13 replies to this topic

[7800Lover]

I've had a thing for graphic adventure games like King's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Sam and Max Hit the Road, Hugo's House of Horrors, etc. After a long absence, I returned here to the AtariAge forums and was impressed to see the homebrews proposed for the Atari 7800 - and that got me thinking.

Could a graphic adventure game be done for the Atari 7800?

Perhaps...let's not forget the the first King's Quest was put on the Sega Master System and King's Quest 5 on the NES. Of course, we'd have to implement a point-and-click interface since I'm unsure how well as text parser interface would work with our beloved 7800.

Whaddyathink?

[GroovyBee]

7800Lover, on Mon Jan 16, 2012 8:46 AM, said:

Of course, we'd have to implement a point-and-click interface since I'm unsure how well as text parser interface would work with our beloved 7800.

Just add a XEGS keyboard to the XM and away you go .

[Rex Dart]

GroovyBee, on Mon Jan 16, 2012 8:49 AM, said:

7800Lover, on Mon Jan 16, 2012 8:46 AM, said:

Of course, we'd have to implement a point-and-click interface since I'm unsure how well as text parser interface would work with our beloved 7800.

Just add a XEGS keyboard to the XM and away you go .

Yup, instant $200 adventure game. Make it work with a standard joystick and it could be awesome; Monkey Island worked decently well with gamepads back in the day. Why not use the ol' "Button 1 selects an object/location, Button 2 pops up list of actions" scheme?

[7800Lover]

Why not? It was done with the SMS and NES. Plus someone actually did a text adventure game on the less powerful 2600 (Dark Mage).

[GroovyBee]

Rex Dart, on Mon Jan 16, 2012 9:01 AM, said:

Yup, instant $200 adventure game.

Hmmmmm.... Best cancel that XM version of Zork then.

[DracIsBack]

I'd hate this implemented without a keyboard. I know it was a cool novely to have King's Quest on the Sega Master System, but I found it to be a pain in the ass actually. Constantly selecting keywords to form the actions, drove me mad.

[7800Lover]

The NES seems to be okay with a graphic adventure game. It handled a click and point interface all right with KQ5.




Has anyone tried a click-and-point for the 7800? The two systems are about equal so if the NES could handle such an interface, why not the 7800?

[GroovyBee]

Rather than writing the game from the ground up it'd be more worthwhile in my opinion to port SCUMM or Frotz to the 7800 then you'd get a whole raft of adventures.

[7800Lover]

Yes, I've heard of SCUMM. What about SCI? I know that was used for the later King's Quest and Leisure Suit Larry games. In fact, it was engineered specifically to work with the point-and-clock interface.

Could these game engines be adapted somehow to run on an Atari 7800?

[GroovyBee]

7800Lover, on Mon Jan 16, 2012 5:50 PM, said:

Could these game engines be adapted somehow to run on an Atari 7800?

Anything is possible given enough time and dedication. However, you'd need carts greater than 128K to hold all the graphics (unless scenes share common tileable elements). I'm not sure what the RAM requirements are for the NES version of SCUMM but that would be a good starting point for the 7800's requirements too.

[The Usotsuki]

Rather than port Frotz it might be easier to code from scratch. Having the XEGS keyboard port on the XM helps and 128K RAM is plenty enough for even Z5/Z6.

[GroovyBee]

The Usotsuki, on Mon Jan 16, 2012 9:17 PM, said:

Rather than port Frotz it might be easier to code from scratch. Having the XEGS keyboard port on the XM helps and 128K RAM is plenty enough for even Z5/Z6.

It depends if you are targetting the XM or a stock 7800.

[The Usotsuki]

What's the point of a text adventure (keeping in mind, this *is* Frotz I'm talking about) without a keyboard? And you're gonna need a lot of that 128K for Z5.

[7800Lover]

The Usotsuki, on Tue Jan 17, 2012 12:47 PM, said:

What's the point of a text adventure (keeping in mind, this *is* Frotz I'm talking about) without a keyboard? And you're gonna need a lot of that 128K for Z5.

Well that homebrew, Dark Mage, for the Atari 2600 managed to make a text adventure work with a joystick.