748 replies to this topic

[Bill_Loguidice]

Opry99er, on Wed Jul 14, 2010 8:08 AM, said:

In this shot, you see how the magics will be cast during battle. Once "MAGIC" is selected, this appears in the dialog box. The name of the magic is on the left, to the right of that is the "element" icon (fire, bolt, white in this example) and then finally the "MP cost" to the right of that. You can scroll through the magics by using the up and down arrows.

One thing you may wish to consider is a secondary animation state for magic. What I mean by this is while a melee or weapons-based attack shows the standard character up "attack" position, it would be interesting if a character was using magic of ANY type that you show the magic radiating from the character once it's in use. You wouldn't need different types of radiation, just a standard "magic on" state that adds to your standard attack state. It would potentially add a bit more visual interest to attacks.

Here's an example from the Apple II version of SSI's Phantasie:

The character's normal attack state is the same exact image, just without the "fire" coming from his/her right hand.

Edited by Bill_Loguidice, Wed Jul 14, 2010 9:11 AM.

[Opry99er]

Oh yea man... I had certainly planned on that. =) I have the following ideas I plan to implement on "animation":

*Character states:
1) Standard
2) Attack
3) Magic

I have not decided on how I want to do the magic animation yet, but there will be different colors for each "elemental" magic.

*Attack Magic Colors:
1) Red-Fire
2) Blue-Water
3) Green-Earth
4) Grey-Air

White magic animation

*When a player casts a white magic (such as heal) on a party member, there will be a quick "fairy dust" cascade over top of the target party member.

Definitely need some kind of differentiation between moves in battle... otherwise it's lame. =) Thanks for the screenshot. Great game, I had totally forgotten about those graphics!!!

[Opry99er]

Okay, these graphics are pretty lame, but I wanted to see what this would look like with a center viewport. In all my menu screens, if there are red arrows pointing up and down, it means you can scroll the info in the box... here, the user selected "buy" from the store menu, then selected "Item" from the dialog box, and is now selecting items from the "Item" menu. Current GP is displayed onscreen as well as the cost of the store items.



My "store" concept is sort of inspired by a couple games:

Faxanadu:


Final Fantasy:



I would like to have a nice combination of the two... =)

Edited by Opry99er, Thu Jul 15, 2010 7:51 AM.

[adamantyr]

Hey Owen, where you at? The board goes really quiet when you're gone.

Adam

[Opry99er]

adamantyr, on Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:20 PM, said:

Hey Owen, where you at? The board goes really quiet when you're gone.

Adam

Tell you what, man---I've been in the studio every day for the last week working on the album. It's been unbelievably exhausting, but rewarding at the same time. =) I'll post links to the tunes on here somewhere when they're closer to done. Tonight is my last night in the studio for the next month, because I'll be playing in Florida for 3 weeks and then Georgia for a week. Life gets crazy sometimes. What are ya gonna do? =)

As for Beryl Reichardt updates, I have nothing new... It's sad, but I kind of rely on input to keep going. I'm so green in Assembly and this whole thing is so daunting... I've been plugging away at my document, and I've started a couple spreadsheets for battle stats, but I have nothing new to show visually. I kind of got a kick in the face a couple weeks ago on this project. I posted the game project on a couple of RPG forums and it developed a bit of excitement briefly. Then the threads became discussions about why the hell I would write a game for a vintage system in assembly--- A bunch of "You're wasting time and you won't finish it," "Why would you put such shitty restrictions on yourself" and so on and so forth. Then all posts on the game ceased. It didn't mortally wound me or anything, but it just kinda gave me a bad taste in my mouth. I know HERE people GET IT... But other stuff has kind of taken over the life for a brief period. I will try to be a bit more active--- This past week has just been so insanely BUSY!!!

BTW, I have just discovered the magnificent SNES game FFII!! I knew about the game, but never played it before. It's technically the fourth game in the series, but FFII for SNES has probably the coolest story of any of the console RPGs I've played. =)

[adamantyr]

Opry99er, on Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:36 PM, said:

Tell you what, man---I've been in the studio every day for the last week working on the album. It's been unbelievably exhausting, but rewarding at the same time. =) I'll post links to the tunes on here somewhere when they're closer to done. Tonight is my last night in the studio for the next month, because I'll be playing in Florida for 3 weeks and then Georgia for a week. Life gets crazy sometimes. What are ya gonna do? =)

Real-life always intrudes. It's cool.

Opry99er, on Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:36 PM, said:

As for Beryl Reichardt updates, I have nothing new... It's sad, but I kind of rely on input to keep going. I'm so green in Assembly and this whole thing is so daunting... I've been plugging away at my document, and I've started a couple spreadsheets for battle stats, but I have nothing new to show visually. I kind of got a kick in the face a couple weeks ago on this project. I posted the game project on a couple of RPG forums and it developed a bit of excitement briefly. Then the threads became discussions about why the hell I would write a game for a vintage system in assembly--- A bunch of "You're wasting time and you won't finish it," "Why would you put such shitty restrictions on yourself" and so on and so forth. Then all posts on the game ceased. It didn't mortally wound me or anything, but it just kinda gave me a bad taste in my mouth. I know HERE people GET IT... But other stuff has kind of taken over the life for a brief period. I will try to be a bit more active--- This past week has just been so insanely BUSY!!!

Assembly is very daunting to write in. Working on design is a good way to flesh out exactly what you want to accomplish in assembly. I can send you some of my spreadsheets sometime if you want to see how I put them together.

Yeah, retro-boards are what you want to stick with... modern development boards are full of jerks who have nothing better to do than to rip down other people's work because it's not in the flavor of their choice. I find the TI board here to be very invigorating and encouraging... and let's keep that going!

Opry99er, on Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:36 PM, said:

BTW, I have just discovered the magnificent SNES game FFII!! I knew about the game, but never played it before. It's technically the fourth game in the series, but FFII for SNES has probably the coolest story of any of the console RPGs I've played. =)

Yes, that is a very fun CRPG. The third one (FF3 on the SNES) is also pretty good, if you can find a copy.

Adamantyr

[JonArkanix]

Yeah, don't waste your time posting about your 8bit projects on modern development communities ... it can be a real morale crusher. Even websites that cater to lots of "retro-flavor" games, like indiegames.com, I've seen plenty of bashing for people "wasting their time" making games for various 8bit systems. It is too bad, because we're all doing the same thing really ... trying to be creative on our platform of choice.

[LoTonah]

Opry99er, on Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:36 PM, said:

adamantyr, on Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:20 PM, said:

Hey Owen, where you at? The board goes really quiet when you're gone.

Adam

Tell you what, man---I've been in the studio every day for the last week working on the album. It's been unbelievably exhausting, but rewarding at the same time. =) I'll post links to the tunes on here somewhere when they're closer to done. Tonight is my last night in the studio for the next month, because I'll be playing in Florida for 3 weeks and then Georgia for a week. Life gets crazy sometimes. What are ya gonna do? =)

As for Beryl Reichardt updates, I have nothing new... It's sad, but I kind of rely on input to keep going. I'm so green in Assembly and this whole thing is so daunting... I've been plugging away at my document, and I've started a couple spreadsheets for battle stats, but I have nothing new to show visually. I kind of got a kick in the face a couple weeks ago on this project. I posted the game project on a couple of RPG forums and it developed a bit of excitement briefly. Then the threads became discussions about why the hell I would write a game for a vintage system in assembly--- A bunch of "You're wasting time and you won't finish it," "Why would you put such shitty restrictions on yourself" and so on and so forth. Then all posts on the game ceased. It didn't mortally wound me or anything, but it just kinda gave me a bad taste in my mouth. I know HERE people GET IT... But other stuff has kind of taken over the life for a brief period. I will try to be a bit more active--- This past week has just been so insanely BUSY!!!

BTW, I have just discovered the magnificent SNES game FFII!! I knew about the game, but never played it before. It's technically the fourth game in the series, but FFII for SNES has probably the coolest story of any of the console RPGs I've played. =)

I hope you don't get too discouraged and drop this. I don't even own a TI anymore, but I find this project fascinating. I'm sort of in the same boat as you, just (cautiously) crossing that bridge between BASIC and assembler. I'm doing it on the Apple and Atari 8bit systems, though.

Keep it up. Don't listen to the people who don't get it. We need people like you on the fringes, doing their own thing.

[Willsy]

adamantyr, on Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:54 PM, said:

Assembly is very daunting to write in. Working on design is a good way to flesh out exactly what you want to accomplish in assembly. I can send you some of my spreadsheets sometime if you want to see how I put them together.

That's true, but of all the processors I've written assembly on over the years, the TMS9900 is the easiest (by far) and has the 2nd best instruction set (I would have to say 68K processors have the nicest instruction set, but are a little harder to program).

Just thank God TI didn't put Intel processors in the 4A!

[Willsy]

Owen,

I've never played a CRPG (don't even know what it means!) but I am fascinated by this thread, and always make a beeline for this thread whenever I get a chance to stop by Atariage!

Don't let the doom-mongers bring you down. They're probably idle idiots who don't have the intelligence, and motivation to do something similar. Jelousy is a form of flattery!

Mark

[Opry99er]

***Apologies in advance for the length of this post.*** =)

Thanks alot. =) I am so anxious to get the actual coding underway and see what I can do and can't do... but at the urging of those much more gifted than I, I have spent the last 3 months in game design--- developing the story, developing the characters, the battle system, item handling, level-ups and whatnot. It's a challenge for me, because usually I just start ripping code off and get something playable, but then it's architecturally screwed. Lemonade Stand should have only taken about 8-10k of XB code, but it took me over 22k because I started early and then had to pile code on top of what I did to make it work. The game works just fine, and if you never saw the listing, then you would never know... but I know... I really really know. =) And for Beryl, it would be impossible to just "start ripping off code" unless I had SAMS support or if I only wrote the game for the new Geneve 2 or even if I specifically designed the game for emulation (where disk space is no issue at all)--- and I HAVE thought about that by the way. =)

In any case, this project is a true mistress of mine... If there was any way at all for me to put more time into it, I certainly would. Anytime I get a spare hour or two I try to come up with a new graphic display just so I can keep my head into it. I should have another development document update within the week... I've added about another page of stat info and I've started messing with a spreadsheet for enemy stats as they pertain to battle (on the suggestion of Adamantyr) and it's pretty eye-opening. I suppose that being a "player" of RPGs and having never tried to write one, the I kinda took the whole "Did you score a hit and how much damage did it inflict on the opposing player" thing for granted. Playing RPGs now, looking at them from a programmer's standpoint, it's an entirely different thing.

When I began working on the mechanics, I really had this in mind: "Ultima-style graphics and screen layout with Final Fantasy Mystic Quest user interface".... But this has really moved on past that. The graphics and screen display are no longer like Ultima, and the U-I is less like FFMystic Quest and more like the other Final Fantasys, FFIII being a good example. I love watching this stuff grow and cultivating the essence of it... I just wish I knew how to take a more proactive role. =)

And while I agree with everyone here that RPG forums are full of hacks and douchebags, they kinda got me thinking. How am I going to implement this story line into the actual game--- and not just in a thick ass manual I hope people read? The manual will be appropriate in length and substance, but I never read a manual on FFII, Mystic Quest, FFIII, The Elven Chronicles, Chrono Trigger, etc.... The reasons?

-Brilliant UI
-Plenty of early battles
-Animated storyline sequences
-Clean uncluttered menus
-Onscreen prompts

What if I want an animated sequence like maybe the intro in FFII with action onscreen while text boxes fill up different parts of the screen? How would I do that on this limited-RAM system? Of course the SNES has a cartridge format, 2d graphics, and limited RAM as well, but we're talking completely different CPUs and VDP chips too, not to mention THEIR cartridges could hold a ton more than ours at the present time... It's an interesting proposition... and many have suggested doing a modern language version of the game. But once this game is complete, I want to focus on re-writing "Lemonade Stand" and "Honeycomb Rapture" for cartridge, and then I might just lurk for a while. It is frustrating to know exactly what you want to achieve and have no idea how to do it. We've all been there at one point or another in our lives. I play this game (LoBR) in my head every day as I drive down the road, etc and it plays great!!! Then I get home and look at the computer and see that all I have is a story, some stats, screenshots, and one very cool exploration scrolling routine. While I recognize I am much further along than I was a year ago... it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have made requests to a couple assembly gurus for a co-writing project here, but no luck just yet. There is no shortage of brilliant people here willing to help, but I'm afraid that simple advice on request won't be enough to make this project move forward at any kind of steady pace. Shame there still arent assembly classes around anymore! =) Anyway, I look forward to having time to work on this project more this year... I have ABSOLUTELY no idea on an ETA... I mean, literally NO idea. Could be the first of the year 2011, could be September of 2020... I have nothing by which to gauge it. So, I hope it's more like a year, and less like 10. =) I guess we shall see!

[Opry99er]

Quote

Yes, that is a very fun CRPG. The third one (FF3 on the SNES) is also pretty good, if you can find a copy.

My current collection of SNES CRPGs includes

-FFII
-FF Mystic Quest
-FFIII
-Chrono Trigger
-Wizardry V
-Secret of Evermore
-Ultima
-Zelda (not actually an RPG)
-Illusion of Gaia
-Secret of Mana

I recently beat Mystic Quest (while on the road in Georgia) and I'm about 5 hours into FFII right now. I've beaten Chrono Trigger, but never beat FFIII. I think that'll be my next one if I ever get time to beat FFII. =)

[Bill_Loguidice]

Just as an FYI, the "C" in CRPG stands for "Computer". Generally speaking, most console RPGs are different beasts from computer RPGs, particularly of the classic variety. One's preference tends to lie in what one was first exposed to.

[Opry99er]

Yea ©omputer ®ole (P)laying (G)ame. Tunnels of Doom to some extent is a CRPG... Other games like the Ultima series and the AD&D SSI gold box games like Pool of Radiance came to typify the genre. They are essentially the old paper and pencil role playing games turned "computer" if you will. I think my favorite of the classic CRPGs has to be The Magic Candle or Ultima IV. Later, in the late 80s and early 90s, the console RPG came out and revolutionized the genre to some extent. The Final Fantasy game on NES was sort of a benchmark at the time. These games would later advance to SNES with Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy III, and Chrono Trigger--- to the Sega Genesis with the Phantasy Star series--- and later to the Playstation with probably the most desired Playstation RPG around, Final Fantasy VII. I started on Tunnels of Doom, then moved straight into console RPGs like Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, Chrono Trigger, and Grandia II on the Sega Dreamcast (which is to this day the coolest story line I've ever seen.... Although FFII for SNES is really proving to be pretty awesome).

I like to think of CRPGs like an interactive fantasy novel. There is usually a very cool story, a plot, protagonists and antagonists (although it is not always immediately apparent WHO the antagonists TRULY are). The identifying properties of most CRPGs are

-The ability for character growth (leveling up)
-Some kind of party system
-An interactive battle system
-A definite story
-A definite goal

Of course, the typical gaming addages apply here... In a GOOD CRPG, you want a short term goal (clear this room of monsters) a medium term goal (defeat this damn world, level up, and get to the next world) and a long term goal (defeat the master demon/final boss-- become a Paladin or Hero or whatever). If you fancy a good look at the way this stuff kinda works, check out the following videos.


This is a video of a classic CRPG called Pools of Radiance. It was written by SSI and is the first game in their D&D licensing agreement.



The following video is a quick explanation of the battle sequence in FFII/IV for SNES. (It's the 4th game in the series, but the second released in the USA)



This video is of a much more modern RPG, Grandia II for the Dreamcast. I absolutely LOVED this game. This video shows just a short couple seconds of exploration, then you get to see a good battle, in which the good guys win... The lead character levels up (his name is Ryudo) and you get to see the battle engine. My favorite part is the turn based+realtime battle engine. Notice the timer in the bottom right of the screen

[Opry99er]

Battle Engine Question:


In looking at the Grandia video from the previous post, would a turnbased/realtime engine be possible on the TI? I know the indicator on the Dreamcast is pretty freaking cool, but I don't know that it would be do-able on the TI. Perhaps a SPRITE for each character representation just like in the Grandia video--- perhaps SPRITE movement tied to a routine which accesses the interrupt routine and creates the proper "timing" based on move selected and the player's speed/agility or whatever... I mean, it's possible, is it not?

I have talked for a while about a realtime/turnbased battle engine... and it's Final Fantasy III and Grandia II that opened my eyes to that particular style of combat. It's fascinating... Not a "fighting game" but not a rigid D&D turn-based system either. It's these console RPGs that really get the battle engines "right" as far as my personal taste is concerned. If it's possible in assembly, then I need to add some new stat categories to my spreadsheet. =)

[adamantyr]

Opry99er, on Fri Jul 23, 2010 3:22 PM, said:

In looking at the Grandia video from the previous post, would a turnbased/realtime engine be possible on the TI? I know the indicator on the Dreamcast is pretty freaking cool, but I don't know that it would be do-able on the TI. Perhaps a SPRITE for each character representation just like in the Grandia video--- perhaps SPRITE movement tied to a routine which accesses the interrupt routine and creates the proper "timing" based on move selected and the player's speed/agility or whatever... I mean, it's possible, is it not?

I have talked for a while about a realtime/turnbased battle engine... and it's Final Fantasy III and Grandia II that opened my eyes to that particular style of combat. It's fascinating... Not a "fighting game" but not a rigid D&D turn-based system either. It's these console RPGs that really get the battle engines "right" as far as my personal taste is concerned. If it's possible in assembly, then I need to add some new stat categories to my spreadsheet. =)

Anything is possible in assembly. It's mainly a design issue of having a clock that "counts down" even while processing other things, and listening for player input. You just need to consider all your edge cases and how they'll be handled.

Adamantyr

[Opry99er]

I may just go with a standard turn-based game with chance for enemy interrupts. There are many factors that can be put into place to throw a wrench in the works... For instance, on random battles (the ones that occur even if you do not physically touch a visible enemy) I would like to give the enemies first attack. Additionally, here is an example of the interrupts (and I think I covered this earlier in the thread in more detail).

Player Characters:
   -Beryl Reichardt
   -Reptoslicer
   -Markus the Valiant
   -Skylar Twilight

Enemy Characters:
   -Skeleton
   -Fire Elemental
   -Lava Golem

Standard order of battle:
   -Beryl Reichardt
   -Reptoslicer
   -Markus the Valiant
   -Skylar Twilight
***   
   -Skeleton
   -Fire Elemental
   -Lava Golem

Potential Interrupt order of battle:
   -Beryl
   -Reptoslicer
   -*Interrupt--Golem
   -Markus
   -*Interrupt--Fire Elemental
   -Skylar
***
   -Skeleton

In this example, the Golem and the Elemental were able to interrupt the natural flow of battle--- assumably because they are of a higher level and have a high SPD attribute. Just thinking out loud here... but this would probably be quite a bit easier to implement than a realtime engine, wouldn't you think? I don't think it's sacrificing anything, it's just different.

Edited by Opry99er, Fri Jul 23, 2010 4:39 PM.

[JamesD]

Opry99er, on Fri Jul 23, 2010 8:41 AM, said:

***Apologies in advance for the length of this post.*** =)

Thanks alot. =) I am so anxious to get the actual coding underway and see what I can do and can't do... but at the urging of those much more gifted than I, I have spent the last 3 months in game design--- developing the story, developing the characters, the battle system, item handling, level-ups and whatnot. It's a challenge for me, because usually I just start ripping code off and get something playable, but then it's architecturally screwed. Lemonade Stand should have only taken about 8-10k of XB code, but it took me over 22k because I started early and then had to pile code on top of what I did to make it work. The game works just fine, and if you never saw the listing, then you would never know... but I know... I really really know. =) And for Beryl, it would be impossible to just "start ripping off code" unless I had SAMS support or if I only wrote the game for the new Geneve 2 or even if I specifically designed the game for emulation (where disk space is no issue at all)--- and I HAVE thought about that by the way. =)

You could start with disk and migrate it to cartridge. That was a common practice on other machines.

Quote

When I began working on the mechanics, I really had this in mind: "Ultima-style graphics and screen layout with Final Fantasy Mystic Quest user interface".... But this has really moved on past that. The graphics and screen display are no longer like Ultima, and the U-I is less like FFMystic Quest and more like the other Final Fantasys, FFIII being a good example. I love watching this stuff grow and cultivating the essence of it... I just wish I knew how to take a more proactive role. =)

I think you are finding out why so many games had Ultima style graphics. It takes a lot of time and more memory for something like FF. The SSI games were actually somewhere between the two. But even SSI games were disk based because of their size.

Quote

And while I agree with everyone here that RPG forums are full of hacks and douchebags, they kinda got me thinking. How am I going to implement this story line into the actual game--- and not just in a thick ass manual I hope people read? The manual will be appropriate in length and substance, but I never read a manual on FFII, Mystic Quest, FFIII, The Elven Chronicles, Chrono Trigger, etc.... The reasons?

-Brilliant UI
-Plenty of early battles
-Animated storyline sequences
-Clean uncluttered menus
-Onscreen prompts

This is why I suggested scripts. Then you just play back the FF type interaction sequences that are just text or simple animation.
Once you get the engine working you can add and expand the scripts as you have time. It would require some tools to build those sequences.

Quote

What if I want an animated sequence like maybe the intro in FFII with action onscreen while text boxes fill up different parts of the screen? How would I do that on this limited-RAM system?

You will have to design things in pieces for a bank switched cart. It requires a lot of planning and I think you'll need expanded RAM anyway.

Quote

Of course the SNES has a cartridge format, 2d graphics, and limited RAM as well, but we're talking completely different CPUs and VDP chips too, not to mention THEIR cartridges could hold a ton more than ours at the present time... It's an interesting proposition... and many have suggested doing a modern language version of the game.

NES cartridges held more because they used bank/page switching and the system graphics were tile based. The SNES was more of the same but the cpu could address more RAM/ROM with the 65816, but memory is still paged for the most part.

[Opry99er]

Well, this game will, by no stretch of the imagination, be possible strictly on cart with no mem expansion.. I really want to have a cart+disk system--- but since no real coding is taking place, I'm not tied down to one or the other yet. A disk-based game, like "Realms of Antiquity" is great. But if I had a big ass chunk of routines in the 8k or 16k of cart space, it would call for less disk-swapping and would allow the player to "boot up" to the game... after selecting "2 FOR BERYL". I don't know how difficult it would be to "plug in" a cart to Classic99 and then run the game off the data disks... but hopefully I can make it a Windows .exe file and it can be played without any visible emulation front end. I need to explore that possibility a little more before I go into the coding. What I write will rely heavily on that... I just need to discuss the possibilities with Tursi... I don't know that what I want to accomplish is possible. But I'm really hoping it is. Part of what the a-holes at the RPG forums talked about was the accessibility of the game to the general public who don't want to:

-download an emulator
-install the emulator
-start up the emulator
-load the editor assembler cartridge
-select "5" for RUN PROGRAM
-Type in "DSK1.BERYL"
It makes sense to me... PC executable is the way to go. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying... I'm not saying that I want to write a PC game in C or something. There are already great emulators out there. I should do some research... find out what IS possible and what's not. I might just be blowing smoke here. I just feel like if I knew this game would be accessible to a larger market, I might put alot more effort into it. Perhaps that's not the best "retro programmer's" mentality to have, but it's something I'm having a hard time with. That may be a flaw... weakness... but hey, I can't help feeling that way.

[JamesD]

That doesn't look real time to me at all but then I'm not controlling it.

[Opry99er]

Quote

That doesn't look real time to me at all but then I'm not controlling it.

The realtime element is the bottom right side of the screen. If you notice, the character's likeness slides along that bar until it comes to "COM" at that point the action stops long enough for the user to input the player's move for that turn. Then, the action continues. If the player selected a simple attack, the likeness moves rapidly to the "ACT" point, wherein the action that was selected is executed. If the player selects a hefty magic, the player's likeness on the bar moves much more slowly. The time it takes for the likeness to go from "COM" to "ACT" is predicated on the move and several of the PC's statistical categories. Some characters move from the very front of the bar to the "COM" point more rapidly than others as well. So... it's not "turn based" entirely, but it's not realtime either.

[JamesD]

Opry99er, on Fri Jul 23, 2010 5:18 PM, said:

Quote

That doesn't look real time to me at all but then I'm not controlling it.

The realtime element is the bottom right side of the screen. If you notice, the character's likeness slides along that bar until it comes to "COM" at that point the action stops long enough for the user to input the player's move for that turn. Then, the action continues. If the player selected a simple attack, the likeness moves rapidly to the "ACT" point, wherein the action that was selected is executed. If the player selects a hefty magic, the player's likeness on the bar moves much more slowly. The time it takes for the likeness to go from "COM" to "ACT" is predicated on the move and several of the PC's statistical categories. Some characters move from the very front of the bar to the "COM" point more rapidly than others as well. So... it's not "turn based" entirely, but it's not realtime either.

It's turn based but the mechanism for determining turn is based on a formula rather than a fixed order.
The TI could do that but you have to use more formulas that update after each step of the battle.

[sometimes99er]

Opry99er, on Fri Jul 23, 2010 5:11 PM, said:

It makes sense to me... PC executable is the way to go. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying... I'm not saying that I want to write a PC game in C or something. There are already great emulators out there. I should do some research... find out what IS possible and what's not. I might just be blowing smoke here. I just feel like if I knew this game would be accessible to a larger market, I might put alot more effort into it. Perhaps that's not the best "retro programmer's" mentality to have, but it's something I'm having a hard time with. That may be a flaw... weakness... but hey, I can't help feeling that way.

Hehe, I'm always very careful about executables. You just don't know what they will do (think of viruses and trojan horses). If you trust Flash, Java, .Net, MESS and/or Classic99, then you've got a somewhat protected virtual machine bytecode sandbox thingy (phew). So I won't say "PC executable is the way to go". It's like it's easier to cross the highway on foot right here instead of going to the bridge in the horizon.

I think many of us sometimes say, what if. Think of the possibilities if the TI-99/4A had 512 bytes of Scratchpad instead of those 256 bytes. If the TI-99/4A had a palette of 32 colors, then I would ... The art is sometimes to play within the restrictions and push it there. The 8K cartridge format still have room for thousands of mind blowing demos and games. It's "my platform" (with or without 32K Expansion). Exactly my early eighties setup, dream and most wonderful straitjacket. And yes, I would probably drop it if I couldn't share it with you guys.

Feedback is certainly something to push you a bit forward, but in the end of the day, you most often have to do the retrobits for yourself foremost.

[Opry99er]

Thanks for chiming in, sometimes! I agree with you about self-motivation... It's tough, but necessary, to be a beacon in your retro-computing community for activity and enthusiasm... This forum wouldn't exist without Filip's efforts on our behalf--- Bank-switched carts would likely not be a reality without Jon and Tursi's efforts. So many great people with love for our system have contributed their time and efforts to keep the community rolling. I hope to contribute in a small way by completing this game and promoting it across the web. Only thing is--- how do you play a TI game without a TI and without having to mess with the whole emulator process I described above? Answer: you can't.

So--- something has to happen.... Either I send a TI and disk system to every person who plays the game-- or teach everyone who wants to play Beryl how to use the emulators--- or re-write it in a different language. Since I don't know any other languages, it limits my options. I don't have any desire to learn C on modern languages... Perhaps I could pay someone to code Beryl in a different language, once it's complete. My development document is changing form pretty rapidly--- and should be a very clear roadmap for anyone who might be a part of development. It's all talk, though.... I have no idea when this game will be done. Or IF it will get done--- Bad as that sounds... I don't have a clue what I'm doing. But I'm working on the dev document every day and graphics and maps when I get time. I hope I can stay on course and on topic these next couple months while I finish the paper and pencil parts of this planning phase. Keep me in your thoughts.

[JonArkanix]

I know it's possible to use a C64 emulator as a wrapper and simply release an executable file that loads emulator with game loaded and ready. That isn't possible with TI emulators? If not, I'm a bit surprised.