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Creating a new Advance Dungeons and Dragons type Role Playing Game


peteym5

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To keep things cool, I decided to make this into a separate thread. I created a series of Adventure games called Secretum Labyrinth for the Atari 8-bit computers. I did not go full blown Role Playing Game, did not make it turned based. Wanted to keep action going. A few months ago, I asked if anyone ever did an in-depth Role Playing Games (AD&D) style on the 8-bit, similar to the SSI Gold series for MS-DOS PCs. in the late 1980s. Got some samples to download, but not of them were complete or were not in depth as some would like.

 

So I am wondering how many people would really want these games created for the Atari 8-bit. I agree it is free to download the SSI Gold Games and play them in DOSBOX. That also ruins any chance of anyone from profiting on doing such games on the 8-bit. Right now I am leaning on not investing on time to make a new game engine and sale the games on cartridge.

 

Since this is lots of work, and way too much for one person to do all the programming, graphics, data entry, planning, etc. It would have to be a group effort. Thinking about the core part of the engine be open source and anyone can download it, and append whatever they need for their specific game. We talked about using Basic, Assemble, Mad Pascal, and C for programming languages.

Edited by peteym5
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I was a huge fan of the Ultima series and I love games like this..as long as they aren't a rehash of some other game. There is a point where a game gets repetitive, especially when it's like some other game and maybe that game did it better. Keep in mind that a adventure game doesn't have to take place is a sword and sorcery universe.

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I'm always down for a good RPG. I've programmed for years (generally PC), and I can say it's one of the more complex projects you can take on. My suggestion, due to both time saving and limited resources on the Atari, would be to use some kind of roguelike/procedural generation algorithms to save disk space. Random generation also tends to add to replayability too. I'd also keep it focused. Look at the 7 day roguelike competition that happens every year. Lots of great, but simple games there. Many have been expanded to become truly great games (DoomRL, The Ground Gives Way, Cogmind etc). RPGs tend to live or die by how much the dev allows 'feature creep'.

As far as perspective, either a 1st person party/Wizardry style game or something like Ultima would be my preference, but really, I'd play anything that's well designed.

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I use procedural generation for each room in Secretum Labyrinth. Use a byte with each bit to indicate while exits are opened or closed. Than some instructions to draw vertical, horizontal, boxes, graphic images with font characters, item objects in room. Instead of taking up 1K for every screen, I got it down to under 64 bytes. I even added some conditional checks that open/close exits based on actions. Even can alter the room if playing a different quest. Think of 2600 Adventure, Quest 1 had less rooms, Quest 2&3 took you into a larger world inside the black castle and leaving the yellow castle, going right, then down. What I did was added something if you playing Quest 2 or 3, left exits in room 234 will be blocked off, but in room 226, there will now be left exits.

 

I thought about taking Secretum Labyrinth programming, copy all the source into a new folder, and create a new game that does this turned based combat with more AD&D RPG elements. It would be the fastest way for me. I would rename the engine and market it as a different game series.

 

Someone should have a 3D view in dungeon source code we can take and add what we need also.

 

For the main screen layout, we can do character(s) status at the top, 2 to 4 text lines, dungeon view in the middle, and some text lines at the bottom to display texts, what is going on, etc. Would it look better with Antic 2,3,4, or 6? I use Antic 3 a lot, this 2 extra vertical lines and descenders makes a nice text display. Something we can do, above each text lines where we display the game characters. have a bitmap mode line to make a bar that shows health / hit points. Antic 13/14, 4 color. Have the bar be white if heath is normal, but turn yellow if poisoned, purple if cursed by magic, etc.

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  • 4 weeks later...

While I understand that you probably couldn’t make much money from them, porting some of the later games from the C64 to Atari 8-bit to see if you can make the Atari version better would be interesting. Another option would be to duplicate the interface and similar, but better, graphics and then add a different story line. That is basically what the gold box series did. There was some improvements over time, but once you learned the interface you could play them all. One thing I’m not really fond of is the use of a joystick. I much prefer using the keyboard so I can keep my hands there. It’s been a long time since I programmed in 6502 code, so I could be wrong, but it seems like a lot of the C64 code could be reused with just some changes in the system calls.

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It is absolutely true when optimized and using other sources as a clue you can really make the Atari Star shine or even outshine the others,

 

This is the first time I truly believe your heart is deeply invested in a project and are willing to work as a group...

 

Can the many excellent coders and graphists help petery on his quest, will musicians and and bard lend lyric and song for his endeavor?

 

I think this may be an opportunity in more ways than one.... I am interested in what will unfold, both on the Atari but in reality.

 

That and I would love to see a great adventure just one more time ;)

 

-

Edited by _The Doctor__
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The SSI games were my favorite games of all times. I recently managed to load up my party that finished Pool of Radiance, Hilsfar, and Curse of the Azure Bonds on the C64 some 30 years ago using a zoom floppy drive and used the Gold Box Companion to recreate them exactly on the PC version. Their adventure now continues in Secret of the Silver Blades - just with a few decades in between.

 

So yes, a tactical style RPG on the 8-bit would be amazing. Maybe a version of the Unlimited Adventures to create an endless stream of new RPGs. That engine was also used a a MMO style too. Lot's of possibilities.

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I helped out with a Palm Pilot game called Dragonbane II in the early 2000s. It really worked well on the Palm Pilot. It has a Bard's Tale look and feel to it. It also has a construction set so you can see how levels are designed and graphic resources are combined to create the look.

I would like to look.

 

I was involved with making a 3D RPG construction set + player on the windows PC. Ran into an issue with the original maker of the 3D engine (middleware) part of it going out of business and did not update their software, so I had to port it to another 3D engine.

 

 

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The SSI games were my favorite games of all times. I recently managed to load up my party that finished Pool of Radiance, Hilsfar, and Curse of the Azure Bonds on the C64 some 30 years ago using a zoom floppy drive and used the Gold Box Companion to recreate them exactly on the PC version. Their adventure now continues in Secret of the Silver Blades - just with a few decades in between.

 

Hail a true connoisseur. GoldBox series is my all time c/jRPG favourite. The combat system is unmatched to this day, imo*. Would definitely play something in this vein. I think there's also bigger market for this particular combat style (top down 2D grid with freedom of movement) than the more static one used in Bard's Tale/Wizardry games.

 

*recommend Knights Of The Chalice for similar experience

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