Draker Quest II - Complete

[+frankodragon]

I might as well put this up. Since late last year, I've been working on Draker Quest 2. The story goes as your little friends have been taken by someone or something and turned into crystals which are inside temple dungeons. Now you must find all your captured friends and find who or what's responsible.

 

Draker Quest 1 was a failure due to HSC as I couldn't get it to work to save. So I'm going to try again with DQ2.

 

This time, I'm making the game a little less linear from the first as you can explore any 3 or 4 temples in any order via a network of caves. As you progress by saving more drakers from their crystal prisons, then more worlds open up.

 

 

One other thing I've added to some dungeons are bosses. With the limitations of 16K banks, I could only make two large bosses. Some of which guard keys in areas where the crystals are being kept.

 

Other things are megafruits which will increase the Draker's HP level, and an ice ball that kills slimes.

 

 

There are still plenty of issues to work on the game which is why I'm not releasing a BIN at this time. But here are some pics:

 

 

 

[toiletunes]

I could never get DQ1 to work with Concerto, I hope DQ2 does

[CPUWIZ]

With careful construction of your code, I can add 32K banking (bank $8000-$FFFF) with some new PLD code.

[+frankodragon]

With careful construction of your code, I can add 32K banking (bank $8000-$FFFF) with some new PLD code.

Would that be the last bank, Bank 32? For the 512K game, I mainly put the graphics, except for the titles in this bank.

[CPUWIZ]

I just pondered on something that may be possible.

 

16 x 32K banks @ $4000-$BFFF

1 x 16K bank @ $C000-$FFFF

 

But that would require a 1MB chip.

[+frankodragon]

Most of the variables start @ $2300. Will they all need to be changed? I wouldn't know what the "var[#]" addresses would start at. Let alone I'm using $16,$75 for hssupport unless someone else is using that.

[+frankodragon]

Here's a map layout of one of the later temple dungeons just to show how big some of these dungeons can get.

 

[+frankodragon]

I could never get DQ1 to work with Concerto, I hope DQ2 does

Does the Concerto cart work with 512K games? I know the Cuttle Cart 2 will but not sure it the Concerto supports the file size.

[gambler172]

Concerto doe not work.....Cuttle cart 2 works

[DracIsBack]

This looks killer. Maybe PacMan Red can help you out with the graphics?

[+frankodragon]

Ran into a snag in bank 15, which is a cave level. If the player enters a temple from bank 15, then goes back out, the game freezes up. I've tried remming all possible causes and looked at any mistakes in the code, but still can't find a thing what could be causing this. I am using the latest version of 7800 Basic.

 

This also happens when the player is in the desert world, goes into the cave, comes back out, then goes back into the cave again.

 

[+frankodragon]

That problem mentioned above has been fixed. (I hope.) Turns out there was some odd thing going on with the gosub routine so I've used goto instead.

[+frankodragon]

Found out the cause of the glitching in the later levels. It was either variables 29 thru 32 or at $2101. They were for an enemy x/y movement. I also tweaked the graphics a bit and some of the temple monsters look uglier, but that's what monsters should look like, I think.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[+frankodragon]

Alright, I'm going to do a beta release of the game. It will not work with Concerto or any emulator that cannot support 512K. MESS is the only one I know that supports that size. I'm also trying to implement a save feature. This means the right difficulty switch must be in the Right or "B" setting. The Left setting will supposedly clears all the saved data.

 

 

dqII.bas.bin

 

dqII.bas.a78

 

 

 

 

Edited June 20, 2017 by frankodragon

[+frankodragon]

If you need maps, here are some for now. (The maps may have changed a bit especially in temple dungeons 1-4)

 

 

Overworld One (Draker Island)

 

 

 

Skull Cave One

[+frankodragon]

Just updated to latest version here. Now the points system is 4 digits instead of 3. I've added a small shop in the Draker cave nearby after you begin. The blue orb in the store changes your fireball into an ice ball so you can kill slimes that appear in dungeons.

 

 

[Swami]

[+frankodragon]

This project is still alive. I've been re-tuning the whole game since it was too much backtracking and the nonlinear approach was too confusing. Now the drakers are in caves with enemies outside on the overworld maps like the last game. Originally, the way you could navigate through an overworld and go to other parts of it was to traverse into caves and back out again but that was changed so the overworlds are now opened up more and less dead-ends. Temples are now in placed in the overworld areas as well and they are blocked by doors until you find a crystal from an open temple. I also found out how to get the text to work so I won't be needing to use sprite texts like in the last build. What remains the same is whenever the player completes 3 or 4 temples in the world, another world entrance appears in the first overworld.

 

 

 

 

And this is from the Desert World:

 

 

 

The game will still need lots of testing/fixing as I have to fine tune all the locations of the locked doors for the temples, etc.

[+frankodragon]

More screenshots.

 

 

 

Sections of the overworlds will be locked until you visit a temple. So there has to be a temple around that isn't blocked off.

 

 

 

 

 

Where does this locked passageway lead to?

[Swami]

Alright, I'm going to do a beta release of the game. It will not work with Concerto or any emulator that cannot support 512K. MESS is the only one I know that supports that size. I'm also trying to implement a save feature. This means the right difficulty switch must be in the Right or "B" setting. The Left setting will supposedly clears all the saved data.

 

 

dqII.bas.bin

 

dqII.bas.a78

 

 

 

 

 

What is the Concerto file size limit? 128K 256K (it loads Bentley Bear at 145K)? It loads all the super-games and super-games+ROM, but not this.

[+frankodragon]

I'm stumped about that. It could be either the Concerto isn't used to 512K games? Maybe the voltage or that it's using HSC. Batari may know since he's into all the technical stuff.

[gambler172]

Concerto does nit play 512k

Only Cuttle Cart 2 does

[+frankodragon]

Here the revamped Overworld One Map.

 

[+frankodragon]

Update: I've been working on repairing the maps to the temple dungeons. I've also included a bonus temple and a cave which are optional but filled with treasure and artifacts. Side story is about ancient drakers and the "Gadget Age."

 

At first when making DQII, I thought about total freedom to roam around the worlds but instead I had to go linear. I wanted to have the player go to one temple, then after obtaining a crystal, the next temple would get unlocked, etc. But instead I thought about going to any temple in the overworld map that player can choose. However, obtaining all the crystals of that one world will open up another overworld map.

 

I'm wondering what others think if this is a good idea, or should I use locked doors to block the entrances to temples until the player gets the crystal from the "open" temple?

 

 

Here are some more revised overworld layouts:

 

Overworld Two

 

 

 

 

Overworld Three

 

[+frankodragon]

After numerous trying and thinking that I've nailed the save and load memory commands, and using a real AtariVox, instead the AtariVox made some very bizarre noises and I'm afraid any more may damage the unit, I've decided to use a simple password system for saving.