New Roguelike for Amiga: The Lair of the Lich King

[Warty]

Hi Folks,

I'm working on a new game for the Amiga, "Lair of the Lich King".

Title screen on A2000

It's a roguelike, 80x25 map with 8x8 cells.

Typical screen from levels 1-10

I originally started this game in 2020, writing for the Commodore 128 (80 col mode). I later ported to the B-128 after failing miserably to port it to PET (32K is NOT enough). And I also have a port for the Foenix F256 (a new retro computer in an Atari 800XL style case). I may do one more port for the Foenix A2560K (68040 in an Amiga 600 style case), but I don't have the hardware yet. In any case, the Amiga port is the first 16/32 bit platform, so there are some new challenges and opportunities. Lich King is a very large game for 8 bits, needing constant switching of overlays and insanely detailed memory management. The Amiga port doesn't suffer from that, but my goal is to have this run on A1000s and KS 1.3, so there are still some limits. (I *may* not succeed in keeping it small enough to run on an unexpanded A1000, too early to tell).

my New Year's resolution for 2024 is to FINISH and SHIP this game for the above 4 platforms, in a box, with manual, floppy, and a "feely". (I need to stop making new ports, as each one is an excuse not to do the e-commerce + making box part of the project).

I'd like to use this thread to share progress, and get feedback on various things about the Amiga version.

Progress report:
- closing in on completion of minimum necessary to have Amiga version running and functionally equivalent to the other platforms. Maybe a week, optimistically.

Initial Amiga porting checklist

- although I have done some platform-based enhancements, such as tiles instead of 1-color custom font glyphs for the dungeon and monsters, most of the Amiga-only stuff hasn't been started: custom key mapping, alternate tile sets, sound effects, music, etc. No idea how long that part will take. Some may not happen, at least initially, as the game will be fully playable very soon.

[intric8]

Thank you for porting to the Amiga (and the C128) and aiming at the lowest common denominator system requirements.

In my opinion I think if you ever have to make any concessions to your original goals, aiming for a stock A500 would also be a very common period-correct benchmark. But yes - if you can do what Epyx and Hack and others accomplished, it seems like you'd be hitting a very high bar of excellence indeed for the amount of complexity involved. I think I speak for all here when I wish you the best of luck in meeting your 2024 goals. I can't wait to see how it goes!

And while I greedily thrust my hand to the sky to offer being a beta tester along your journey, whenever you do publish a boxed version I'll proudly display it on my shelf as well.

Death to the Lich King, long live the Lich King!

P.S.
Your intro screen graphics are gorgeous.

[Warty]

Thanks @intric8! I just realized today looking at that photo, that it only captured one frame from the interlace screen. You can see it pretty clearly if you look at the topaz text about version. Is there a way to capture a screen that has both interlace frames, using an iPhone?

Help screens

In the B128, C128, and F256 versions, there is one help screen, which combines the "how to play" plus the keyboard map. Those versions are strictly text-engine based, so it's lightning fast to just switch in another 80x25x2 screen. On the Amiga, it's a bitmap, and while I could reproduce that, I thought I'd try using windows instead. In 1985, every one would have been trying to use windows to show off how they were the future of computing, and so Amiga/Mac/ST owners would feel they made the right decision in ditching their 8 bits (or something like that). I also went with the Topaz font, as being more readable than the custom LK font. I thought about doing a custom graphic for each keyboard (A1000 vs A500/2000/3000), but one of the enhancements for the Amiga will be the ability to customize the keys (not enough memory for that in 8 bit versions). So for now, it's text only. I also split into 2 windows: one with basic message, one with key maps. Thoughts?

Help - how to play

Help - Keyboard controls

(there are 2 options for most commands, so that you can have one keypad-based setup, and one no-keypad-available setup. Because this has to reflect user choices, I need a bit more sophistication here, and allow the user to provide not just the key, but a "name" for the key, to be displayed here. things like TAB, ENTER, etc, don't display as raw codes very well.)
(BTW, I don't think purple will stick. I put purple in color 15, but at least on 3.x, that means it gets used for menu highlighting, so I ended up using it in various places. I'm planning to remap white or light gray or maybe amber to slot 15.).

Actions menu

I'm confused about why the menus start so "high", cutting off the bottom of the menu bar.

With KS2.0, it doesn't do that:

menu under KS 2.0

[intric8]

Is there a way to capture a screen that has both interlace frames, using an iPhone?

Yes, although it depends on the version iPhone if you mean using the stock camera app. With an iPhone 8, you can take a straight shot of a 1080 and it'll almost always be perfect under the right lighting conditions.

However, if you have a more modern iPhone (e.g. 15 Pro, which is what I'm using; I upgrade on a 2-yr cycle) you will want to invest in a high-quality yet realistically very affordable app.

For photos (no video) I highly recommend Pro Camera by Moment.

Examples with no adjustments made after taking the pics (straight out of the camera) I just took from my A1K/1080:

No banding, no moire patterns, etc. If you go this route and have issues I can share my settings.

For video, there is a brand new and free app that is fantastic called BlackMagicCam.

This one is harder to learn but at a high level, for us, dial "everything to 60" (FPS, ISO, etc.) and you'll get very good results.

[intric8]

I think your choice of the Topaz font is an excellent choice.

Your issue with the menu placements in 1.3 vs 2.0... these types of peculiarities always make me think back to my friend Chris "Crispy" Brenner who would have been able to hop right in with very detailed help. RIP, Chris.

I couldn't help but wonder if the font choice made a difference in "line heights" for where your menu box is presented, but that's very likely an incredibly wrong way to think about it in 2023. Good luck as you explore your way through these interesting details, Warty! You're going to learn a ton along the way I'm sure, which should be rewarding in its own right.

[A1-X1000]

@ Warty

WoW what a great post to start off the New Year! I wish you good luck in finishing the game to your liking and please keep us Rogue fans here posted

[Warty]

Thanks for encouragement, folks.

Actually made really good progress in the last few days. As of tonight, it has:

• music! different tunes play depending on what's going on.
• sound effects! 10 sound effects so far. I think a few are too quiet and will have to be redone, but key part was figuring out how PTPlayer (library, kind of) works with SFX. I also have some more work to do here to fail gracefully in low (chip) memory situations. Can add more sounds, but not sure how much CHIP memory is reasonable to use for sounds. Will also need to add some prefs so you can decide NOT to have music or SFX if you prefer.

[Warty]

Put together another lo-fi video. This has a play through of a couple levels of Lich King for Amiga.

https://youtu.be/qeiA-0w9Cc0

[intric8]

Subscribed!

[intric8]

I AM IN THE GAME (on the C128D) - Finally!

Aw yeah, ain't that fresh! I load the game off my FD-2000, and run it in glorious 80 column mode!

I ultimately (*cough*) decided to try Warty's suggestion way up above in the thread (or elsewhere, I've lost track) and give 1581 Toolkit a shot first. After a couple of hours of frustration, I gave up trying to do this on my C128Dcr. There's something about my UltimateII+ setup and my DCR that it simply doesn't like.

However, since Warty suggested we:

• Do this in C64 mode
• Use a 1581 tool
• Use a file copier, not a disk copier

suddenly a whole new world of possibilities opened up.

I use the same thumb drive for both my Uii+ and U64 to save time, so I fired up the Ultimate 64. I also decided to pull out my pristine 1581 drive. I used the 1581 Toolkit (which I already had on disk) and formatted a new DD disk.

And here's when I think I discovered part of my issue: I think I found a bug with the Ultimate! After a lot of trial and error, I've come to the conclusion that both my Uii+ and U64 can NOT mount D71 files when a JiffyDOS 1571 ROM is in use. If you use a default 1571 ROM, it will actually mount, however. You know it mounts when the device(s) create that odd little sound effect: ker-chunk!

When I finally got the D71 mounted, I was able to load 1581 Toolkit off a physical disk, swap the mounted Source Drive to the soft-1571, and use the physical 1581 as the Destination.

And you're right, Warty, the little read/write bar graphs are super cool and frankly reassuring that things are actually working.

And so, after what feels like way more time that it should have ever taken, I'm finally ready to go! It's 5:10 PM PT here in Seattle right now, and I can tell you that I'll be playing this game for the foreseeable future.

I doubt I'm going to find bugs, but if we do - where/how do you want them reported?