NEW text-adventure game / interactive novel for ATARI ST :)

[yerzmyey]

Yo.

This is not a typical "gaming stuff", I'd imagine, as it is an interactive novel (called back in the days a text-adventure game, or a

game-book in the non-digital world ).

DOWNLOAD: http://yerzmyey.i-demo.pl/nihilum_st/nihilum.zip

It's kind of spooky stuff but I hope You'd like it.

© 2018 "In nihilum reverteris" - another text-game / interactive novel by Yerzmyey.
Platform: ATARI ST / 1 MB RAM


Controls:
Esc - to quit the game,
A-D - jump to next chapter,
Space - to start the game,
Space - to leave last chapter.

Text and music by Yerzmyey/H-PRG.
Code by Bob_er / MEC

Graphic by Habib^Joulo/H-PRG (in-game pictures) and Raphis (fonts, the 'book' image)
English language help - Gasman/H-PRG.

special thanks to:
Jad - for tools
Larek - for a8 graphics


Kind regards.
Yerz

[+davidcalgary29]

Love it! Are you going to make us some "feelies" to go with it?

[Fletch]

looks really cool. I cannot wait to try it out. Thanks!

[yerzmyey]

All:

 

thx a lot guys.

 

 

 

Davidcalgary29:

Hehe, if You mean some 'physical' stuff like figures and stuff -t then I'm afraid I don't plan it, hehe.

 

 

Regards!!

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I like it, it's with style and it's techniqualy advanced - overscan.

And what can be improved: it can easily fit on 1 floppy - main exec is well packable. And I did it:

NIHILUM.ZIP

Other thing: it's better to use capital letters (8.3 file name format) in ZIP with files, to prevent possible problems in TOS - after people depacks/copies it to Atari hard disk.

 

[yerzmyey]

ParanoidLittleMan: thank You very much, I added it into the archive!

[Christos]

I tried it. Great gfx and music. But was i doing something wrong? It seemed like i was skipping pages.

And a question about the engine. Is it hardcoded or can it be reused? If so will it be released?

[yerzmyey]

Hello,

well - the keyboard procedure worked rather just fine here, so theoretically it should work fine everywhere. The coder - Bob_er of MEC might be reading this thread, so he might take a look into the engine, considering this subject-matter.

As for the engine itself, it has been coded especially for the game (it was actually related with the one from Atari XL/XE version as far as I know) but I dunno - maybe it might be -reused after all.

I will ask Bob_er if he plans to make it public.

All the best,

Yerz

[Christos]

OK,

I was trying it on Hataroid with Emutos. Maybe that was the problem.

[bob_er]

Hi Guys,

 

I'm the coder of INR. Thanks for you comments .

Currently I'm working on issue with TOS 2.06. As far as I know the game doesn't work on TT and Falcon as well. But 2.06 has higher priority for me.

My own machine has 1.62. I've tried on hatari with 2.06 and it works .

 

The game was written in pure ASM using VASM just for fun.

I can make code public when code will be stable/final.

I think it's possible to make engine more generic to support other scenarios.

Things to be fixed for that are:

1. Connect chapters and pictures. Now I have an array in the code, should be exported to scenario file.

2. Connections between chapters. Similar to 1st point - now I have a second array. Should be exported to file as well.

3. Text converter should be probably rewritten. I've used tool written for C64 by JAD (thanks!), and modified it a bit to support ST features/customization. Because that tool was written in PHP (which is quite far on my list of favourite languages), my changes weren't nice.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

TOS 2.06 needs intact Timer-C, so should use some other timer if needed.

And because executable is way too long with large empty space, I recommend that move that area in BSS section (what I did in many cases, like Uridium).

That will make it to fit on 1 800 K floppy even without packing.

[bob_er]

Story is a bit more complicated .

Indeed, I've touched Timer C and few more interrupts. Still working on this.

 

btw: is there any volunteer to (re)write the converter tool (can be written in any existing language on any existing platform)?

Edited November 25, 2018 by bob_er

[janatari]

I testet the Disk Version Game. It is playable with an ST and Rainbow-Tos.

With an STE the Keyboard wasnt found.

[swapd0]

Story is a bit more complicated .

Indeed, I've touched Timer C and few more interrupts. Still working on this.

 

btw: is there any volunteer to (re)write the converter tool (can be written in any existing language on any existing platform)?

 

Where is the tool source code?

[bob_er]

Currently only on my HDD.

Could you send e-mail to me: bob_er (at) interia (dot) pl ?

 

edit:

main problem is because I have open frames and I want to read data from disk.

That works with UltraSatan and Hatari (used by me for ST dev&tests).

Unfortunately that combination doesn't work on FDD.

This is main issue for me right now.

 

Additionally, I've got some feedback, so I'm working on all fixes right now. I want to make version 1.2 as really final .

Edited December 2, 2018 by bob_er

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Currently only on my HDD.

Could you send e-mail to me: bob_er (at) interia (dot) pl ?

 

edit:

main problem is because I have open frames and I want to read data from disk.

That works with UltraSatan and Hatari (used by me for ST dev&tests).

Unfortunately that combination doesn't work on FDD.

This is main issue for me right now.

 

Additionally, I've got some feedback, so I'm working on all fixes right now. I want to make version 1.2 as really final .

I already mentioned here that Timer-C is problematic with TOS 2.06 . It is because it is used in floppy access code for dealing with timeouts . And in some hard disk drivers too. In mine it is replaced with other method to measure passed time, right because of problems with SW changing Timer-C .

I recommend to use some other MFP Timer instead C for game. This is what I did for instance with Hard 'n' Heavy, so it works now fine from floppy under TOS 2.06.

If that's big problem. solution could be to restore normal Timer-C work before disk access, and when it is done to set back game's Timer-C usage . But that may break some things, depending for what Timer-C is used - like music playback, screen ...

And I can not resist: this Timer-C problem exists not with my 'combo' TOS versions - where users have TOS 2.06 Desktop and TOS 1.04/1.62 floppy access code.