kisrael Posted April 13, 2006 Share Posted April 13, 2006 (edited) 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... Edited April 13, 2006 by kisrael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted April 13, 2006 Author Share Posted April 13, 2006 *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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laner Posted April 13, 2006 Share Posted April 13, 2006 *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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+HatNJ Posted April 13, 2006 Share Posted April 13, 2006 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badbrad Posted April 14, 2006 Share Posted April 14, 2006 Wow, I've never seen this game. I downloaded the video of this game in action, looks awesome! Off to get myself a C64 emulator.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ze_ro Posted April 15, 2006 Share Posted April 15, 2006 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted April 16, 2006 Author Share Posted April 16, 2006 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.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vdub_bobby Posted April 17, 2006 Share Posted April 17, 2006 Definitely a fun-looking game; played a little in VICE and had a fun time. Good candidate for a 7800 port... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted April 18, 2006 Author Share Posted April 18, 2006 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vdub_bobby Posted April 18, 2006 Share Posted April 18, 2006 (edited) 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 April 18, 2006 by vdub_bobby Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legeek Posted April 19, 2006 Share Posted April 19, 2006 Fun game! I played it back then, I think from a COMPUTE's gazette disk (I rarely got the big games typed in)... Checking out the interview now... Cheers, Ben Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ze_ro Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted April 21, 2006 Author Share Posted April 21, 2006 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... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madscijr Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 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... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madscijr Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 (Or if anyone has any info on where to find xroads, and could post a link, that would be great.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfrankb Posted October 4, 2023 Share Posted October 4, 2023 On 3/23/2023 at 3:30 PM, madscijr said: (Or if anyone has any info on where to find xroads, and could post a link, that would be great.) here is the most recent version of the source that I could find https://archive.download.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/7.1/it/powertools/alpha/SRPMS/xroads-0.6-5.src.rpm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfrankb Posted October 4, 2023 Share Posted October 4, 2023 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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