Jump to content
IGNORED

interview with steve harter, creator of crossroads and crossroads ii


kisrael

Recommended Posts

A while back ClassicGaming.com published my review of the obscure-ish C=64 classics Crossroads and Crossroads II... but somehow I neglected to mention the games author, Steve Harter. Recently I found a different tribute page by a gal named dessgeega......in later correspondance she mentioned that Steve Harter had written her about her site. It turns out Steve was ammenable to an e-mail conversation with me, and agreed to let me edit into an interview format....

 

So here it is...

interview with steve harter, creator of crossroads and crossroads ii

 

The game is great...it is to Wizard of Wor what Robotron is to Berzerk or what the C=64 is to the Vic-20. It's too bad it only came out on Compute!'s Gazette, because it deserved a much wider audience than it got, I pimp for it all I can...

2006.04.13.crossroads2textanim.gif

Edited by kisrael
Link to comment
Share on other sites

*crickets chirping*

 

Ah well...it's a helluva game, and deserves more people to know about it... if it had had a commercial release, maybe a few years earlier (since it is a very visceral, arcade-y experience) I think it would get a lot more love.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

*crickets chirping*

 

Ah well...it's a helluva game, and deserves more people to know about it... if it had had a commercial release, maybe a few years earlier (since it is a very visceral, arcade-y experience) I think it would get a lot more love.

Cool - yeah, I remember Crossroads... looked really fun - I attempted to type it in via Compute!'s Gazette, but it was just so long I couldn't finish it. I'll have to try it out on an emulator.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

WOw I remember when both issues of Gazette came in my mailbox I typed in the 1st one and Loved it then later when Crossroads II Pandamonium came out I just had to type that in as well Still boot up 1 or the other sometimes for some old school fun Great Games and free just time to type them or notif the disk was bought

 

This brings back so many memories of back in the day

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Haha, the interview actually mentioned XRoads... I actually wrote XRoads many years ago. At some point, I replaced all the X11 code with SDL code in the hopes of eventually porting it to the Dreamcast, but I never managed to get a working DC development environment set up, and I lost all the source code changes in a hard drive crash (Note to self: Make back-ups, dammit!). I've always wanted to go back and redo that bit so that I could get it onto the GP2X as well, but I don't seem to have any time to do that kind of stuff anymore :(

 

Anyways, needless to say, I absolutely loved Crossroads. Thanks a lot for the link!

 

--Zero

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Haha, the interview actually mentioned XRoads... I actually wrote XRoads many years ago. At some point, I replaced all the X11 code with SDL code in the hopes of eventually porting it to the Dreamcast, but I never managed to get a working DC development environment set up, and I lost all the source code changes in a hard drive crash (Note to self: Make back-ups, dammit!). I've always wanted to go back and redo that bit so that I could get it onto the GP2X as well, but I don't seem to have any time to do that kind of stuff anymore :(

Seriously???

Wow!

I was trying to write you... at supernova.ath.cx and is foxtrot also you?

 

Anyway, not only are those email addr's bouncing, but XRoads is experiencing some serious linkrot, Google knows about it but all the sites are defunct...I hadn't really researched if I could find a valid download.

 

I gotta admit, Xwindows isn't the most mainstream choice of platform...It's a damn pity it never made it to dreamcast :-(

 

Did you analyze the monster's behavior by hand, so to speak, or inspect the ASM code?

 

http://www.gamersquarter.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=861 - the gal who did the other tribute site w/ video is making a port, or more of a close to the original sequel, that'll be Windows only... I think she's calling it XXRoads, kind of a nod to your title....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does the 7800 have good character-based graphic support?

 

Also, given that the 7800 has a better port of Robotron than the C=64, it's almost less urgent.

 

But still it is a neat game, and different enough from Robotron to be worth the while.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does the 7800 have good character-based graphic support?

I'm not exactly sure, but since the 7800 can push a lot of sprites I figured it could be done that way.

Also, given that the 7800 has a better port of Robotron than the C=64, it's almost less urgent.

:?

Edited by vdub_bobby
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was trying to write you... at supernova.ath.cx and is foxtrot also you?

 

Anyway, not only are those email addr's bouncing, but XRoads is experiencing some serious linkrot, Google knows about it but all the sites are defunct...I hadn't really researched if I could find a valid download.

Yeah, both those email addresses are dead... Especially the foxtrot one (man, that was a LONG time ago!). Unfortunately, I don't know of any active download sites... I know I have a backup somewhere around here on floppy disks, although I don't know what version it is. I'm terrible for not making backups, and I almost don't want to see how old the backup is, as it'll just serve to remind me how much work I lost in that hard drive crash. Aside from switching to SDL, I had incorporated a whole menu system (it's kind of hard to use command line arguments on a Dreamcast!), it worked very nicely too. I wish I had posted that version on the net, as I'm sure someone could have easily ported it to Windows.

 

Did you analyze the monster's behavior by hand, so to speak, or inspect the ASM code?
I think I did most of it just by memory... Anything I couldn't remember, I just made up. Most of the monster friendships probably aren't even remotely correct... and as opposed to the original, there actually were monsters that did actively hate each other (I think the Brown Monkey and Purple Rubberhead were one example). It was so long ago now that I can't even remember how I coded things though.

 

I do remember though that monster behaviour was actually one of the easier (and fun) parts of it though. I had a lot of trouble getting player movement to work just the way I wanted it to, and it took a long time to get all the graphics into there the way I wanted them (I played the original in VICE and took MANY screenshots). I always wanted to improve the graphics and add sound effects/music, but I have very little artistic skill and no skill whatsoever with audio. I also intentionally kept things rather simple so that the game could still be played on old Unix machines (there's actually code in there so that the game will gracefully reduce it's color usage if necessary, even going so far as to support a monochrome display).

 

http://www.gamersquarter.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=861 - the gal who did the other tribute site w/ video is making a port, or more of a close to the original sequel, that'll be Windows only... I think she's calling it XXRoads, kind of a nod to your title....

Wow, that's awesome! Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery :)

 

--Zero

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We looked at the original for how they handled player movement...the control part is pretty clever and easy, if the player isn't quite centered when they try to turn a corner, they walk the way they're facing 'til they can make it. I guess making sure the players move at a steady pace while everything else speeds up is more tricky...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 16 years later...
On 4/20/2006 at 10:09 PM, kisrael said:

We looked at the original for how they handled player movement...the control part is pretty clever and easy, if the player isn't quite centered when they try to turn a corner, they walk the way they're facing 'til they can make it. I guess making sure the players move at a steady pace while everything else speeds up is more tricky...

I used to love Crossroads on the C64 - is this remake (or better yet the source code) available online anywhere? 
I would love to try remaking it for Windows using QB64 or QB64PE... 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

I tweaked the code a little, managed to get it to compile on modern linux and posted the source code on github
https://github.com/cfrankb/xroads

The xroads homepage only exists in the waybackmachine
http://web.archive.org/web/19991103192006/http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~foxtrot/xroads.html#dl

The author talks about a version 1.0 but I haven't found anything else.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...