Tilting at Windmills

It’s always good to hear from other retro-enthusiasts pursuing the same kind of work I am… here’s a link to a fellow working on a VIC-20 cartridge-based CRPG, and the picture above is of what it looks like. Very cool!

Honestly, the VIC-20 is a decent machine, and it’s unfortunate that it was overshadowed by its big brother, the Commodore 64, so fast. I think the only thing people even remember about it was that William Shatner was their spokesman.

Most 99′ers, unfortunately, have a low opinion of the machine, and not because of its capabilities. It was the price war between TI and Commodore that eventually lead to TI ending its home computer division. This lead to a lot of bad feelings between the two groups.

I wish I could say it was all in the past, but I have personally experienced this hatred. And from another 99′er, no less.

When I first joined the Yahoo 99′ers group several years ago, I was researching other computer’s video capabilities, to see how the TI could measure up to them in various areas. The Apple II’s complicated 6-color high-res display was very puzzling, and the Commodore 64′s exact color limitations were not always clear… apparently it stayed mostly in 160×192 mode for most games. It was possible to trick it out to do 4 colors an 8×8 block in 320×192, but this required heavy CPU manipulation and interrupting the retrace, and most of this was done in the demo scene in the mid 90′s, long after the machine had left the stage as a contender.

Anyway, I made some posts on the subject on the group, and one 99′er made some nasty comments about posting about “trash” machines on the boards. I tried to laugh it off and explain myself, but he wouldn’t leave it alone, and he started viciously attacking me in print, and in personal e-mails. He wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than my banning from the group entirely.

Nobody else thought this, and many of the group’s members came to my defense. His responses to them were equally nasty, and eventually the moderator had to ban him after it became obvious that he was completely irrational about it.

It was a very strange and uncomfortable thing to happen, and unfortunate since this fellow was the owner of a large stock of TI software and copyrights, which he then withheld from the board’s members all of whom he considered “traitors”. He also accused them of piracy, something that was particularly inaccurate, since most of the group were, if anything, over-zealous in their efforts to prevent software piracy.

Anyway… it’s a sad comment, I suppose, on how some people are unable to let go of a grudge, even after 30 years. I like to think all retro-gamers and developers can find common ground in their love of old platforms and nostalgia of the old days of computing.

Realms of Quest III (Vic-20)

Let’s hope I run out of puns for titles eventually…

Work’s been slow on the CRPG of late, I have had a lot of other things going on in my recreation time.

One thing I did do was split armor into cloth, leather, hide, mail, and plate. Before I had it as light, medium, and heavy. The cost to do so was very little, and it helps me further define the classes limitations.

Naming weapons and armor has been an interesting business as well, and will likely go on in debate all the way to the final product. I have 15 character names for items, so there’s plenty of space for a rich descriptive of each item.

The problem, though, is when you run out of different names for swords, axes, and so forth. I’m avoiding mainstream fantasy races, so “dwarvish axe” and “elvish sword” are out. Instead I’ve been doing a lot of research into different cultures and names for weapons.

This leads into another problem, though, which is when the word may mean something somewhere, but is almost meaningless to your average person now. As an example, a practice sword made of wood was called a “waster” at one point… but what conclusion would you reach if you had a “wooden waster” sword?

Another problem is escalation. Each weapon in a given type is progressively better than the previous one. Why? Technically, while a shorter sword has less advantage than a long one, it’s no less deadly in the right circumstances.

One thing I definitely want to avoid is how the old game Phantasie did it: “SWORD+1″ to “SWORD+12″. Yuck!