Quest Quest: A Graphic Adventure (new download available!)

[CompWiz]

Yeah, isn't it nice when someone actually works dilligently on a program? It would be nice if everyone had that much motivation(and free time).

[cough]Joe[/cough]

As for the poll, how can you look at this:


and say you don't want grayscale?!?

[L4E_WakaMol-King]

Don't get me wrong, I'd love Grayscale... but I don't think I will be able to do it... at least on this go around.

The game will already be huge as it is. It will be made of 2 programs, and my goal is to keep them both small enough to fit in RAM (so that they can be sent from calculator to calculator and not just downloaded off a computer). When I say that, I mean keep both of them small enough so that each one can fit in RAM seperately... not at the same time. I know that sounds like a a huge game, but the way this is looking, it will take a lot of effort to keep it that small.

The program as it is now takes up about 1.6 k. That's with about 30 sprites and 1 map... and there's still a few parts of the engine that I have not finished yet. The finished product will have dozens of maps and probably over 100 sprites. Then there's the text engine... that will be the other program. That will be a monster in its own right.

The reason I'm going so fast on this project is to make sure I finish it before I turn 80.

[KevinJB]

The program as it is now takes up about 1.6 k.

That's nothing. Don't forget there are many compression tools available- ask Digitan, he knows more than me on that subject.

If it ever approaches ~14k, that's when I'd start considering making it an app.

[L4E_WakaMol-King]

1.6 k is relativly small, but it will begin to increase exponentially once I start adding sprites and maps.

Also, there will be enough text in the game to fill a small book.

By the way, here's an example dialogue that I thought up last night. It would take place in the medieval part of the game, right after you got there...

Action: Talk to KING...

KING: "Greetings, peasant. You may speak."

Options:
1. Where am I?
2. That's Mr. Peasant to you.
3. I'll just be going now.

YOU: "Where am I?"

KING: "Why, you are in the kingdom of Rulehy. And I am its ruler, King Bob."

Options:
1. I don't suppose you know how I can get back home?
2. Where did all the pirates go?
3. Well, I didn't vote for you.

YOU: "I don't suppose you know how I can get back home?"

KING: "Uhh... no. It's against our rules to venture out past the borders."

Options:
1. Your highness, I wish to undertake a quest.
2. Well, thanks anyways.

YOU: "Your highness, I wish to undertake a quest."

KING: "A quest? What did you have in mind?"

Options:
1. I shall hunt down the scurvy pirates!
2. I shall slay the vile dragon!
3. Actually, I was hoping you had something in mind...

YOU: "I shall slay the vile dragon!"

KING: "Slay the dragon? I have a dozen knights working day and night to do just that. Do you know what we would get if you slew the dragon?"

Options:
1. Peace and prosperity?
2. Comfort and saftey?
3. Valuable mountaintop realestate?

YOU: "Peace and prosperity?"

KING: "Widespread unemployment. Besides, do you have any idea how much paperwork is involved in killing an endangered species?"

The final product will be worded a little better, but you get the idea. If anyone has dialogue suggestions, please feel free to post them or email me.

[CoBB]

You have to be very careful, because text can grow even faster than graphics. This excerpt alone is around 1k when uncompressed.

CompWiz: you seem to be very much attached to that picture. Yes, it looks nice, but is there any information on how big the map is, how much space the program takes up and how elaborate the story is?

[kalan_vod]

LOL, that is quiet a funny dialoge. And yes you might want to make a compression routine for the text.

[L4E_WakaMol-King]

You have to be very careful, because text can grow even faster than graphics. This excerpt alone is around 1k when uncompressed.

And don't forget all the code that is involved . Like I said, this game will be quite large.

It will be a while before I have to tackle the problem of the script and the text engine, but does anyone have any suggestions for how I might do it? The trouble with creating a uniform system for handling text is that every string is a different length. My thoughts are that I will probably have to create my own text drawing routine... one that will be able to recognize the end of a text string. That way, I will be able to access text sequentially.

Suggestions anyone?

[tr1p1ea]

Kerey Roper wrote a huffman text compressor (and some asm decompression routines) for the 83/83+. I havent seen him in a while but if you can get in contact with him and perhaps get your hands on those routines, no doubt they will help.

[L4E_WakaMol-King]

Thanks for the reference. I'll see what I can find.

By the way, one of the items in the game will be a Pez dispencer. You have to give it to a headhunter that wants a shrunken head on a stick. I need suggestions for who the dispencer should be of. It needs to be someone real, so that it would look like a small head... (aka not Darth Vader or something).

[CoBB]

You need to develop some kind of indexing scheme, so you can refer to each contiguous piece of text with a 16-bit id. It's a bad idea to mix literals with structures like scripts.

[L4E_WakaMol-King]

I've been giving some major thought to this recently, and I think I've come up with a method that will work, and won't waste space. More details to come when I actually get to programming it.

[KevinJB]

KING: "Why, you are in the kingdom of Rulehy. And I am its ruler, King Bob."

Does the action take place in canada ?

[axcho]

There's still the option of Cellular Automata Tiles to reduce memory requirements for sprites. You'd have to use 8x8 tiles though.

For text, maybe you could use some sort of Huffman coding for each word, so common words like "the" would take fewer bits than words like "scurvy".

[L4E_WakaMol-King]

Thanks for all the links guys. You're all being so helpful.

Here's another piece of script for your previewing pleasure:

Setting: After you accidentially sink the pirate ship that you are traveling on, you wash up on the shores of Medieval Land, where you are thrown in prison. You wake up in a cell with a bed of straw, a dish of bread, a jug of water, a window, and a fellow inmate. Already in your inventory is a ghost parrot, a curtain, and some rope.

PICK UP bread: "It's stale."
PICK UP dish: "Ooo shiney."
PICK UP jug: "It's full of water."

LOOK AT door: "It's locked tight."
TALK TO cell mate:

"Hey sonney."

Options:
1. So what are you in for?
2. Isn't there anything else to eat around here?

"So, what are you in for?"
"Software piracy. I've been in here for a while. But you know what I really want?"

Options:
1. A toothbrush?
2. A razor?
3. Soap on a rope?
4. I don't know, tell me.

"A toothbrush?"
"A pet."

GIVE ghost parrot TO cell mate: "I was thinking something more... alive."
TALK TO cell mate:

"Hey sonney."

Options:
1. So what are you in for?
2. Isn't there anything else to eat around here?

"Isn't there anything else to eat around here?"
"Sometimes you can dig up tastey bugs."
"Eww."

LOOK AT window: "The sun is shining and the birds are singing."
PUSH window: "Won't budge."
USE rope WITH window: "I don't think hanging myself is the answer."
USE bread WITH window: "A bird flew to the window."
PICK UP bird: "I scared it. It flew out the window."

PUSH straw bed (it moves to reveal a patch of dirt and a worm)
PICK UP worm: "I'm not that hungry yet."
USE bread WITH window: "A bird flew in to eat that worm."
PICK UP bird: "I scared it. It flew out the window."

USE bread WITH window: "A bird flew in to eat that worm."
USE curtain WITH window: "It dosn't match the interior."
PICK UP bird: "Gottcha!"

GIVE bird TO cell mate: "Oh, thank you! Here, you can have this spoon I found."
USE spoon WITH dirt

--- Hours later ---

You emerge from a hole on the other side of the wall, free of prison.
"That's one study spoon."

More to come.

[L4E_WakaMol-King]

Oh, need some more suggestions... at one point in space land, you find a primitive human culture museum. It contains things from our every day lives that aliens in the future have found and have thought to be of great importance. Here's an example:

LOOK AT sign: "A primitive human idol, believed to have some religious significance"
LOOK AT pez dispenser: "It's a pez dispenser of Alex Highsmith."
PICK UP pez dispenser: "They won't miss this one thing."

Anyone have ideas for what other things to have in the museum? Also, I'm still taking suggestions for whose head to put on the pez dispenser. I'm thinking of making it Ron Gilbert, author of 'Secret of Monkey Island.'

(BTW, you give the pez dispenser to a headhunter in Pirate Land that is collecting shrunken heads on sticks. )