What are you doing today?

[McTrinsic]

@warty

This looks SO impressive!!

[intric8]

Micah, I found a video on YouTube from June, 2023, where you discuss your personal backstory and the development of the game. (I'm still watching it.)

Questions:

• Where can we find your latest/final release of the game for C128? I'd love to drop that on a and give it a go.
• You mention the Mega65 briefly when discussing the Foenix. Did you create a Mega65 port, too?
• Does the C128 version support the number pad for character movements?
• Does it support 2Mhz?
• Is there REU support?
• Have you ever played Epyx Rogue on Amiga?
• Have you ever played Larn?

Comments:

• I LOVE the fact you made this game support 80-columns. THANK YOU!
• I love the Tinker idea and UI
• I also love the ASCII art BBS-style look and feel

I think I found you on Github but can't find your projects/downloads Where can the boxed version be purchase - did you find a publisher like Pond or PolyPlay? Would love to play this on my C128 + a 3.5" drive.

Update:

I found your post and our previous threads on vcfed. Is 1.0b11 still the latest release? Do you have a d81 version?

My zoom floppy has a heck of a time writing d71 or even d81 to real floppies. For whatever reason, it seems to only like writing d64 to a real 1541 or 1541-ii. But I can at least put these on an Ultimate cartridge for now and fire them up that way (and potentially copy them off externally to physical media). Threw my back out today but look forward to jumping into this now that I'm in between projects for the first time in a long time.

I also see in the manual that you do support the numpad for movement.

Thanks for all that you do!

[intric8]

@warty what is your process for running the D71 off an Uii+ cartridge?

[Warty]

@warty what is your process for running the D71 off an Uii+ cartridge?

err, I knew I should have written that down. I haven't done it 6-7 months, but I believe it was something like this:
1. format disk in C128 mode (with 1571)
2. have USB stick with D71 image in the UII+
3. mount d71 image
4. use one of the utility cart images to copy it over. sadly, I do not remember this part, only that I think it was a 64 util, in 40 cols, and it worked. So probably disk doesn't require more than 1 side.

Sorry that's useless. Next time I do it, I'll document it.

[Warty]

@warty

This looks SO impressive!!

Thanks! The amiga has so much graphical power compared to any of the 8 bits it's pretty easy to make the splash screen and other screens look great. There is some tension between what is essentially an ode to terminal-based "graphical adventure" (I kid you not, that is the term they used, and it made sense in context), and a 16 bit machine where users would expect nice graphics. I think I'm going to end up slicing it right down the middle and making no one happy, but... pfft!

The real question is: is it fun to play? I hope so. But I'm biased and I'm not trying to make a J-RPG or a modern RPG or anything like that. I do have some more fun stuff I can do in the Amiga version that I can't in the others because more memory is available. For example, I think I can let you configure your own keys, make the monsters smarter, have visual feedback on monster HP, etc.

Roadmap is: C128 > F256K > B128 > Amiga > A2560K (a foenix in A600 form factor with 68040) > ?

C128 and B128 are done, F256K needs a few days of attention (I need to flash my machine to latest, and figure out how to do subdirs so the data files don't just hang out on your root dir).

[Warty]

Micah, I found a video on YouTube from June, 2023, where you discuss your personal backstory and the development of the game. (I'm still watching it.)

Questions:

• Where can we find your latest/final release of the game for C128? I'd love to drop that on a and give it a go.
• You mention the Mega65 briefly when discussing the Foenix. Did you create a Mega65 port, too?
• Does the C128 version support the number pad for character movements?
• Does it support 2Mhz?
• Is there REU support?
• Have you ever played Epyx Rogue on Amiga?
• Have you ever played Larn?

1. I haven't actually got around to releasing anything yet. It was partially hung up on having trouble finding a source for a game box I liked. Still haven't quite solved that one, but I'm starting to lose my high standards, so it may happen. But mainly my wife told me I have to do something about the "project car" in the garage so I was offline for 6-7 months. Luckily it got cold again so I don't have to hang out in the garage.

2. I did NOT create a Meta65 port, and don't think I will.
3. Yes (you already found that out)
4. Yes (only runs in 2MHz mode, and uses the VIC screen for storage too)
5. No. It uses a lot of VDC space for storage. Which reminds me: requires 64K VDC chip.
6. No. I did look at a screenshot once though. I also ported the UNIX 3.6 (ish, from memory) rogue code to Amiga a few years back. Maybe I could throw that in on the Amiga disk as a freebie. It's a straight port, no Amiga-isms other than menus I believe. And save/restore doesn't work.
7. I didn't even know what Larn was until 5 mins ago. (still don't really know, just what's on Wiki). Any takeaways for me?

Comments:

• I LOVE the fact you made this game support 80-columns. THANK YOU!
• I love the Tinker idea and UI
• I also love the ASCII art BBS-style look and feel

I think I found you on Github but can't find your projects/downloads Where can the boxed version be purchase - did you find a publisher like Pond or PolyPlay? Would love to play this on my C128 + a 3.5" drive.

I didn't really look for a publisher, that seems kind of scary. I was planning on getting box art printed, and printing the manuals and disk labels myself (+ OfficeMax).

I have a brand new FNX1591 here, I just need to flash it with a ROM, and then I can make 1581 disks. I haven't had a real 1581 in years unfortunately.

[intric8]

7. I didn't even know what Larn was until 5 mins ago. (still don't really know, just what's on Wiki). Any takeaways for me?

Let me see...

At a high level, Larn is completely fascinating. I think some would argue it surpasses Rogue in several good ways, but it's all debatable.

You can give it a spin (be careful, it's addicting) here. And I'd recommend jumping down to either of the 2 Amiga versions. The ULarn version gives you Lemmings instead of bats. I'm not sure what other differences it has.

By the way, I have the original public domain version on-disk and play it in OS 1.3. The in-browser version actually has a couple of UI improvements over the original. It'll even save your progress.

Main highlights:

• Like some other roguelikes, you start at a base town level. This has a store, etc. Your traveling salesman makes up for this, although it introduces an interesting randomness to it. The thing about Larn is you find yourself going back up to town, a lot, to exchange gems you find with one shop and spending the gold at another shop on weapons and armor.
• Instead of rectangular rooms, Larn creates really large (non-scrollable) mazes instead. They are weird, and twisty, and just a totally different way of thinking.
• Because you need to get back to town to do all of your upgrades, you can go up the stairs.
• In fact the entire town screen is sort of like Diablo, where you can just dump your crap and it'll never become lost or disappear. It's a massive place to save things you find along the way and don't want to sell, but also don't want to fill up your inventory.
• There are some really weird additions, like jewel encrusted statues. You are given the options of stealing the gems or ignoring the gems. Getting them is a total coin flip. Most people seem to avoid them, but when you steal them it can REALLY boost your gold (which you spend on items). If you fail, you can spawn a demon knight who can promptly kick your ass if you're too low-level. There are also fountains you can drink from... Interesting weird stuff like that. Some people will pry the gems off and stack them outside the dungeon, since hoarding them impacts your inventory. There are even scrolls of " gem perfection" that can increase their value. There are some exceedingly expensive mega-weapons tactics like this can help you obtain.

If you play the game for about 2-3 runs in the course of 1-2 hours, you'll see pretty quickly. It's quite interesting, fun and clever.

[A1-X1000]

@ Warty

you got my attention at 1.3 Rogue like

[Warty]

I coded up the tile-based engine (instead of drawing text with Intuition graphics API). I took the opportunity to remake the tiles to have a pseudo 3D effect, which felt a bit more like what a user might have expected from a 16 bit machine, compared to an 8 bit machine.

Anyone can change the tiles, and I do want to provide 3-4 choices if I can (e.g, VT100 style, IBM PC style, and maybe C128 LK style)

A nice thing the blitter let me do is blit a 1 pixel tall health bar for each monster. It gets shorter, and goes from green to yellow to red as monster loses HP. Some visual indication of monster health had been on my wishlist for a few years, but memory constraints and other considerations made it impossible on the 8 bits. (for me, I mean; there are tons of better game programmers than me).

Anyway, here's a bit of evolution: B128 > C128 > flat files from C128 upgraded with more colors (kind of icky) > new tiles.

The attachment Screen Shot 2023-01-14 at 9.05.06 AM.png is no longer available

I'm not sold on the corridor boxes, I think I'll switch to a variant of the center-dot.

[intric8]

Very exciting work!!