Dragon Warrior port

[MayDay]

I've been looking though some information about Dragonstomper and am wondering if it is possible for a Dragon Warrior port to be made.

 

I've researched Dragon Warrior quite in-depth. Here is what I think is the vital information:

1. overworld= 15,000 squares, 12 unique landscape objects (if you change the squares of the "wiseman cave" in the southeast corner into a cave symbol). This also does not count the character sprite. Towns/dungeons also have 10 additional landscape objects.

 

2. 7 towns of unknown exact sizes. I would guess 60x60 for each.

 

Dungeons: smaller visible areas, comprised of stone walls, brick floor, and stairs.

3. Erdricks Cave = B1 12x12, B2 12x12.

4. Fighters Cave = B1 16x16, B2 16x16.

5. Swamp Cave = B1 36x8.

6. Grave of Garinham = B1 22x22, B2 14x16, B3 22x22, B4 11x12.

7. "wiseman cave?" = 12x12.

8. Charlock Castle = F1 22x22, B1 22x22, B2 12x12, B3 12x12, B5 12x12, B6 7x12/3x12, B7 30x30.

 

There are 10 spells, 30 levels, 17 items, 3 shields, 7 types of armor, 7 weapons, and 40 unique enemies. Only 1 enemy appears on the screen at any time. You have 8 different commands to choose from and 5 statistics that are dispalyed in your window on the NES version.

 

Does anyone have an idea of how much memory would be required to hold this information? The NES display shows a 16x16 display, I thought that a 9x9 may be possible on the 2600. There are also two battle scenes (one for the overworld, one for dungeons which is just all black) and plenty of text. Each person you talk to says something different to give you clues along the way. There are 10 different animated characters who would have to face 4 different directions (at least to stay absolutely faithful).

 

I'm pretty sure this can be done, I just don't know how large it would have to be. Carts will also not be an option because of the licensing. However if anyone is still interested in this game, I would love to help out. Having 3-4 people working on this might be ideal because of the size. You would also need to generate semi-random numbers for making enemies appear and for hit points during the battles. A lot of work and I haven't taken into account things like music or a password system to "save" your games.

 

So, with all that said... any takers (or helpful information)?

 

-JD

[rockfistus]

It's worth a shot man, I'd like to see it happen.

[tmont]

There are 10 different animated characters who would have to face 4 different directions (at least to stay absolutely faithful). 

I would say "no" to being absolutely faithful (unless you're married). In my opinion, this game was very raw. There were several places where you had to wander around killing drakees and slimes to raise your level high enough to not die in one hit after you crossed a bridge. The only concrete example I can remember is that you have to raise your level like 5 times before you can fight the Axe Knight. That was a definite turn-off for me (although the game is still awesome, aside from that). If this game is going to be reproduced, you should "fix" the parts that are annoying to play.

 

You would also need to generate semi-random numbers for... hit points during the battles.

 

Why is this necessary? Enemies have the same amount of HP (give or take a couple HP) every time you face them. That's not really a very aesthetic part of the game, so I think it could be left out, if it's hard to implement.

[vdub_bobby]

For an example of what is possible in a 2600 RPG, check out the Homestar Runner RPG demo. That was/is planned for a 64K cart.

 

And generating pseudo-random numbers isn't hard.

[MayDay]

I'm not saying it has to be an absolutely faithful port of the game. Rather, I was trying to show what the original has and try to figure out how much memory is needed to store that, then strip things down from there. I would like to keep the actual size and landscape of the game as well as all the enemies; but am willing to sacrifice things like music and the animation/movement of NPC characters for beginners.

 

You're right that HP are mostly the same for enemies, however they can be as low as 75% of the max. You already need a random number sequence for making them appear, and as vdub said, it's not that hard (but that doesn't mean I can do it either). There are tutorials, and this part of the game doesn't really have me concerned. Leveling isn't that difficult either, so I would just leave experience points the way they are set up now.

 

Has anyone played Dragonstomper? Is there source code or a ROM available? I'm assuming they are using sprites for things such as the trees and castles. I *may* try to get a working demo of this game sometime in the future (i was thinking Tantagel castle for starters) but for now I will continue working on dodgeball!

 

-JD

[vdub_bobby]

Check out the Homestar Runner RPG demo, please. IMO that should be the starting point for any ambitious 2600 RPG.

 

Run the demo with the batch file that's included, in z26.

HRR.zip

Edited November 14, 2005 by vdub_bobby

[MayDay]

I just got home and downloaded it, but won't have a chance to look at it in-depth for a while. Thanks for looking it up, I had intentions of doing so from your first post, just haven't had the time yet.

 

-JD

[tmont]

You're right that HP are mostly the same for enemies, however they can be as low as 75% of the max.

I didn't know that they got that low. Interesting.

Leveling isn't that difficult either, so I would just leave experience points the way they are set up now.

My point was that there are long sequences in the original where you wander around for hours killing magidrakees and skeletons so that you're strong enough to defeat the Axe Knight. That kind of thing is just poor programming. I think whoever replicates this should try and get rid of boring parts like that. I'm a big fan of RPGs, but when the game comes to a skidding halt while you hit monsters with a stick for an hour, it's no longer very fun.

[ZylonBane]

My point was that there are long sequences in the original where you wander around for hours killing magidrakees and skeletons so that you're strong enough to defeat the Axe Knight.  That kind of thing is just poor programming.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the programming. It's poor design.

[MayDay]

If you're taking on magidrakees and skeletons it would take hours to level up at that point. If you want to level easier start taking on the wraith, wyvern, rogue scorpions, etc. and maybe even sneak around in the more dangerous areas and try to catch a metal slime. I don't think it's poorly designed or programmed, and intend to keep it as close to the original as possible if I ever get to this project.

 

Edit: One change I might make is to stop the enemies like knights from casting stopspell all the time, since it never seems to work anyway.

Edited November 16, 2005 by MayDay

[Shawn]

Check out the Homestar Runner RPG demo, please.  IMO that should be the starting point for any ambitious 2600 RPG.

 

Run the demo with the batch file that's included, in z26.

965486[/snapback]

 

 

Ok,

 

I just tried out this RPG and its awsome. I think whoever is making it needs to be locked in a cage and only allowed to eat when X amount of progress is made in the game so either

 

A) they starve to death

 

or

 

B) this fucking awsome game is completed ASAP.

 

And if dragon warrior is next? Thumbs Up!! Oh ya I'll buy this game for sure (dragon Warrior and\or Homestar)

 

Shawn Sr.

 

P.S. The boring parts of DW1 should be reworked, I hate 3 hours of sliming at a time, it doesn't make any sense. An RPG should be smooth and not have such lags. By the time you get to a larger enemy you should roughly have what it takes to fight them or at least have a "chance" of defeating them.

Edited November 21, 2005 by silver_surfer

[Rom Hunter]

Paul Slocum made these Homestar Runner RPG demos.

 

The first one in 2003 and a second one in 2004.

 

[Omegamatrix]

I finished Dragon Warrior at least twice that I remember. There's no way I could do that today, because the leveling up took so damn long. However I feel it is a worthy game to convert, and might even be better on the 2600. Why? The progression aspect can be retained & improved, and the knowledge that a system is being pushed graphically to its max makes it all the sweeter for me (even if the graphics are not nearly as good as they are on other systems). I just enjoy it more.

[MayDay]

I got tired of looking at my Dodgeball code yesterday, and started playing around with sprites for this instead. Right now everything except the drakee sprites are limited to 8 pixels, and they are 16. Some I'm kind of proud of (scorpions), and others I just hope people will be able to recognize (ghosts). Anyway, here is an idea of what enemies could look like in a 2600 version.

 

 

The dungeon creatures are a little weird, and I put them against black to better show what they might look like. Anyway, feel free to improve my designs or finish the enemies I didn't get around to creating. And since it is just a color change, don't worry about the magidrakee, unless it is a new design. I also have something special in mind for the Dragonlord, so while you are free to play around, keep in mind that if I ever get to this game, I will probably not use your idea for him.

 

Thanks for looking!

-JD

 

Edit- I should have included my ideas for the hero sprite as well. Also, the dragons are going to require 16 pixels as well, I was trying with 8 and decided that there is pretty much no way to do them. If you are unfamiliar with DW, here is a link to the enemies in the game

 

Edited December 4, 2005 by MayDay

[MoonlightKnight]

Man, those sprites look good!

 

I hope this project works out... I'd really love a copy of this one!

[Bruce Tomlin]

For what it's worth, DQ1 was ported to MSX1, which is roughly equivalent to the Colecovision. The ROM is 128K, but about 10K of that seems to be unused. I suspect that a good portion of that is graphics (64 bytes per 16x16 tile adds up fast). DQ2 is 256K. Of course it's in Japanese, which probably takes up fewer text bytes (even in straight hiragana) for the text than the equivalent in English.

 

Wait, did I say "text"? That's not going to port very well to the 2600, even with Paul's text kernal.

[Pixelboy]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the programming. It's poor design.

966171[/snapback]

Such RPGs are called "old-school" for a reason, you know.

 

Also, isn't Dragon Warrior an overly ambitious project? The end product on the Atari 2600 could end up being so far removed from the NES version that you might as well rename it into something else. The ColecoVision would be a better candidate, even with its limited ROM space.

 

Just my two cents.

 

(EDIT: Also, didn't Dragon Warrior have a battery save feature?)

Edited December 20, 2005 by Pixelboy

[8th lutz]

I think your're asking to much out the 2600. The 7800 more made for Dragon Warrior then the 2600. The 7800 can go up to 512K. Dragon Warrior also had a save future. Now granted there was no true rpg for the 7800, but the memory indicates that it can. What the 2600 could do is possibly having early rpgs like Wizardry, and Akalabeth.

Edited December 20, 2005 by 8th lutz

[MayDay]

I've been thinking about this game from time to time. I was able to get a semi-passable kernel for a 7x7 square visual display, however as Bruce suggests the text is the real kicker here. My solution was to move it to the 7800 (which surely supports text?) and would also make the game look much better. The biggest problem with that is, I know nothing about 7800 programming, and there isn't nearly the supporting documentation as there is for the 2600. Plus, you would have to spend a lot longer on it to make it look better, nobody wants to buy a game that would not even be very 2600 graphically competitive to play on their 7800.

 

On a whim, I also picked up the binary to play on an emulator (and by the way, the game does have a battery feature). This got me to thinking though, if you have the Nintendo code, how difficult would it be to change over to 7800 code? Would it be changing a few simple values, or would you basically need to re-write the entire game?

 

Anyway, yes it is ambitious for the 2600, but not impossible. A lot will be lost graphically, but I think most of the gameplay could be salvaged. I'm still working on my original project, and will post something back here when I have more to tell you guys. If it ever does come to fruition, I will not sell any carts of it anyway, because of copyright issues (but I will likely take that same engine and make it into a similar game that could go on carts).

[Shawn]

  My solution was to move it to the 7800 (which surely supports text?) and would also make the game look much better.   The biggest problem with that is, I know nothing about 7800 programming, and there isn't nearly the supporting documentation as there is for the 2600.  Plus, you would have to spend a lot longer on it to make it look better, nobody wants to buy a game that would not even be very 2600 graphically competitive to play on their 7800.

 

986230[/snapback]

 

 

If it was the full Dragon Warrior game for the 7800 but had 2600ish graphics I would still buy this game in a heart beat.

 

EDIT: And although SOME of the Nintendo code is similar to the 7800 I'm sure a near total re-write would be in order but the source code for the NES version could give you alot of pointers I guess. I'm talking near completely out my ass on this (but not 100% Ass more like 85%..lol) so you will have to get exact details from one of the more savy programmer dudes cause I'm just not that "SMRT".

Edited December 21, 2005 by silver_surfer

[vdub_bobby]

Porting from NES to 7800...has anybody every tried that?

 

Anyway, you could probably rip some graphics, kinda, though from the little I know of 7800 graphics you'd probably have to go down in resolution (from 256x200 to 160x200) though you'd likely have more colors to work with. Actually...you probably couldn't directly rip any graphics. Realistically, the only thing you could use from the NES code would be the game logic (plus monster stats, locations of items, etc.) and text. The graphics and sound code, especially, would have to be completely written from scratch.

 

EDIT: AFAIK the 7800 supports text.

 

If you are serious about developing for the 7800, there is a (defunct?) mailing list, similar to the [stella] list for the 2600, for the 7800 that is probably worth looking into, plus most of the 7800 coding action seems to take place in the 7800 forum (not the 7800 programming forum).

Edited December 21, 2005 by vdub_bobby

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

EDIT: And although SOME of the Nintendo code is similar to the 7800 I'm sure a near total re-write would be in order but the source code for the NES version could give you alot of pointers I guess.

 

Well, you'd have to rewrite all display and music code and convert at least all music data and probably some/all graphics as well, but from there on you can probably use 90% of the game code as is. RAM wise they're almost on par (4K on the 7800 vs. 2K + 2K video RAM on the NES), so I think a 1:1 7800 port based on the original source could be done in a couple of months.

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[Bruce Tomlin]

I think the main limitation for the 7800 is going to be the Maria DMA access slowing down the CPU. Games like Robotron which are just a few sprites are no problem, but 2D RPGs basically have something on every scan line. And then there's that 160/320 pixel thing... 160 pixel mode is just too big, and 320 pixel mode doesn't have enough color.

 

I'll give you guys a hint and point out that the first two have already been ported to something almost but not quite like ColecoVision.

 

The problems are:

 

* the sheer size of the game (DQ1=128K, DQ2=256K)

* coming up with a bank switch method (the ColecoVision cartridges don't support writes, so you have to use 2600-style tricks like making FFE0-FFFF do bank select, and don't forget the emulator drivers)

* the need for translation (even back-porting the NES version text will be a lot work, since the Japanese text will take fewer bytes, but the password save from the MSX version means you won't need battery RAM) (also, you can't go half-way, because I'll bet that there isn't enough room for both hiragana and roman letters in the font at the same time)

* sound, but at least you won't have to use the TIA sound

* 1K of SRAM might not be enough.

* and just maybe Square Enix's lawyers might not be amused (a problem no matter what you port to)

[ILA2600]

I've been looking though some information about Dragonstomper and am wondering if it is possible for a Dragon Warrior port to be made.

 

I've researched Dragon Warrior quite in-depth.  Here is what I think is the vital information:

1.  overworld= 15,000 squares, 12 unique landscape objects (if you change the squares of the "wiseman cave" in the southeast corner into a cave symbol).  This also does not count the character sprite.  Towns/dungeons also have 10 additional landscape objects.

 

2. 7 towns of unknown exact sizes.  I would guess 60x60 for each.

 

Dungeons:  smaller visible areas, comprised of stone walls, brick floor, and stairs.

3.  Erdricks Cave = B1 12x12, B2 12x12.

4.  Fighters Cave = B1 16x16, B2 16x16.

5.  Swamp Cave =  B1 36x8.

6.  Grave of Garinham = B1 22x22, B2 14x16, B3 22x22, B4 11x12.

7.  "wiseman cave?" = 12x12.

8.  Charlock Castle = F1 22x22, B1 22x22, B2 12x12, B3 12x12, B5 12x12, B6 7x12/3x12, B7 30x30.

 

There are 10 spells, 30 levels, 17 items, 3 shields, 7 types of armor, 7 weapons, and 40 unique enemies.  Only 1 enemy appears on the screen at any time.  You have 8 different commands to choose from and 5 statistics that are dispalyed in your window on the NES version.

 

Does anyone have an idea of how much memory would be required to hold this information?  The NES display shows a 16x16 display, I thought that a 9x9 may be possible on the 2600.  There are also two battle scenes (one for the overworld, one for dungeons which is just all black) and plenty of text.  Each person you talk to says something different to give you clues along the way.  There are 10 different animated characters who would have to face 4 different directions (at least to stay absolutely faithful). 

 

I'm pretty sure this can be done, I just don't know how large it would have to be.  Carts will also not be an option because of the licensing.  However if anyone is still interested in this game, I would love to help out.  Having 3-4 people working on this might be ideal because of the size.  You would also need to generate semi-random numbers for making enemies appear and for hit points during the battles.  A lot of work and I haven't taken into account things like music or a password system to "save" your games.

 

So, with all that said... any takers (or helpful information)?

 

-JD

964862[/snapback]

 

I'm a huge Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior fan and a Dragon Warrior game for the Atari would be cool!!

[Memblers]

RAM wise they're almost on par (4K on the 7800 vs. 2K + 2K video RAM on the NES), so I think a 1:1 7800 port based on the original source could be done in a couple of months.

 

 

Add another 8K of RAM to that, Dragon Warrior and almost every RPG on NES has extra RAM at $6000-$7FFF.