The Codex

I hope folks here are keen on remakes as well, because I've got another TI one underway and an A2600 one I'm looking to revive. Perhaps one day I'll get up enough gumption to try homebrewing too.

Just tried it now, that's very cool Owen! First time trying out the Classic99 code paste as well, love it. Glad to hear you'll have the game done soon, too.

Awesome screens! Like the bonus wave, has a touch of Parsec about it. And thanks for the Classic99 tip, that'll be very handy for me as well if I do get back into TI coding.

You're right about that Owen! Even with just a handful of 99ers, this forum is much more alive than other TI spots I'm on. Especially for developers. Looking forward to both these games. Will check our your respective sites for screenies. And I like your game idea. Kind of a cross between Monty Python and Donkey Kong. Monty Kong?

I'll be around tonight working on my TI remake, so feel free to ping me if you need to vent or anything.

Woot, welcome to the TI space, man! Been following your blog regularly and the game remains a fascinating project. Hurrah for TI RPGs!

There are a number of established bands that use game sound effects, game tune patterns, and even old computers (like C64s) in their music, particularly in the electronica and EBM worlds. Some notable ones are Apoptygma Berzerk, welle:erdball, and Diary Of Dreams. Then there are albums with a gaming theme, such as I Am Humanoid by Tony Fox NYC (a recommended buy). Others feature a lot of game-based content, one example being Panzer Division's excellent disc "I Am Sinistar", which contains tracks using samples from Sinistar, Impossible Mission, Gauntlet, and others. Finally, there are individual tracks from "regular" bands, such as "Space Invader" by The Pretenders, which incorporate game sounds. Check these out if you like, and let me know if you'd like more references.

Ha ha, try the code tags mate. They're a lifesaver on any technical forum. 190 DISPLAY AT(3,:"THE LEGEND OF";" BERYL REICHARDT"; 200 DISPLAY AT(20,4):"CHARACTER DEFINITIONS"; 210 CALL SPRITE(#1,100,2,50,60) :: CALL SPRITE(#2,104,2,50,90) :: CALL SPRITE(#3,108,2,50,120) 220 CALL SPRITE(#4,112,2,50,150) :: CALL SPRITE(#5,116,2,80,75) :: CALL SPRITE(#6,120,2,80,105) Woo, they even do some rudimentary syntax coloring! Meanwhile, glad to see you bringing this project over. It looks great, love the character screens too. I'll tell you now, programming an RPG is pure hell and harder than it first seems like it should be by about a factor of four. But it's so worth it in end. Looking forward to more on this one!

Virtually positive (fancy way of saying "I think") that it runs from hard drive from then on. Games certainly load at hard drive speed afterwards, and I can hear the hard drive whirring. Some games have such long load waits though I can see where you'd think it was still running from CD.

Thanks Owen, I do use TI99Dir, it was a big help in getting data off the Tunnels.dsk for ToD. But my aptitude with it ended when I tried to create blank floppy images and discovered I could only write one file to each. I'll definitely check out your tutorials, as if I do get back into XB I'll need to know how to save my code in local TI format inside the emu. And Keith, more power to you if you can code on the original iron. I tried that for a while with an Amiga 500 I picked up in auction but discovered the passage of time had eroded my tolerances too greatly for me to get any serious development done. It would be nice to have the old systems around for testing how the final product plays, though.

MESS is great for gathering a lot of systems together, especially ones that I largely just want to play games on (like the MSX, Spectrum, or ColecoVision). But I like having the dedicated emus as well, particularly when I want to go deeper into a specific system. Especially ones like UAE, which pretty much puts an Amiga on your desktop. And like I said before, the cut-and-paste features of Classic99 are about the only thing right now that could entice me back into developing on that platform directly. They've definitely all got their individual merits, and I'm sincerely grateful that we've got such an embarrassment of riches to choose from.

Sounds like Classic99 is the way for me to go for ease of development, at least by my preferred path of "learning the least new tools". MESS is likely to remain my favorite for regular TI gaming use because I'm comfortable with it and it's easy to get game carts up and going for a quick play. I use MESS to emulate other old systems as well, but can definitely appreciate the extra finesse of dedicated emulators. Vice64, UAE for Amiga, Stella, PSX, and Gens are all fantastic emulators that I use regularly, and I'm always open to hearing about others that people recommend.

Cosmic Ark is my usual first answer, followed by Riddle Of The Sphinx. River Raid and Pitfall! are obvious additional choices, but no less excellent for that.

Sweet, that's the main thing that kept me from getting back into TI development - file management. If I can write code in my text editor of choice and just paste it over, then it's a deal! Now I'm kind of wishing I still had the games I wrote on the TI back in the day. But only a little, as (a) they were crap, and (b) they were all on tape, which would likely be unrecoverable now anyway. The only one I remember clearly was a rather dreadful Frogger/Jawbreaker kind of affair with a bunch of sprites whizzing by in horizontal lanes. I don't thing the game world lost anything when that disappeared.

Thanks mate, I'll definitely look into it further!

Cool, I'll check out the vids, and congrats on joining the ranks of the remakers. Since you're also a homebrewer, that makes you a double threat. My TI emulator of choice is MESS, but I have Classic99 installed as well. Feel free to email me your game and any other code you'd like me to check out. And keep up the good work!

I've been reading your blog as well Owen, good stuff, as are the videos. (I really need to blog more like that and less like a "release/update list".) Your RPG looks fab, and I'm glad to lend whatever assistance I can. I've been thinking of eventually releasing all my code as open source at some point, in part for whatever dubious educational value it might have, but also so that all the reverse-engineering of the originals is preserved. I'd have to clean up a lot of code first though before putting it out there... Thanks retroclouds, and great job on pulling to competition together. As for converting games back to the TI, I was reading the thread about doing Bejeweled on the TI and was thinking that I could probably "demake" Cartouche with a reasonable level of effort. It would mean getting a TI again, and an Extended BASIC cart, unless there is a convenient way to develop in emulation. I'll read the Resources thread again and see, now that my interest is waxing. sometimes99er, it would be great to have another TI remaker out there! And judging by your postings you're clearly a skilled artist and game designer as well, so I'm looking forward to your original efforts too. As for the RR game list, I wrote three different web applications that let people show off the development status of their games, view games by a number of different criteria, and even leave comments. But they decided to go with the minimal-overhead forum scraper, which doesn't let you do much. I'll dig out the code I did and put it back up if anyone is interested, though it looks like AtariAge has it's own Project Tracker in place already. Thanks again for letting me join the cool kids club!

Thank you Owen for reminding me why I'll never touch assembly again. Seriously great work there, man. Even though the game's not done yet, I can tell already that I would've wanted this cart back in the day.

Thanks Owen, and it's great to see you here. Your game is looking fantastic as well! More on my mystery project for Bryan as it develops. Hopefully it's a favorite of other 99ers as well. I hadn't played it before starting the remake, but now I'm hooked.

Got quite a few, from the Darkstalkers arcade soundtrack to the imported Okami CDs to the Amiga Shadow Of The Beast trilogy. Lots of Katamari and Sonic discs too. Love game music, as well as game music remixes. Game music is classical music with visuals.

Hello folks, a quick greeting to say how glad I am to be here. I'm the guy behind Dream Codex Retrogames and the only live TI remaker in captivity. I learned how to program on a TI-99/4A and the love of it has never left me. I've remade 3 TI games so far and have another 4 in the works, including one as a special favor to Brian Roppolo of RTM. Anyway, seeing these great contest entries is making me want to dust off Extended BASIC! But until I gather up that much courage, I'll be working on my remakes. Please let me know if there's any interest in those and I'll be glad to talk about myself the games ad nauseum. Folks who dig modern reworks of old classics can also check out Retro Remakes, a site that I'm an errant admin on and which can always use more TI boosters. Thanks for letting me come play with you!