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Open Beta for Lair of the Lich King [C128]

Warty

Member
Joined
May 29, 2017
Messages
33
Location
Minneapolis, MN
Hi Folks,

I have a game I've been working on for 2-3 years now, and expect to launch this summer. This game is a "rogue like". If you don't know what that is, it's a dungeon crawler with a randomly generated dungeon, with increasingly deadly monsters as you go down in levels. The demo has 3 levels; the full game has 25+ levels, and 30+ unique monsters, 24 types of magic, various armor and weapons. You will not find fancy bitmapped graphics here: Roguelikes are not supposed to use graphics at all, but I hedged a bit on the C128 version, and have custom character graphics. But essentially, this is my ode to text-based games (but NOT Zork, etc.: this is a hack-n-slash, turn-based game, no typing involved).

If you are interested, and have a C128 (also doing betas for B-128 and Foenix F256), give it a whirl. Feel free to cross-post this, but if you do, I'd appreciate a link so I can track user feedback/bugs. I don't have a dedicated web site yet.

The retail version will have either 3.5" or 5.25" in the box.

NOTE: this requires a 64K VDC chip and an 80 column monitor. The 16K chip won't work. You can, of course, play it on VICE or Z64K, but...

Known issues:
- none

Launch Status:
  • Software: B128 and C128: ready, pending beta testing. F256: 99% ready, needs installer.
  • Manual: complete
  • Registration card, quick start guide: complete
  • Packaging: design complete, box is in-progress. If anyone knows brilliant solutions to getting a 9x6x1 box that I can either put a sleeve on (a la Amiga Falcon), or get graphics printed on, let me know. (without having to sell a kidney, I mean).
  • Web site: not started. Will be SquareSpace probably.
  • Cost: TBD (waiting on packaging and web site)
  • Schedule: TBD. Plan to have at VCF Midwest at very latest.
 

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I have a C128 and an 80 column monitor, and conveniently, an RGBI video cable should be arriving for tomorrow.

I may have to look into the 64K VDC chip though; if I'm in good shape already, or can get that sorted, I'll certainly give this a try.
 
I also have a c128 but am unsure of the 64K VDC. I’ll hook it up tomorrow and check it out!
 
Don't all C128DCRs have a 64k VDC, so that's at least one surefire check?

I need a comical chain of adaptors to convert RGBI to a monitor I own. :/
 
You can check it by opening the case and the metal case. The left part of the metal cage contains the VDC and memory. The memory is at the bottom, right of the video chip. If the numbers end with 416, it is a 16 KB version. If it ends with 464, it is the 64 KB version. The only thing you have to do is replace the 16 KB ICs with, for example, 4464 or 41464 ICs. No soldering or what ever needed.
 
A few screenshots to give a feel. (these may have bugs showing, I generally only took screenshots of stuff that was breaking during my own testing)
 

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It appears I have a 16k version? Think I am looking at the right spot.
 

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Each screen is 2000 bytes for chars, 2000 for attributes=4k. 6 screens + 3 dungeons (approx. screen sized). That's 36K, plus from memory I think font reserves 4k. So doesn't need 64 technically, but 16 is not enough. Definitely making a trade off: better in-game performance rather than loading the screens in all the time. There's about 48.5K of code and data in extended memory, so it wouldn't be impossible to make a version for 16K VDC in the future that stashed some of the screen data in EM and then copied to VDC memory. Wouldn't be "fast" exactly, but it's only 4k, and definitely faster than reading from disk again of course.
 
Beta 8:
- built as beta 8
- added additional keys to control menu selection in Inventory mode
- added g and + as alternate keys to SPACE to exit inventory and tinker modes
- added more feedback when taking on or putting on armor: your new defensive rating is spelled out
 

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Looking good. I've made it through the demo levels a couple times now. Note that WASD (rather than WAXD) is a far more natural (and modern) keyboard directional configuration that users will find more agreeable. You might also consider allowing cursor keys as movement, as most Commodore users are used to that as well. This is even more important in the menu system, e.g. your inventory management screen. It's a bit cumbersome to not have cursor key movements in menus. Other than that, no issues to report.
 
The only limiter I have on extra keys is memory. The inventory screen is in an overlay with a lot of free space, so I was able to add more keys. The main game though has basically no bytes free, although I did free up some in beta 7 when I disabled the rest of the cheat commands. I'll see if I can add in S and the cursors. The cursors on a C128 are not very useful (all in a line at top of keyboard), but they are very nice when running in VICE or something.
 
B-128 as in CBM-II machine?
Yep. There's a separate post for the B-128 version in this forum, with the download. There are a few people testing it, and so far, what we learned is that SD2PET is not compatible enough with the B series/700 series/CBMII series to load files consistently. 8050 user reported success, as did someone with an SDPET+.

VICE works fine FWIW.
 
I have a B-128 but I have the SD2PET as well. I guess I will try the regular C128 version. Thanks for making it!
 
In the manual it states:
Copy all of the files on the supplied 5.25" or 3.5" disk to Ultimate 1541 II+ or any compatible drive replacement hardware.

Will this only run off an Ultimate cart? Could I copy the contents of the d71 to, say, an FD-2000 disk? (If so, in native mode?) Or a CMD hard drive (again, in native mode so I can use any size necessary)? Or do you recommend this game be played on an Uii+ due to how you've built and tested it?

I have a lot of hardware options - just curious what avenues I could go down before I get too deep.

+_+_+_UPDATE_+_+_+_+_
Reading further, it sounds like you're basically encouraging folks to copy the disk to a workable backup and saving the original for storage. Maybe I was over analyzing it at the start. I'll copy it to a D71 partition on the FD-2000 and go from there!

P.S.
I created an account here to gain access to your game. Big props to you for this exciting achievement! Stoked!!
 
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