Pound
User avatar
Ghislain
Realms of Quest
Posts: 1279
Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2004 12:54 am

Post by Ghislain »

I am also re-working the original Realms of Quest I:

Image

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I put in the Roman Numeral "I" to make sure that it is distinguished from it's better-known sequels.

To think that before the internet, only a handful of people I know had played it. And the year I made it in (1991), I thought back then I was the *only* VIC-20 user that was left in the world.
"A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him." -- Ezra Pound
macc
Vic 20 Hobbyist
Posts: 143
Joined: Fri Dec 17, 2010 8:02 pm

Post by macc »

Looks great!
What memory expansion would I need to use for this?
User avatar
Ghislain
Realms of Quest
Posts: 1279
Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2004 12:54 am

Post by Ghislain »

macc wrote:Looks great!
What memory expansion would I need to use for this?
Thanks. Realms of Quest I & II are for the UNEXPANDED VIC-20. The only game I ever made that required memory expansion is Realms III (16K for "dungeon crawler only" version, 32K full version).
"A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him." -- Ezra Pound
User avatar
Kweepa
Vic 20 Scientist
Posts: 1314
Joined: Fri Jan 04, 2008 5:11 pm
Location: Austin, Texas
Occupation: Game maker

Post by Kweepa »

Great stuff for the unexpanded VIC.

...did you just change your name to "Lord Canuck"? :)
User avatar
Jeff-20
Denial Founder
Posts: 5759
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 1969 6:00 pm

Post by Jeff-20 »

Ghislain wrote: And the year I made it in (1991), I thought back then I was the *only* VIC-20 user that was left in the world.
1991. I think that was the year I finally got a disk drive... I was feeling the same way!
High Scores, Links, and Jeff's Basic Games page.
User avatar
Ghislain
Realms of Quest
Posts: 1279
Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2004 12:54 am

Post by Ghislain »

Kweepa wrote:Great stuff for the unexpanded VIC.

...did you just change your name to "Lord Canuck"? :)
Well, it's a not-very-subtle reference to another famous "Lord" who created RPGs ;)

I just finished programming the combat module:

Image

And with that... REALMS OF QUEST II: ANNIVERSARY EDITION is now available:

https://sites.google.com/site/gdbsite50 ... ects=0&d=1

...I didn't fully test it yet, so consider this a BETA version. After I've played with it for a while, I will put a link in the New Releases section. Also, please point out if you notice any bugs, especially in the combat module.

There's no instructions file because they are included as a main menu option. Game is for the unexpanded VIC-20 + disk drive. There are two modes for the game: Enhanced which features portrait graphics for monsters, and Original which does not have portrait graphics (the latter uses less disk access).

It feels pretty good to finally have a more 'complete' version of Realms II -- by combining the graphics I did in 1992-93 along with the minigame compo version I did in 2004.
"A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him." -- Ezra Pound
Post Reply