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Doomsday Lost Echoes - Released and now with Physical Edition

Started by ||C|-|E||, 00:18, 31 July 15

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invent

Nice teaser update ||C|-|E||


The only thing that might help reduce the file size of the images is less dithering but would be at the expense of the great style that it is now.
Enjoying/Creating Retro Games

||C|-|E||

It is actually not a problem, they are loaded in real time from the floppy (or the card) when you change your location :) . Although a bit slower than traditional methods this system allows you to include almost as many images as you want if the floppy has enough capacity. MiguelSky (thanks again!  :-* ) taught me how to do this and he used the system in Nheredia as well ( Nheredia ). Each image will be 8 KB at the end, so they will load reasonably fast. Even better, you only need around 2.5KB to implement the graphics!


Gryzor

Thanks for the update man... From what I've seen behind-the-scenes this is shaping up to be a really nice and entertaining game, so even though by now I've gone through the story line and maps quite a few times, I still can't wait to see the first build :)

TFM

I'm curious if in this game at some palce we see an 6128  ;)
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

||C|-|E||

Quote from: Gryzor on 15:26, 10 October 15
Thanks for the update man... From what I've seen behind-the-scenes this is shaping up to be a really nice and entertaining game, so even though by now I've gone through the story line and maps quite a few times, I still can't wait to see the first build :)

Too bad that you will probably have to go through everything a few more times! You will end completely fed up  :picard: but you will be the first tester as well!  :D

Quote from: TFM on 21:52, 10 October 15
I'm curious if in this game at some palce we see an 6128  ;)

We can actually put one, yes!  Anyway, the station where everything takes place is called 6128-REGUS  ;D

On the other hand, I am making slow but steady progress with the code, everything seems to work quite smoothly, although the sequential language of PAWS, without OR, FOR, IF, ELSE is really killing me. The problem is that, as you all know, the amount of RAM is limited and with a more sophisticated programming language I could save tons of memory. CM/P using more than 64KB does not help either, but that´s life  :) .

||C|-|E||

#55
Sooo... good news!! The code is happily progressing, although it will still take a lot of time, and I have managed to properly add the graphics. I wanted to tinker with the pictures at the very end of the game, with most of the code already finished, but I felt curious to see the adventure with them at this state and check how everything looks in Mode1. It think that it is very nice, and it does not even load so slow, probably faster than the traditional vector graphics in other adventures :) . If there is RAM at the end, I will change the font for something more appropriate  :-X

(sorry for the horrible compression artifacts).

[attachimg=1]

[attachimg=2]

[attachimg=3]

MiguelSky

Quote from: ||C|-|E|| on 02:50, 18 October 15If there is RAM at the end, I will change the font for something more appropriate  :-X
You don't need more RAM in order o change the font for PAWS. It could be done by modifying CP/M. I used http://www.seasip.info/Cpm/software/setfont.arc to edit the Nheredia one ;)



||C|-|E||

That is great! I still had not check how to do it, thank you! :D

I guess that the old nice font used in AD aventures is somewhere out there. It could be nice to give it a try. Alternatively, something that looks like a digital clock would be great  :D

MiguelSky


||C|-|E||

That is great! Now, I can apply it as soon as I learn how to use setfont (I still did not have time to look at it  :picard: )

Thank you!


||C|-|E||

#60
It is time for another update!!  :D

Sooo... a big chunk of the code is already finished. In fact, the game is fully playable now, from start to end, and we are adding some features that we left outside because we were not sure about the RAM. We managed to include almost everything we wanted:

- Fights against some other characters. During the fight, the graphics will change and you will see a close view of your opponent.

- Four or more verbs for every action to make player's life as easy as possible if he/she guesses what to do but not the exact words. We also have included the verb "use" as a sort of wild-card that can be employed when you do not know another more appropriate word. I think that this will be specially useful if the player's mother tongue is not English.

- Three endings.

- Score system, although simplified. At the end of the game, it will show you the ending you discovered and the side quests you completed.

- Three side quests, two of them completely optional and the third one essential to unlock the good ending.

- Lots of things that is possible to examine.

- And Amstrad CPC appearing during the game!! (TFM´s suggestion  ;D )

- Some new extra puzzles.

- Some automatic events with their own graphics.

- Parser informing player of the status of the doors, objects, etc., before and after manipulation.

There are some things that we still did not include but you will see in the final release, among them, we would like to add:

- death screen/s.

- "exits" command to list all the available exits.

- decent font for the texts.

- and others.

We are also making very good progress with the graphics. At the moment, Dani has drawn more than half of the locations although, sadly for him, there are still a lot more graphics to go  ;D . We think that they look really really cool, all of them, although it takes quite a lot to draw each one  :picard: .

About bugs, I have been playing the game quite a lot and I did not find any game breaking problem at all. I noticed some consistency issues here are there but they are already solved. I also found some things that needed to be reworked, but I think that they are more or less OK now. Anyway, I am sure that the people beta testing it will find a bunch of problems. The main issue I personally find now is that I am completely unable to judge if the puzzles are just too easy or, in some cases, too hard. This is something very delicate, because logic is something that depends on the person itself, and I really feel unsure about it.

Finally, regarding the memory, the game is already 51KB. I am compressing the database and this saves around 18KB, but still. This definitely excludes the possibility to play it in a not upgraded CPC464, even without graphics. I am a bit sad about this, because I was hoping to make it fit in the TPA of CP/M 2.2, but it was not possible. The final version of the game, including the graphics patch, will be around 58-60KB. As I said somewhere else, all the graphics are loaded in real time from the floppy, HxC or similar, and a 720KB floppy will be necessary to fit them all. We could make a 3" floppy version, though, but just with a fraction of the graphics, I do not think that this is worth it. If X-MEM is installed, I think that it should be possible to use it as a RAM disk but I still did not test it (I do not even have my X-MEM yet  :D ).

And that is it!

jbaudrand

does it have a savegame ability? I gave up playing Athanor because I can't save and must restart from beginning each time I play

Gryzor

As far as I know yes it does :)

||C|-|E||

Quote from: jbaudrand on 08:43, 15 November 15
does it have a savegame ability? I gave up playing Athanor because I can't save and must restart from beginning each time I play

So, yes, as Gryzor said, you can save whenever you want. Moreover, there are RAM save and RAM load options, a short of temporal quick save and quick load  :)

TFM

WoW! Moving forward in big steps!  :) :) :)
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

||C|-|E||

I have made even a little bit more of progress  :D :

- Added the death screen

- Added and "exits" command that tells you the connections of a location

- Improved some descriptions

- Added more things to examine :)

In principle things look nice, although I will for sure need the help of PCW users if we want to port the adventure to the other Amstrad as well. It should be piece of cake, but still...  :)

dodogildo

Being a rookie on this board, I noticed this project a bit late.  But It seems fantastic!! Excellent artwork, ideas, also all the teamwork here.. congrats!

Are you considering to make this a real boxed edition on a disk? With a poster and everything? You can consider crowdfunding.. If you do, I'm in!
M'enfin!

||C|-|E||

Well, it is a possibility, yes. We could create a physical edition with some goodies like a little book with concept art and illustrations, a t-shirt... . But only if we feel that the game deserves it at the end  :D . Then, there is the problem of the physical format itself. A couple of 3.5" floppies? the 3.5" floppies plus an USB pendrive or SD card? None of this is really canonical, to be honest  :picard:

Puresox

#68
Is there a function that shows all the Verbs that can be used ? Or is that a daft question ,with regard to text adventures.?


With regard to the concern you have of the game puzzles being to easy/hard. Have you considered getting a family member or friend , to go through the adventure with yourself supervising and giving clues/advice when needed . You could sort of get an idea of how they get on with things .

||C|-|E||

Quote from: Puresox on 20:01, 18 November 15
Is there a function that shows all the Verbs that can be used ? Or is that a daft question ,with regard to text adventures.?


With regard to the concern you have of the game puzzles being to easy/hard. Have you considered getting a family member or friend , to go through the adventure with yourself supervising and giving clues/advice when needed . You could sort of get an idea of how they get on with things .

So, in principle there is not a function telling you all the verbs. This is mainly because some of them could actually give quite a lot of tips about puzzle resolution :) . However, the most common verbs will be detailed in the user manual, and the parser is able to understand a lot of things, much more than in a traditional 8 bit adventure. On the other hand, since "use" is implemented as a wild card you should not get stuck in the game because you are not able to guess the correct word. This is something I always found frustrating in most 8 bit adventures and I tried really hard to prevent the same from happening here, quite a lot of RAM has been used just for this purpose :) .

About the puzzles, well, before the game is released it will go through extensive testing. The testers are going to be people with a lot of experience in these type of games, so I hope they will be very valuable :) . The main part of the story should be actually quite straight forward for somebody used to text adventures. This is because we realized that probably most of the people is not going to expend weeks or months with the game, something pretty common in the past. However, the side quests are by far more complicate. Actually, one of them is not even a "true" side quest because it is necessary to unlock the good ending and a lot of additional lore. So, if you just want to give the game a try it should be easy enough but if you want to go really deep, read all the lore and unlock the good ending the adventure will require far more effort. It is a delicate balance, let´s hope that we will manage to achieve something like that :) .



Gryzor

Of course the risk you're running with "people with a lot of experience in these type of games" is that it's going to be easier for them; so they may be able to judge how logical it is or how well made in its technical aspects, but not the difficulty itself...

||C|-|E||

That is actually very true! I will also send the game to inexperienced people, at least I know a couple of them that would like to try it and only played an adventure in their lives :D. Anyway, difficulty is always complicate to judge. I remember when I played Chichen Itza, it took me like a couple of years to finish the first part (and countless hours). However, I finished the second in a single evening  :D

TFM

I'm 99% inexperienced in adventures.  :)  Can do some dump user beta testing for you.  :)
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

||C|-|E||

Thank you! Then, you will officially receive a beta version when is ready plus the user manual  :D

TFM

Ok, the weekend is over, time to sober up ... getting ready for gaming: Helmet up, scratching rust off the swords...
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

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