Bruce-Robert Pocock

Phantasia micro-update …

After a bunch of re-organizing and some serious improvements in the script compiler, I've "broken even" in that the game is once again just as broken as it had been in January, but no more than that.

To Whom It May Concern

We have just about finished the major renovations on our new (113-year-old) house! Siding (all), insulation (formerly, nothing at all), windows (most), doors (both), interior painting, electrical work, and who remembers what else.

Which leaves me with:

• Phantasia … has an awful amount of display list corruption that occurs as you move around the world, which I would guess comes from probably 1-5 major flaws in the screen update code that I have not entirely tracked down yet. A lot of infrastructure work is done (script compiler, art compiler) with some left to do (music compiler) and some untested (dialogue to AtariVox converter). I'm fully intending to get a 7800GD and probably also the Concerto Enhancement Modules as soon as either becomes actually available, to continue working on real hardware, and will probably expand the controller schemes allowed (currently 7800, Genesis B/C, Joy2b+, or SNES) to support also the Mega7800 dongle. As soon as the display list corruption is solved, I should be able to finish up some support for dialogue and I'm thinking we'll either put together a very trivial demo board or at the very least a 7800-executable “in-engine cut scene” demo at least. This is my #1 personal project priority right now. On the design front, dialogue and “cut scene” writing has begun in earnest despite some serious bugs in the script compiler. (The script language is effectively fountain, a rather popular screenplay format, with the stage directions forming a probably Turing-complete programming language that compiles to assembly/binary.)
• Unannounced 5200 4-player game … has an awful amount of bad math in the “3D” (technically accurate description) portion, so I haven't even tried to actually implement working game play features yet. This is my filler project when I can't make progress on Phantasia.
• Grizzards I will be making a little baby announcement before PRGE. BABY announcement. Nothing too exciting.

Just to keep y'all up to date on goings-on, I/we are currently working on:

• Grizzards will be getting some much-wanted tidying-up for the “public” (download) releases
• BOADR for the ’5200 is in proof-of-concept phase. It's a top-secret little multiplayer game that @ZeroPage Homebrew will be revealing at some point in future. (BOADR is not exactly the “real” title, of course.)
• Phantasia for the ’7800 is an ARPG in pre-production and proof-of-concept phase, which will be taking a long time to finish. TBH I'm holding-off on major code changes to see what happens with the Concerto expansions and/or 7800GD, but we have lots (art, maps, scripts) to work on in the mean time.

Of course the Grizzards cover art looks better in Ukraine's colors