9 replies to this topic

[Syntaxerror999]

God, I wish I could program... I came up with a nifty idea that Im surprised no one else has done...

Earlier I was playing Dragonstomper for the supercharger... I loved the idea of a multiload game with different maps... but due to the inconvenient nature of cassette tapes the game is forward progress only. But we have CD players and MP3 players now... so heres a example of what Im driving at...

Say someone makes a supercharger edition of Adventure... your progressing through the game... which is using the max aloted screens (255 I think)... you get past the black gate and BAM! The words "set cd to track 2. Press fire button" pop up. You do so and the supercharger load screen pops up. You load track 2 and your back in the game at a new set of 255 screens...pressing reset starts you not at the gold castle, but at your new start point. You do what you need to do here, and head back to where you came from. the words "set cd to track 1. press fire".. you go through all that and your back to the origional maps... you go through a different passage and the words "det cd to track 3".... you get the idea...

Using this method and a cd player and you could make our little "Adventure" into an epic RPG of a size never before seen on the atari!

SO if someone wants to make the mother of all Aventure hacks... heres your gimic!

[ScumSoft]

This could be done so long as you had writable internal storage in the cart itself, and just overwrite the playdata when it asks.
Though this would be easier said than done. But I'm no expert, it may be impossible for all I really know.

[edit] on second thought, doesn't Dragonstomper stream the data from the cassettes, so all you need is control logic in the game for seeking data from an external storage device hooked directly into the cartridge so as to avoid slow transfers via joy ports right? Hmm, might be easier to just use the harmony cart for this idea.

Edited by ScumSoft, Thu Mar 3, 2011 5:55 PM.

[Syntaxerror999]

ScumSoft, on Thu Mar 3, 2011 5:50 PM, said:

This could be done so long as you had writable internal storage in the cart itself, and just overwrite the playdata when it asks.
Though this would be easier said than done. But I'm no expert, it may be impossible for all I really know.

[edit] on second thought, doesn't Dragonstomper stream the data from the cassettes, so all you need is control logic in the game for seeking data from an external storage device hooked directly into the cartridge so as to avoid slow transfers via joy ports right? Hmm, might be easier to just use the harmony cart for this idea.

I was thinking the same thing too. If someone was to release a game like this, they could do it on a CD that contained a supercharger, cuttlecart, and data files for a Harmony cart version. That way a larger payer market would be avalable. It may even bring about a "Stella gets a new brain" vol. 3!

This idea would work just like Dragonstomper, but with the ability of going back and forth throughout the game... something that was technicaly possible then... but would have been a headache to play on a cassette version.


OOOOH! How about a version of Zork! for the atari! Or one of those Adventure connection series games!

Edited by Syntaxerror999, Thu Mar 3, 2011 6:12 PM.

[ScumSoft]

Well the RPG I am making would benefit from extra level storage, but for my first game I'll ("try") to keep it at 4k.
But those extra features would be great for other games.

[Syntaxerror999]

ScumSoft, on Thu Mar 3, 2011 7:20 PM, said:

Well the RPG I am making would benefit from extra level storage, but for my first game I'll ("try") to keep it at 4k.
But those extra features would be great for other games.

If I can inspire just one person with my ideas... ive succeeded in what I set out to do.

[e1will]

FWIW, the 255-room limit in Adventure is fairly easy to overcome. I'm currently working on a 300+ room version that may end up with about 400 before I'm done.

--Will

[Amstari]

I have been thinking about a multi-load game too. I'm planning to use a password system to progress your character after loading.

When you finish the current progam a password is generated using your characters stats (hit points, armour, coins, items, etc). You load the next program enter the code and continue with the sane stats as before.

I'm going to try it with the CompuMate which only has 1K so there will be a lot of loading required.

[ScumSoft]

Yeah likewise, without using the SaveKey device, its the only real logical way to implement a save feature plus it's fairly easy to use.

[theloon]

Actually, using pseudo random number generators I got quite a bit more rooms than 200..
See my Destiny WIP project:
http://www.atariage....86-destiny-wip/

If anyone is good at figuring out spaghetti code they can adapt it to a full RPG project.

[Kiwi]

theloon, on Mon Mar 7, 2011 1:21 PM, said:

Actually, using pseudo random number generators I got quite a bit more rooms than 200..
See my Destiny WIP project:
http://www.atariage....86-destiny-wip/

If anyone is good at figuring out spaghetti code they can adapt it to a full RPG project.

I think it possible to do as many room you could. RoomID = 0-255. By adding another byte would increase the number of room to 65536 different rooms. RoomIDx = 0-255 + RoomIDy = 0-255. Need more than 65536, add another byte to that.