first c64 game:History of the world

[Ranger03]

it's not much of anything, but it's at least done

 

just trying to get my foot in the door

[Justin Payne]

What is the games theme? Looks like a biblical apocalypse theme

[Ranger03]

it's a commentary on war and how when we fight, to protect our loved ones, sometimes in the process we become that which we hate, hence the nazi parallel

 

I was raised a christian, so my beliefs reflect my games. all text

 

the dino is meant to be the indoraptor btw

Edited July 15, 2018 by Ranger03

[Ranger03]

any comments

[Justin Payne]

Sure. I always have comments, but are you asking from a game development perspective or from a coding perspective?

As far as the theme, are you looking to be biblically accurate? Is gameplay more important or is there a teaching aspect?

As far as coding, you're adventure is going to be text heavy and I think there is a better way than using prints. I think it might be better to put all of the text in a separate file and then reference it within your program. One advantage is that you could translate it to other languages much easier. I'd check out some existing professionally released text based adventures to get inspiration.

[Ranger03]

Both. i tried CBM PRG Studio and it's somewhat hard for me to use. might move to the Apple IIe or Atari 800 to get it to work better. no more pokes, hurts my head

 

could possibly use Java, maybe C

Edited July 19, 2018 by Ranger03

[Justin Payne]

Well, unfortunately, working in the original 8-bit environment, no matter what it is, is much harder than dev environments of today. WUDSEN is a great dev environment, in Eclipse, but it's only for assembly language and you're working in BASIC. If you want to write the game for all of those systems, you're going to have subtle differences between BASIC's. So, I'd say, pick a BASIC you're familiar with. You could use a text editor to write the basic and then load it into an emulator to test it.

Yes, you could write the game in a modern language but people are going to want a modern application and a text based adventure is probably going to have little draw. Doing it for a retro system will target a group that is used to and enjoys such games but they're going to want to play it on those systems.

 

Now, let's talk about your theme. A tapping into the mythos of a religious theme can make for a great game. Take Darksiders, where you play one of the horseman of the apocalypse. Obviously not biblically accurate but games that try to be tend to put the teaching aspect ahead of the gameplay. If you want to teach, don't cite the bible word for word but use the spirit of the word. People will get the theme and overall message w/o being beaten over the head by the exact words. One of my favorite teaching games is Agent USA. It teaches you geography without you knowing it.

[Ranger03]

any ideas?

[Justin Payne]

Ideas? Sorry, about what?

[Ranger03]

about how to go about improving the game?.