InfernalKeith

Dude, I thought of another one! I have my Lemonade Mafia concept sketched out, and you did Lemonade Stand! You definitely had the momentum on that one, though - it was finished the first time I encountered you, I think, and mine's gonna be notes on graph paper for a LONG time - at least till Downward is done, and I might tackle Manifest Destiny before it, too. I'm loving the shared knowledge and experiences - I think we're on the verge of a software renaissance for the 99/4A, if not already into it. Getting people from other platforms involved, getting former 99'ers back into the fold, taking advantage of forgotten knowledge and the brainpower of our collected experts... it's a pretty awesome thing to behold. I'll stop hijacking your thread to gush now. Onward!

Looking forward to see this one grow and develop... Owen, we end up on parallel paths on a lot of our endeavors, did you ever notice that? I've got my Downward game that was my 'baby' till the Herding Cats project, and the contest, came up, and I'm looking forward to getting back to it. Mine's definitely an "RPG-lite" but it'll have a lot of trading and bartering elements, kinda similar to the old BBS game TradeWars 2002, so adding that in the "map crawl" context should be interesting. So is Honeycomb pretty much finished? I still have so much to do on Herding, and the days keep getting away from me. I got sidetracked cleaning up my 'war room' in the basement today, so now my Mattel Aquarius and my Apple IIgs are finally set up and in their place of honor, my stereo is back up and running, and my turntable is cleaned up and working... but no TI coding. :/ Eh, it's only 10:30... better put on another pot of coffee.

I am lucky there. We have a house with a big basement, and as long as my antique 'treasures' live down there, and not where she has to see them, my wife doesn't care what I do. Since I also buy and sell my non-wanted stuff on Ebay, it brings in a little extra $ which she also likes. I wonder if my hobby will turn into 'collecting' at some point, though... I never wanted to be the guy who wants EVERY cart or game for each system, but I find myself keeping a lot more stuff lately. :/

You bunch of sissies. I'm finishing Herding Cats on REAL GEAR!!! ARRRRRRRRR!!!! Actually, I really am doing that, but I may move to Classic99 after this project. I sorta feel like I'm betraying the old girl, working on my PC instead, but it's simply more convenient to work on my main computer, to be able to work on my laptop elsewhere, etc. I admit to a sort of weird "purity" standard I was trying to maintain for a while... but that's such an arbitrary, self-imposed line to draw in the sand. If I use a 99/4A with a Rave99 keyboard and a compact flash drive, am I really programming on a "true" TI? I think I've decided that for me, as long as my program will run on a stock 99/4A, how it's made isn't as important. When "keeping it real" gets in the way of having fun, or getting work done, then I'm just being ridiculous. Speaking of which... back to work!

Mu eight-year-old son recently noticed the sound of the TI loading tapes in, and asked what the noise was. I explained that it was how the computer loaded and saved the information to make the program work, and he stood and listened for a little longer, and said "can I have one of those tapes to listen to in my room? I like how that sounds!" I actually enjoy the sound, too, but I think it has more to do with TI memories than its actual tonal qualities. It'd be hard to tell if it was a pirated copy or not - I know that stores and mail order places were known to pirate and sell software. Since the "original packaging" often consisted of a photocopied manual and a Ziploc bag, it was easy to do.

http://www.retrogamingtimes.com/rtm69/#pressplay I wrote a column this month on saving (for posterity) games written in TI BASIC that load their data from separate cassette files. I review Atlantis and Hordes, and set myself up for another project for next month as I promise to try to move these games to disk, and into the world of emulation.

Good news for me! My big "all-nighter" last night got derailed by a vomiting toddler. And I realized I'm not as close to finished as I thought I was... still a long way to go. If I can have another weekend (hopefully with no sick kids) I should be able to finish all of it, even the parts I'd planned to skip for the contest (the in-game help, etc).

I'd like to think I was going to start coding again anyway, but I appreciate this contest so much for giving me the kick in the butt to get to work. I really feel like I've regained an enjoyable part of my life, one that's been missing for too long. So I already feel like I've won, no matter what. I've gone from "eh, I should start coding again someday" to having specific goals for finishing a few games, releasing physical versions of at least one of my games, and doing conversions to other computers. I even got my website up and running! Off to work...

It's quiet around here... TOO quiet. I just found out I'm going out of town unexpectedly this weekend, so for me, it's all coming down to tonight and tomorrow. I have more "real world" work to do this evening, but then I plan to put on a pot of coffee and pull an all-nighter, or close to it, to get the game as close to finished as I can. My wife is taking the kids to school/daycare tomorrow so I can either keep on working, or catch some sleep and then get up and get back at it. For all intents, I'll have to be done with my contest-ready version of Herding Cats by tomorrow evening. I'm thinking the in-game help function may not be activated at all, but the game WILL be playable all the way through. Everyone else getting down to the wire? Anyone bailing out? Keith

NOOOOO!!!!! THE PRESSURE!!!!!!! AAAAAUGGGHGHH!!!!!!!

New developments as of 4am, January 24: - "Wrap" function works, so cats can (depending on the level) walk off an edge of the screen and appear on the other side. If this function is turned off for a level, cats aren't able to move off the playfield. I toyed with having them blow up if they moved off the edge, but there's enough drama with their blowing up when they collide with each other or a wall - Several of the levels are designed, and point values have undergone an adjustment based on the first rudimentary play-testing I've been able to do - Ability to place cats randomly on screen for a level, or read pre-determined starting points from DATA statements - character set cleanup - I used set 2 for a red graphic, then found I needed comma, exclamation point, and period. I redefined the left and right brackets and forward-slash character, respectively, for those, and use those in lieu of the 'correct' ASCII char in game screens - fixed a few display bugs and cleaned up pre-level and post-level stat screens Tomorrow's to-do list: - add the probability functions for the catnip magnet and cat repellent functions (I thought I was going to do this tonight, but screen wrap needed done) - begin coding player tool functions - begin advanced level designs I may actually finish this thing by the deadline! Maybe.

I remember that happening when I would edit a single line on the original machine, when the program started getting really large. "EDIT 2330" Wait almost a minute. Make the change and press enter. Wait almost a minute. "RUN" Wait over a minute. ^_^ I don't remember it taking quite so long in XB, but in TI BASIC, most definitely. I haven't hit the 'almost out of memory' point in my game yet, though, so I could just be blocking out the painful memories...

Why not just edit "on the fly" in Extended BASIC itself, with the emulator running? For small edits, that seems to make the most sense.

Are you thinking of printing directly on the box, or printing stickers to put on a blank box? The latter may be cheaper. My plan is to buy blank plastic "clamshell" cases, similar to a DVD case, and print color inserts. I had a few sources bookmarked and items priced out a long while ago, but I'll have to start looking again when the time comes. I even had a very nice (for my skills, anyway) layout I was going to use for a cassette-based project I planned long ago. Unfortunately, that was on an old laptop, which is now gone. I considered learning The Printer's Apprentice and trying to do the whole package - cover, manual, etc - on my 99/4A... not sure if I have the patience for that, though!

Very nice! It's been said before, but your mastery of the graphic arts is something to behold. I wish I had a tenth of the skill. As a brand-new convert to Classic99, I have to say, I am so excited about copying and pasting code and seeing instant results. It's pretty remarkable! I'm still coding Herding Cats on my real TI, but man, I dunno... I may have to 'cross over' with the rest of you soon.

Beautiful!!!

There was a guy putting external 3.5" floppy drives up for the TI now and then, but I haven't seen him listing in a while. I have one, it's pretty awesome. If I could have it and my CF hooked up at the same time, I'd be all set.

Okay, I crossed a bridge tonight. You still can't actually enter any commands yet during the game, or use any of your tools. But the game actually functions from beginning to end -- title screen, main game loop (with informational screens before and after gameplay), and at the end of the level, either a bump up to the next level, or a "game over" and kick back to the main title screen to start over. I'm gonna clean up some of the displays and then I'll post some more screen captures, hopefully tomorrow night. After that, I gotta retest my "catnip/cat repellent" idea, the one I scrawled out on paper at the diner the other day, and then it's time to start adding the player commands one by one. The bare bones of a working game could be done by this weekend. I'd do a victory dance and hoist a Guinness if it wasn't 3:30am. Tomorrow, perhaps.

Hate it!

I would be interested.... it's also a sign of a maturing TI homebrew scene. Also think that the TI scene needs a publisher, like they for example have for colecovision There's a company in the UK releasing new games for the Vic 20 and Commodore 64. They just put out an RPG called Realms of Quest, for the 32K expanded Vic-20, and it's a beautiful looking game. Full color booklet, packaging, and the back of the disk contains the author's entire collection of other PD games to date as a bonus. Really nice and elaborate! Mine won't be quite THAT spectacular, but I definitely want to have color cover and nice booklet, and maybe a laminated quick reference card to show all the cat-herding commands at a glance. For my next game, the mini RPG type game, I'm thinking of writing a small novella to go with it, and comb-binding that to include with the package. That may be a little overly ambitious, I don't know... but I love the idea enough that I might go for it, no matter how ridiculous. Keith

No kidding. Just as Zero Zap doesn't resemble Pinball either ZeroZap doesn't even resemble a game. I can't wait to see "Ordinary People: The Game"!

As I hurtle closer to finishing "Herding Cats," and start thinking about my next project, I also have something in mind that I've told myself I was gonna do when I finally got back to programming. Assuming the game is worthy, and turns out as well as I hope, I'm making plans to make a small number of actual, physical copies of the game for sale, in a box, with printed instruction manual. The plan is to make no more than 100, and probably a lot less, depending on how I decide to print up boxes and manuals. I'm going to number each one and when they're gone, that's it. (I suppose I should say "if" they're gone...) Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Obviously, I don't make TI 99/4A games to make a bunch of money. But as someone who also collects software from the old days, I like getting things with original packaging. Also, it is my hope that if I make the game available on Ebay and online, outside the already-established TI channels (here, the Yahoo! groups, etc), some people who don't know about our community might discover it and make their way into the fold. The game will still be distributable, I'm not saying anyone would have to buy a copy to play it. That would be dumb, even if it was enforcable. You'll have the option of downloading it for emulator or a real TI, but the "real" copies would be there for those of us who enjoy having those things. Any thoughts?

Well, it's 4am here and I'm still working. I decided to add a more complete splash screen and begin formatting some in-game help tonight, as well as an introductory screen for each level, explaining the level's goal, how many cats were coming, if they would explode on contact with each other, if they could wrap around the edge, etc. Getting to that impatient phase now, where I want the whole thing done RIGHT NOW! I really want to get the meat of the game engine done over the next couple days, so I have the time to properly design and play-test each of the levels. I have a feeling that some issues with gameplay may come up when I'm testing, so I want to have time to adjust point levels, etc. and not turn in an "almost right" game. The encouragement and support of you guys here on this forum means a lot, and it's really a great motivator. Thanks - I appreciate it. I'm really enjoying this whole process of knocking the rust off this portion of my brain, and it's great to have some feedback, and not be working in a total vacuum.

Jaguar's a little new for my tastes. I do plan to port it to several other systems as I learn more - the Commodore Vic 20 will probably be the next one. I'm going to try to work on that concurrently with my next TI game project, but as always, time is an issue. Eventually, I plan to make a small and simple enough game to port to a dozen or so classic systems, as a learning exercise to discover the strengths and weaknesses of their native BASIC dialects.

Obviously, the title screen is just a placeholder. The main game screen will be a little nicer when it's done, too. For instance, the solid yellow block is actually a cat repellent, which I'll redefine as a real graphic when I get the game engine finished. The black squares are holes, which will be round and jagged. The big red rectangle is the exit, where you want the cats to go. I actually, finally, for the first time, downloaded Classic99 and grabbed my XB code with my new CF7+ so I could get the screenshots. Fancy stuff!