hlabrand Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 Hello everyone, I am working on a retro text adventure called "Tristam Island", which will be released on 34 platforms, including all Atari 8-bit computers and the Atari ST. (I'm cross posting this in the Atari ST forum, let me know if this is bad form...) I released a free demo a few days ago at hlabrande.itch.io/tristam-island-demo. It's about 90 minutes of gameplay (~1/4 of the game). After a plane crash in the middle of the Atlantic, you wash up on the shore of a deserted island - which, as it turns out, was inhabited decades ago, and holds many secrets... If you like the demo, or want to support the project, you can preorder the game at hlabrande.itch.io/tristam-island ; the full game comes out on November 20th. Let me know if you have any questions! And feel free to post pictures of it running on real hardware, I always love to see that Thanks! 20 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gavin1968 Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 (edited) Love it! My first games were text adventures and I really loved playing them. It was amazing what our imaginations could do before we were in stimulus overload. I miss those old days. Keep up the great work!! I bought a copy, plus a little extra and posted to my website, as well as Twitter and Facebook. https://www.vintagecomputercenter.com/new-text-adventure-tristam-island Gavin Edited September 29, 2020 by Gavin1968 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Spancho Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 Thanks s lot designing a new adventure for our beloved retro computers. BITD I loved adventures more the other genres and really appreciate that someone has not forgotten that one. I just signed up and contributed to your project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sugarland Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 Awesome! Looking forward to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlabrand Posted September 29, 2020 Author Share Posted September 29, 2020 Thanks for the support! I appreciate it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tigerduck Posted September 30, 2020 Share Posted September 30, 2020 (edited) Just ordered, hope in November is awful weather and I find my paper and pencil in time... Edited September 30, 2020 by Tigerduck 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youxia Posted September 30, 2020 Share Posted September 30, 2020 Nice, always willing to support new text adventures, especially one available on so many formats. Any reason why not on Spectrum 48K, or +2? Suppose it's because of the disk medium...no way to turn it into a tape or z80? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlabrand Posted September 30, 2020 Author Share Posted September 30, 2020 Thank you both for your support! @youxia yes, it is because of the disk medium. AFAIK it's because there needs to be random access (so you can go anywhere on the map) so it'd need to be all loaded in RAM, and it's over 128kb... There might have been a way by splitting the game in several parts, but it's too rigid and complicated to make. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voxel Posted October 1, 2020 Share Posted October 1, 2020 I appreciate you sharing the love for many systems, can't be easy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gambler172 Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 Well.....why not for the Atari 7800??? If i get all the text with solution,i could try to port it...... Cause the 7800 has no keyboard...i would go up for a click n point adventure.....with all text and solution.....this may be doable....maybe with small graphics. greetings Walter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 Its a z3 file, so the 7800 would need an interpreter for it. Hence when you see the GB port it has a key selection area. Integrating graphics would be difficult. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.atarimania.com Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 Thanks, just added the preview to our database: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-tristam-island_36867.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voxel Posted October 3, 2020 Share Posted October 3, 2020 Just placed my order - thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gambler172 Posted October 3, 2020 Share Posted October 3, 2020 21 hours ago, Wrathchild said: Its a z3 file, so the 7800 would need an interpreter for it. Hence when you see the GB port it has a key selection area. Integrating graphics would be difficult. i know but i may find another way...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devwebcl Posted October 3, 2020 Share Posted October 3, 2020 23 hours ago, gambler172 said: Well.....why not for the Atari 7800??? If i get all the text with solution,i could try to port it...... Cause the 7800 has no keyboard...i would go up for a click n point adventure.....with all text and solution.....this may be doable....maybe with small graphics. greetings Walter Maybe you can use interface similar to Gunslinger http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-gunslinger_2354.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gambler172 Posted October 3, 2020 Share Posted October 3, 2020 I have an idea,but i need the complete text with solution,to see,what is possible.But this depends on the programmer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlabrand Posted November 21, 2020 Author Share Posted November 21, 2020 Hi everyone! I'm excited to announce that the full game has been released at https://hlabrande.itch.io/tristam-island ! There's about 7-10 hours of gameplay; the game comes with a hint book and a digital "feelie" (a postcard). The .atr file is 135kb, which means it won't fit on a 130kb disk unfortunately. (It's a problem even Infocom had back in the day!) I'm looking for a solution to fix that; in the meantime use a bigger disk (I think the next size up is 230kb right?) or a Gotek-like device. I hope you enjoy the game! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StickJock Posted November 21, 2020 Share Posted November 21, 2020 How about a standard single sided, double density disk? 180K Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlabrand Posted November 21, 2020 Author Share Posted November 21, 2020 Shouldnt be a problem at all! But i was under the impression disks for the Atari 800 were 130kb. Shaving 5k off of the game without losing anything content-wise might be tricky but i'd like to look into it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted November 21, 2020 Share Posted November 21, 2020 2 hours ago, hlabrand said: Shouldnt be a problem at all! But i was under the impression disks for the Atari 800 were 130kb. Shaving 5k off of the game without losing anything content-wise might be tricky but i'd like to look into it Crunching, compressing, exomizing, etc. may help...?!? There are various packers and compressors for the A8 available - on the A8 and on the PC. Since the adventure is mainly text, it should be possible to make it 30%-50% shorter with a good packer program... If the program still does not fit on a 130k disk or image, then simply use a 180k disk or image. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlabrand Posted November 21, 2020 Author Share Posted November 21, 2020 Maybe? I don't really know, I've never used one The game is mostly text but it's already packed/encoded in a smart way natively, which gives a 25-30% compression factor. But there's still room to pack more, as frequencies of letters are preserved. (It's every 3 lowercase letters is packed in 2 bytes, but you also pay more for uppercase and such) Does using a packer make the game slower? Or is there a decoding process at the beginning somehow? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tigerduck Posted December 4, 2020 Share Posted December 4, 2020 On 9/30/2020 at 11:06 AM, Tigerduck said: Just ordered, hope in November is awful weather and I find my paper and pencil in time... Ok, I preordered and paid for the Game via paypai, but how can I download it now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darwinmac Posted December 4, 2020 Share Posted December 4, 2020 29 minutes ago, Tigerduck said: Ok, I preordered and paid for the Game via paypai, but how can I download it now... I am not @hlabrand, but you should be able to download it from your itch.io account. When I paid for the game, I had to create an itch.io account. That account gives me the ability to download any game I paid for on itch.io. Bob C Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlabrand Posted December 4, 2020 Author Share Posted December 4, 2020 I'm not even sure creating an itch.io account is required ; you might have a download link in your email from when you bought, which should take you to a special page. (I know that when I send out a free key, people don't have to create an account to download.) Maybe since you preordered that email just shows the placeholder text files that were there when it was still preorders? In any case there should be new packages now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peruchi Posted December 5, 2020 Share Posted December 5, 2020 How about some Tristam Island loaded from Fujinet? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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