Hi Tokra
I will begin the hardcore way, but if I get my fill I will look to use a modern PC.
However, I already use modern PC to do mapping, indexing and writing all the texts for the game.
Yes that VIC is in pretty good shape. I have another one in really bad esthetic shape: so yellow and actually smells like cigarette (pevious owner?), with missing screws and partially smashed-in keyboard (broken plastic). However it still works perfect except for a few keys which needs to be cleaned. I need to restore it and then it may be my main vic to receive punishment instead of this pristine one here.
beginner project - a text-based game for vic-20 ?
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I'm sticking to the hardcore route myself. There something about tapping away on the Vic and scrunching your eyes at that TV that is part of the experience - not the same using an emulator. Perhaps when my eyes get really bad, I may reconsider 
@OBS - There is a book I have in my library you might try to hunt down in one form or another (ebay perhaps) that relates directly to your project and what you are trying to accomplish: Creating Adventure Games on Your Computer by Tim Hartnell. It came out in 1983/84 and takes you through the process of developing a text based adventure game in BASIC. I found it a good read and very helpful in my early days of programming.
I had at one time Hartnell's other book Giant Book of Computer Games which was also informative and a great read. I hope to come across it again some day.
My only comment regarding your project is to not get too caught up in developing graphics, but spend time getting your game running as a straight text based version. Updating with graphics later is always an option. The main thing is to have fun
Keep us posted with your progress.
edit: I just checked and found that Tim Hartnell's Creating Adventure Games is available online for you to look over.
Tim Hartnell wiki entry.
@OBS - There is a book I have in my library you might try to hunt down in one form or another (ebay perhaps) that relates directly to your project and what you are trying to accomplish: Creating Adventure Games on Your Computer by Tim Hartnell. It came out in 1983/84 and takes you through the process of developing a text based adventure game in BASIC. I found it a good read and very helpful in my early days of programming.
I had at one time Hartnell's other book Giant Book of Computer Games which was also informative and a great read. I hope to come across it again some day.
My only comment regarding your project is to not get too caught up in developing graphics, but spend time getting your game running as a straight text based version. Updating with graphics later is always an option. The main thing is to have fun
Keep us posted with your progress.
edit: I just checked and found that Tim Hartnell's Creating Adventure Games is available online for you to look over.
Tim Hartnell wiki entry.
Stay on target!
Jeff: until the Eyes are like sand paper and fingers bleed? 
Shamusboy: I've got two giant books of Basic games with me here that I will be looking into for routines and basic functions. thanks for putting out these other titles in this thread. If I feel I need more or better info and example, I'll start hunting for those.
Regarding graphics, yes I am already getting away from that and have designed a title screen that is completely "text" based in 22 by 23.
These alot of exciting stuff i'd like to implement in the text game, time will tell how far i'll get
oh it is available online as you edited! great ! thank goodness for that thing called the internet!
Shamusboy: I've got two giant books of Basic games with me here that I will be looking into for routines and basic functions. thanks for putting out these other titles in this thread. If I feel I need more or better info and example, I'll start hunting for those.
Regarding graphics, yes I am already getting away from that and have designed a title screen that is completely "text" based in 22 by 23.
These alot of exciting stuff i'd like to implement in the text game, time will tell how far i'll get
oh it is available online as you edited! great ! thank goodness for that thing called the internet!
Book on text adventures
Yeah the book is loads of help, I am into chapter 6 where they show how to setup the data on how the rooms are inter-connected. Since I alreay have some mapping done, I can get that partly settled. I feel if I survive one text adventure, it would be easy to create many more if inspiration holds.
Is there a thread in the forums for your project? if so please post a link I am curious
Noticed that there is a great many canucks within the Denial community, it is starting to fascinate me how early commodore had such a Huge presence in Canada, Here in my little town there are items like commodore filing cabinets and vic-20's always poping up (more often even than c64s !!!).
It would be nice to digg-up some info of all that used to be manufactured on Canadian soil... the line seem to have stopped with the Vic-20, as I see "made in Canada vic-20, but C64 seem always "made in USA".
It would also be interresting to Assemble info on Canadian promotional stuff, like the bilingual packadging for various products and such. On that effect, I stumbled upon a late 1980's commodore 64 box featuring the Olympics where, If I remember right, Commodore advertises on the box that they gave a c64 to each of the 1988 Calgary olympics Canadian team members?
Anyways, I'll quit this now as it is off-topic, but it is fascinating how the ghosts of Commodore are strong in Canada.
PS: Halifax city area has a "Commodore" road with a big green road sign. I do not know if it is related to the company, but next time I go there, I'll take a photograph for you guys.
Is there a thread in the forums for your project? if so please post a link I am curious
Noticed that there is a great many canucks within the Denial community, it is starting to fascinate me how early commodore had such a Huge presence in Canada, Here in my little town there are items like commodore filing cabinets and vic-20's always poping up (more often even than c64s !!!).
It would be nice to digg-up some info of all that used to be manufactured on Canadian soil... the line seem to have stopped with the Vic-20, as I see "made in Canada vic-20, but C64 seem always "made in USA".
It would also be interresting to Assemble info on Canadian promotional stuff, like the bilingual packadging for various products and such. On that effect, I stumbled upon a late 1980's commodore 64 box featuring the Olympics where, If I remember right, Commodore advertises on the box that they gave a c64 to each of the 1988 Calgary olympics Canadian team members?
Anyways, I'll quit this now as it is off-topic, but it is fascinating how the ghosts of Commodore are strong in Canada.
PS: Halifax city area has a "Commodore" road with a big green road sign. I do not know if it is related to the company, but next time I go there, I'll take a photograph for you guys.
I've not posted anything yet mainly because I'm still thinking about what I'm going to build. I have a couple of ideas (at least!) and a main focus will be learning ML, something I never got into when I first starting programming the Vic back in a day.
The first time I saw a Vic 20 was around 1980 I suspect. My Mum had bought it from Consumers Distributing (Remember them!) for my brother to try out. I remember he didn't go for it and after some time, got himself an IBM box. What I do remember is how easy it was to program while watching him muck about with it. It would be 6 years later before I got my hands on one and learned basic. Late into the game but I got there all the same
At school, my friends had Apples or Atari's, not one do I remember having a Commodore. Funny that.
I'm taking your thread off topic some more. Sorry about that. Good luck with the game and I'll post something once I get my project going.
The first time I saw a Vic 20 was around 1980 I suspect. My Mum had bought it from Consumers Distributing (Remember them!) for my brother to try out. I remember he didn't go for it and after some time, got himself an IBM box. What I do remember is how easy it was to program while watching him muck about with it. It would be 6 years later before I got my hands on one and learned basic. Late into the game but I got there all the same
At school, my friends had Apples or Atari's, not one do I remember having a Commodore. Funny that.
I'm taking your thread off topic some more. Sorry about that. Good luck with the game and I'll post something once I get my project going.
Stay on target!
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Schema
- factor
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- Website: http://www.jammingsignal.com
- Location: Toronto, Ontario
Re: Book on text adventures
Definitely! I grew up in a small Prairie town (Dauphin, Manitoba) and our junior and senior high schools had PETs and C64s all over the place. VICs weren't as popular, but you could always get them at Canadian TireOBSysteme wrote:Noticed that there is a great many canucks within the Denial community, it is starting to fascinate me how early commodore had such a Huge presence in Canada, Here in my little town there are items like commodore filing cabinets and vic-20's always poping up (more often even than c64s !!!).
Now I live in Toronto, and the concentration of Denial members (and Commodore users) is amazing. And TPUG is right here, still meeting monthly. Let us know if you're ever in Toronto.
Also, looking at your website, there's another aspect of Denial members (VIC users): You're also a musician. Myself and several others here (i.e. Boray) have quite serious music hobbies as well, in a wide variety of genres.
To get back on topic, here's the book I learned BASIC programming with. Sadly all the PDF links I could find online were removed, but at least there are a couple of pages here. But the other books recommended in this thread should be a big help too.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ianvoyce/5 ... 717121326/
That's cool, I hadn't heard that. The York University Computer Musuem collects exactly this kind of thing.It would also be interresting to Assemble info on Canadian promotional stuff, like the bilingual packadging for various products and such. On that effect, I stumbled upon a late 1980's commodore 64 box featuring the Olympics where, If I remember right, Commodore advertises on the box that they gave a c64 to each of the 1988 Calgary olympics Canadian team members?
Please do! Or can you find it on Google Street View??PS: Halifax city area has a "Commodore" road with a big green road sign. I do not know if it is related to the company, but next time I go there, I'll take a photograph for you guys.
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Mike
- Herr VC
- Posts: 4845
- Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2004 1:57 pm
- Location: Munich, Germany
- Occupation: electrical engineer
Commodore Rd.
Here we go: (link)Schema wrote:Please do! Or can you find it on Google Street View?
Cheers,
Michael
Schema: Thanks for the link! Good to know others are into music too... I’d really like to make a pure vic-20 album sometime, it would be fun... yeah the OBS musical project is another thing I peck at for entertainment, just for fun, nothing serious, all free download on underground netlabels. Naturally you can expect my text game to have sounds and little tunes here and there If I can.
Schema: TPug is still active? Wow!... I did not even realise! Last year I rescued old TPug floppy disks from the New Brunswick backwoods that had files programmed by Jim Butterfield on it ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/obsysteme/ ... hotostream ). Thanks for the invitation to the Toronto jungle, I have no Idea if I’ll eventually get to go in that area, but if I do, I’ll be sure to add retro computing and its people to the target list.
Mike: oh nice find! It is not the one I have seen, the one I’ve seen in that same city is larger and hanging over the street.
Shamusboy : Now there was a weird adventure, Canadian tire selling vic’s, in a store selling windshield washer and camping equipment. I remember stacking Canadian tire money until I could buy an Atari Kartridge, so I guess They sold “that kind of stuff
Schema: TPug is still active? Wow!... I did not even realise! Last year I rescued old TPug floppy disks from the New Brunswick backwoods that had files programmed by Jim Butterfield on it ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/obsysteme/ ... hotostream ). Thanks for the invitation to the Toronto jungle, I have no Idea if I’ll eventually get to go in that area, but if I do, I’ll be sure to add retro computing and its people to the target list.
Mike: oh nice find! It is not the one I have seen, the one I’ve seen in that same city is larger and hanging over the street.
Shamusboy : Now there was a weird adventure, Canadian tire selling vic’s, in a store selling windshield washer and camping equipment. I remember stacking Canadian tire money until I could buy an Atari Kartridge, so I guess They sold “that kind of stuff
game title screen and name change
Now, to get back to the project, would you play a game with this title screen?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/obsysteme/ ... hotostream
I have decided to change the title from “Mental
http://www.flickr.com/photos/obsysteme/ ... hotostream
I have decided to change the title from “Mental
Ram expanssion
Okay guys, I have finished designing the institution (Estrapad). We are looking at an environment of a little over 100 rooms. Note that this included segments of corridors, so a corridor is seperated into what I also call "rooms".
and This can't be subdivided into sperate parts because the game is not linear, all of it has to be loaded into memory and available. It becomes clear that the game will probably need ram expanssion.
Not all rooms are loaded with puzzles and objects, but still...
To all those who have experience playing text adventures:
What level of extra ram would I likely need, 3k 8k 16k etc... ?
I like the idea of trying to fit it in 8k. 8k ram seems a common cart and from what I understand, higher ram configurations would probably be able to load it as well?
tell me what you think?
and This can't be subdivided into sperate parts because the game is not linear, all of it has to be loaded into memory and available. It becomes clear that the game will probably need ram expanssion.
Not all rooms are loaded with puzzles and objects, but still...
To all those who have experience playing text adventures:
What level of extra ram would I likely need, 3k 8k 16k etc... ?
I like the idea of trying to fit it in 8k. 8k ram seems a common cart and from what I understand, higher ram configurations would probably be able to load it as well?
tell me what you think?