Vic-20 Top down U.S. RPG that needed 16k expansion.....

UK_John · Post by **UK_John** » Mon May 18, 2009 2:43 pm

Any idea what it may have been? It was the first game I bought for my Vic-20 here in the UK and I had to pay another $200 for a 16k expansion to play it!

It was top down with a stick figure as your character and maze like screens. It was huge and I remember the game came with a20+ page manual. Any ideas?

I registered here just to ask this, as I remember most of the other, more arcade type games I bought. But given RPG's are my favourite genre, this game got me started, and I am hoping I can find out what it was! I may be wrong, but not many fantasy RPG's came out for the VIC-20 compared to the more simple arcade type games.

I still have my Vic-20 motherboard, and a couple Commodore 64's (which the Vic-20 M/Board could fit inside the casing of!), and I still own about 70 of my C64 games (but none of my Vic-20 games!) and still play them quite a bit! I am also a retro PC gamer with a collection of over 800 PC games going back 20 years!

With modern PC gaming as it is today, I doubt I will buy more than 2 PC games this year. I bought 2 last year too. So am using the extra spare gaming time I have to play my old PC games. 10 years ago I would have been buying 6-10 PC games a year. If I can find out what this RPG was I played, I may look for it and give it another go, because I don't remember getting far with it when I fist had it! I've had 20 years to learn how to play RPG's since then!

English Invader · Post by **English Invader** » Mon May 18, 2009 3:20 pm

Why not download a VICE emulator and look in the 16k ROM section in either Zimmers or www.theoldcomputer.com? You'll probably recognise the title when you see it.

I don't know what you see in the Commodore 64. The only game I've ever liked on it is Ghostbusters (for obvious reasons).

UK_John · Post by **UK_John** » Mon May 18, 2009 3:28 pm

Sorry, did I prattle on too much and got you confused?

I was talking about a Vic-20 RPG, not a C64 one. And Vice is a C64 emulator, is it not?

English Invader · Post by **English Invader** » Mon May 18, 2009 3:34 pm

VICE emulates the VIC-20, the C64, the C128 and the PET.

I think you're the one who's confused, mate.

UK_John · Post by **UK_John** » Mon May 18, 2009 3:41 pm

English Invader wrote:VICE emulates the VIC-20, the C64, the C128 and the PET.

I think you're the one who's confused, mate.

Yes, looked in the Vice folder and found it,because the file started with an 'X', not a 'V' - apologies all around!

English Invader · Post by **English Invader** » Mon May 18, 2009 4:05 pm

No worries. Hope you find your game.

Kweepa · Post by **Kweepa** » Mon May 18, 2009 5:39 pm

Sword of Fargoal or Temple of Apshai. Both awesome.

For future reference, MobyGames isn't very complete, but it finds these easily enough.
http://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/v ... aying-rpg/

UK_John · Post by **UK_John** » Mon May 18, 2009 5:50 pm

Thanks. Just came from Moby and cannot find a download for the vic20 Temple of Apshai.

Found Sword of Fargoal and that wasn't it. If I can find ToA and that's not it, then it must have been a one off game by a one man company long disappeared.

Will keep trying to find a download for ToA though.

Thanks for your help though! Most welcome!

amramsey · Post by **amramsey** » Mon May 18, 2009 8:04 pm

UK_John wrote:Will keep trying to find a download for ToA though.

Try here: http://www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/ ... index.html

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Tue May 19, 2009 2:56 am

The only other games I think that could fit are Baldor's Castle (ultra rare so doubtful) and Tomb of Drewan.

UK_John · Post by **UK_John** » Tue May 19, 2009 4:04 am

Thanks for all the help guys! I have tried Tomb of Drewan, so that, by all accounts, just leaves ToA, or as you say Mayhem, really rare titles like Baldor's Castle.

I have decided I will also try early C64 RPG's in case a title was a bigger hit when it was converted from Vic-20 to C64 and so will be easier to find and may be the same game I remember.

I just want to say thanks again for all the help guys. Appreciate it!

Kweepa · Post by **Kweepa** » Tue May 19, 2009 6:40 am

Did you download Apshai from zimmers as amramsey suggested?

UK_John · Post by **UK_John** » Tue May 19, 2009 7:16 am

I did download Apshai from Zimmers, but the Vic-20 one wouldn't work in Vice (I downloaded some more from Zimmers and half of them didn't work!).

I downloaded ToA for C64 and played a little. It was closer to what I remember, in terms of character data being shown on screen, but the game I am thinking of had the whole maze for that level on the screen, not just a small part, and had the character data (or data anyway) I believe it had outside areas too and wasn't just dungeon based.

I am beginning to think more and more that I got the game from a U.S. one man company that went out of business quickly and the game has disappeared into the mists of time! After all MOBY only lists 4 Vic-20 RPG's and I am sure there must have been more than that!

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Tue May 19, 2009 7:50 am

UK_John wrote:I did download Apshai from Zimmers, but the Vic-20 one wouldn't work in Vice (I downloaded some more from Zimmers and half of them didn't work!).

Makes me wonder. Did you make the correct memory settings?

Most games written for unexpanded VIC-20 will not work when +8K, or more expansion is enabled, as the addresses of screen, and colour RAM change, which is not taken into account by these programs.

Also the start of BASIC changes from $1000 to $0400 for a +3K expansion, and to $1200 for +8K, or more, which gives problems for programs that use a single line with a SYS command inside to start ML code inside.

Greetings,

Michael

English Invader · Post by **English Invader** » Tue May 19, 2009 8:27 am

To clarify, you need to go into the settings menu, click on VIC settings and select 16k to run a 16k game, or whichever k is relevant to the game you want to play.

You may also find that some games require true drive emulation in order to run properly. You can find this in the options menu.