adamantyr

June 12, 2022

Great looking game! So Flooraway's only competition is Flooraway 2, hmm? (*cough* APERTURE *cough*)

April 16, 2022

Yep, build 4.20.043 released to address this. And I cleaned up some other potential issues.

April 4, 2022

Well done mapping the entire thing! I never got even close to the end.

January 2, 2022

Ah man, that Taxan monitor is sweet! Sadly I'm in the US so no go for me. Also looking at the connectors I don't think I have anything to hook it up to.

December 29, 2021

On 12/21/2020 at 9:34 PM, Tursi said:

I wouldn't be a TI programmer without the Mini Memory. I was already being seduced by the ability to do assembly on the Apple 2s at school and my friend's Atari 800, but my locked down TI was BASIC only. MiniMemory finally let me experience 9900 assembly and made me stay with the TI for many more years.

Limited, yeah, it is, but I love it.

And we are ALL the better for that. I consider that the greatest achievement of the Mini Memory cartridge. Thank you, Mike. For all you do.

Adam

December 10, 2021

On 12/8/2021 at 4:19 AM, digdugnate said:

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/switch-hacker-gary-bowser-must-pay-nintendo-10m-on-top-of-his-4-5m-fine/

Yikes.

Sheesh...

I did not know Gary personally. Way back in the 90's I sent his company an inquiry about how to pay for a TIM chip for the TI and got no response. Shortly after he was "disinvited" to the Chicago Faire for numerous complaints of not shipping promised product.

Much later on the internet I encountered him in the TI Yahoo Group and here. I spoke with him a few times about my XB3 supercart; it was good to get clarification of how many were shipped. I heard how he was doing XBox mods now and thought "ah, more of the same" and decided I wouldn't send any money his way.

Despite the fact you can say justice finally caught up to a grifter, it's still pretty sad. I'm not sure why Nintendo is levying another 10 million fine, it just sounds like they are using him as an example to scare other pirates and hackers.

Of course if he has the money to actually pay those fines...

November 16, 2021

6 hours ago, Vorticon said:

Who did the splash screen for the game?

Me Based upon Thomas Moran's "Grand Canyon in Yellowstone".

November 12, 2021

2 hours ago, broettger said:

Now, I have a theory. When I copied the disk images over to the tipi, they were expanded into separate folders. I copied all of the files into one folder to assign to dsk1. In that process I was warned about a duplicate file and I stupidly let it overwrite the file. I don’t remember the file name, but I bet that is the source of my problem.

Update - The file is MH2. It exists in both ROAWORLD12.dsk and ROAWORLD34.dsk. I copied from 34 over 12.

Well the file in question you have an issue with is MT0. I would start a fresh install and copy the SAV and SG0-3 files to it. That should fix the problem.

November 12, 2021

1 hour ago, broettger said:

I think I came across a bug in the version 4.18.041 when talking to the hermit back in Althorpe. My responses seem to match the last line of text and what appears to be nonsense when I select any response.

Hmmm I don't have a repro on my end... that particular text is from another file entirely in fact.

I would reset your game and see if it repros consistently. If it does, zip up your entire game folder and message it to me. (You can do so here on the forums or in Discord.)

November 10, 2021

17 minutes ago, broettger said:

I have been playing this for a while with the steam release version and I have really been enjoying the game.

I just hooked up everything so that I can play it on my TI-99/4a. I would never have imagined this was possible back in they day! It is so amazing!

I do have one criticism, though. Maybe it is my old eyes and the small 12 inch crt monitor using composite video, but it is hard to see things as you move around the map.
I would suggest sparser patterns(i.e. more black and less color) for the main grass and cave floors so that the characters and enemies stick out more.

This is just my opinion, so do with it as you wish. It is your game and you have done a great job!

I actually tested the graphics on my own 13-inch CRT NTSC monitor, so I definitely can understand that. That's one reason the text is white on the top, grey in the middle, and cyan at the bottom; it's not to look cool but to slowly dim the text to make it easier to read on a CRT screen. (Otherwise, you have to double space everything, white text on black background just SCREAMS into your eyes.)

Several floors I did end up redesigning to make them "darker" with more black and less shape so they stood out against obstacles. Most of those are in buildings and dungeons. World tiles still ended up a bit busy like snow, grass, sand, etc. Dirt in dungeons I just used blue to make them darker rather than reducing pixel count.

It was an interesting experiment when I realized how much NTSC influences pixel design. Luminosity actually matters more than color; bright against bright just leads to a muddy mess that you can't see at all. With only 15 colors to work with, it can get challenging to create pleasing contrasts that don't look garish or weird on modern displays but are also viewable on NTSC. I've considered if I should do a "color-blind" version of the game, and just go full monochrome with it, but as of yet no one has really asked for it.

If I was doing a sequel, I'd probably make sure that any given floor tile was only 20-30% filled.

September 28, 2021

Well done background noise, it definitely matches up well with the original! That said, I probably won't be enabling it.

I've yet to see an emulator perfectly render the classic NTSC style of image, but that may not be possible to do. For one thing, to be truly accurate it should be projected on a curved surface, like a classic CRT monitor.

Also, as someone who went crazy a few years ago and bought a TON of Magnavox monitors, every single one is slightly different. So opinions on the "perfect" rendering will widely vary as well.

August 26, 2021

I translated TI-Trek to assembly language way back when I first got back into my TI in the early 00's. I remembered thinking the BASIC listing was truly terrible; broken up with GOTO for no logical reason at all.

I didn't do speech because I honestly thought it was a gimmick in the BASIC version which slowed the game down too much. Plus speech was not something I knew how to do in assembly at the time.

http://crpg.adamantyr.com/misc/titrek.htm

August 23, 2021

A couple years ago, Tursi laid out what would be needed for a 2nd run:

- someone else needs to negotiate and pay for the license from Digital Leisure - note that this likely includes a minimum quantity up front
- the packing materials need to be redesigned (I don't know exactly what, but the license holders noted any new version needs something changed ;) )
- someone else needs to pay for the packing materials (labels and boxes and insets)
- someone else needs to buy the raw programmed PCBs from me wholesale
- someone else needs to assemble the carts (including sourcing their own shells), sell them, and distribute them

I am willing to help with contacts and introductions, and the programming of the PCBs. I have enough blank PCBs to do a fairly good sized run. However I won't do anything without license in hand.

The key words here are "Someone else".

August 23, 2021

The main issue to a 2nd run is the licensing. Mike didn't want to pursue it because there were issues with the first run. If someone solves all that for him, that may change things.

May 8, 2021

It would be nice to have all the documentation converted to a modern text file format, honestly. I've dug through those files many times and I keep losing track of things.

In one spot, he talks about module programming and how to approach using the SAMS in that manner, as well as detailing the loader he created, which used an expanded header so that memory images could be loaded into pages.

May 8, 2021

4 hours ago, jrhodes said:

I'm actually wondering if Classic99 v4.0 or Tilda will get released first. Probably Tilda .

Shots fired across the bow! At both of them.

March 30, 2021

I was thinking about publishing a hint book. The main issue is deciding what goes into it, and what the style is.

I was going to have it in a narrative form much like the Ultima hint books, but another part of me thinks it should be more in the style of Avernum, a no-frills straight-up guide on exactly what to do.

Any opinions?

March 22, 2021

I did submit to GOG as well. They have just left the ticket lie there since January. From what I've heard this is pretty typical for them.

March 21, 2021

13 minutes ago, Brent Ellison said:

Hide contents

Sent.

"You actually only need the seven Words of Power to enter the tower, not necessarily the shards themselves."

Ohhhh ok. I assumed that it was the shards since I got the message to go to the Pristine Tower immediately after getting the final shard. I had discovered the location earlier myself but couldn't get in yet (I guess since I did not in fact have all the words at that point).

Spoiler

Perhaps you should make sure you have room in your backpack before interacting with something?

And for the next version I may add a snarky comment to that effect...

March 21, 2021

Spoiler

That's odd, that should be working... You may want to shut down and reload the game from scratch and see if it persists. If it does, send me your game folder zipped up here in a private message and I'll troubleshoot it.

You actually only need the seven Words of Power to enter the tower, not necessarily the shards themselves.

March 11, 2021

Just now, Brent Ellison said:

Another system question: Does the Critical skill affect ranged weapons? That's the only skill not mentioned in the manual...

Yes, critical applies to melee and ranged attacks. Page 7 of the manual states: "Your character's chance to land a critical attack in melee or ranged combat."

March 9, 2021

9 minutes ago, mr_gw454 said:

I only thought the cart replaced the 1st disk (you still needed the 2 other WORLD disks). I guess you still need all 3 even if you boot from a cart?

Yep, you have to have all three. The game disk contains your saved game data, as well as the monster data, in addition to the game binary and loaders.

March 9, 2021

13 minutes ago, Asmusr said:

It's a disk game only, AFAIK. RPK is a cartridge format.

Yes, disks are always required. The cartridge is mainly to speed up the game load (cart is faster than disk), and it also offers a means by which you COULD run the game on a 180K drive system, albeit with a lot of swapping.

March 9, 2021

34 minutes ago, mizapf said:

I never posted a RPK for it because it is a commercial product. If you have one I could help you to create one, but certainly for personal use.

Thanks, Michael! If you ever want to write up full instructions on how to set the game up I'll be happy to add them to my website.

March 5, 2021

1 minute ago, Brent Ellison said:

Hmmm... am I right that the sorcery skill also doesn't decrease fatigue costs?

Correct. Fatigue costs are fixed.

Generally speaking, the more you have things impacted by character choice, the more likely you will have strange imbalances in places later. I decided that having every class gain some stamina per level was a better mechanic for increasing your ability to cast spells over reducing cost. Having both would just lead to high level characters being TOO powerful.

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