Should I develop for tape or disk or both?

[IsaacKuo]

I'm going to turn either "Fleas" into my first VIC game of any note, and I'm wondering what I should develop for.

On the one hand, tape is "retro pure", and it's sufficient for a linear game where levels are simply loaded one at a time. However, pressing PLAY and REW and waiting are a pain.

On the other hand, disk is user friendly, especially if users can edit levels. Being able to play levels in an arbitrary order is good for replay value. Also, a disk version can load a lot more data for various things--especially graphics.

Of course, there's also the cartridge option, but I'm against this idea because it gets in the way of my own ability to play the game.

[English Invader]

I love the VIC screen, I love my tapes and I love my 1541. One special cartridge with a reset button is enough for me!

[Ghislain]

While it's true that tape is 'retro pure', I myself struggled with that decision for my own project and decided to go with disk.

Disk is just much easier.

[Pedro Lambrini]

I voted tape or disc. I actually like the robustness of tapes more than discs but I think discs are the way to go for future Vic games. They're just more flexible than tape for things like storing user data et cetera...

[Jeff-20]

I'm still undecided. I've made two "Denial Collections" of games. The first on tape. The second on disk. I think the idea of creating a cart is very interesting in theory, but perhaps not very practical.

[Mike]

I voted 'prefer disk'.

I.e. I don't generally despise tape games. They can even be multi-part, say, a title screen, one or two parts that prepare ML and UDG's, and finally the main program.

With disk however, it is a lot easier to provide a multitude of levels, like I've done with my implementation of Sokoban.

On the one hand, tape is "retro pure", [...]

I wouldn't exclude RAM expansions, and disk drives from "retro". Both were also available while the VIC was still being manifactured.

One 'soft' limit I'm setting myself is whether a program really might need more than a 16K RAM expansion: that would have required a module-box (combining a 16K, and 8K expansion), and modding the 8K expansion to appear in BLK3. The 16K RAM expander was the biggest official expansion sold by CBM, which would plug directly into the VIC-20.

[Mayhem]

In the case of Realms of Quest III here and Sokoban, disk is the preferred format because that's what the game design deserves. You write a single loader within 16k for instance, and suddenly tape format becomes just as appealing. It's really down to the medium that the game design requires.

[Boray]

Vic + 8 or 16K ram. Then you can store the levels in memory and make a single file version of your game that can be loaded from anything.

[Boray]

I wouldn't exclude RAM expansions, and disk drives from "retro". Both were also available while the VIC was still being manifactured.

Especially RAM expansions. Most people had them to be able to play copied or cracked cartridge games.

[Bacon]

I much prefer disk since it's so hard to transfer tape images to physical tape and I want to be able to play the games on my real VIC.

[Ghislain]

One 'soft' limit I'm setting myself is whether a program really might need more than a 16K RAM expansion: that would have required a module-box (combining a 16K, and 8K expansion), and modding the 8K expansion to appear in BLK3. The 16K RAM expander was the biggest official expansion sold by CBM, which would plug directly into the VIC-20.

In the end, I did create a 16K version of Realms III, but it is a disk-based multi-loader and I had to take out the in-game music, multiple save game slots and the big map to make it all fit. The 32K version, however, can be played by loading all at once. In fact, the save game option offers to save to DISK or to TAPE. It would be very easy for me to create a cassette version and it would take me about 5 minutes or so to do it. It's a bit of an anachronism--the tape version only works with 32K RAM expansion (I think that most VIC-20 users who bothered to get 32K RAM expansion probably already had a disk drive).

I was looking through old early 1980s computer magazines (now that they're available as torrents) and the 32K RAM expansion carts being advertised for the VIC-20 (obviously, by third party companies) were quite big and cumbersome. There was even a 64K RAM expansion cart as well, along with a 35K one.

Has there ever been a VIC-20 commercial release (in the 1980s) that required more than 16K RAM expansion?

[Mike]

Has there ever been a VIC-20 commercial release (in the 1980s) that required more than 16K RAM expansion?

Not quite requiring but recommending a 24K expansion is:

utilities/16k/
- Practicalc 1.6, a spreadsheet program. The program is copyrighted 1982
- by Computer Software Associated, 50 Teed Drive, Randolph, MA 02368.
- Program by Sandy Ruby, manual by Kathleen F. Nolan. This software
- REQUIRES a 16Kbyte expansion, 24K is recommended.

and

utilities/8k/
- Aangifte 83&84.prg
- Calculates the taxation or something for 1983 and 1984. The program
- texts are in Dutch. Requires at least a 24k memory expansion, and the
- texts are formatted for a 40 column screen.

Don't know whether this one was a commercial release.

[Mayhem]

Game wise, no, nothing in GB20 uses more than 16k that was released in the 80s.

[bokvamme]

I voted both 'disk and tape'.
I prefer tape, but don't see why it can't be provided for both formats.
There are not many games that NEED to be on disk really.

[IsaacKuo]

Thanks for the input! It seems that practically everyone has a disk drive, but there's also strong support for a tape version when practical.

So, I'll develop on/for my VIC with disk drive, and also keep my datasette ready for a tape version also when practical.

As for RAM expansion...I still don't know how I feel about it. On the practical side, I don't have a RAM cart. On the emotional side, I'm naturally more nostalgic about the plain old unexpanded VIC I've always known.