π’ Near-Mage is OUT NOW on PC!
What time is it? Time to study some Magick!
An adventure game about Transylvania, made in Transylvania.
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1685870/NearMage/
It's the singer, not the song
- Penn Jillette
Triggered by that :verified: thing.
Living with computers since 1980, online since September 1989 (Videotel, BBS, Fidonet-like, Internet).
From Rome, Italy
π’ Near-Mage is OUT NOW on PC!
What time is it? Time to study some Magick!
An adventure game about Transylvania, made in Transylvania.
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1685870/NearMage/
@profoundlynerdy They managed to make a pretty good "demake" of the classic PC demo :)
@jdyer In the "Games everyone should play" section, the Deadline link looks like one but it doesn't work, curiously :)
@profoundlynerdy πββοΈ
I did quite a few things with it!
@jdyer Finally indeed! :D
I'm fondly attached to this game, I was about 10 years old when I played it on the ZX Spectrum with my dad, both of us (we're Italians) improved a lot our English with it! (Especially me, I had started learning it like a year before :)
I was going to link you something and answer a few of your questions, but - like you asked - I won't say anything until you finish the game (or abandon it).
Can't wait to read what you'll write next!!
@profoundlynerdy Maybe Martin Piper's channel? He focuses on the C64, and not every video is about looking behind the code of games, but you might still find it interesting...? :)
@jdyer Yeah, I figured that out :) Still, I couldn't imagine that *so many* adventure games got out in 1982, I was just starting to worry you wouldn't cover it :)
@jdyer Happy to see "The Hobbit" is in your list! I've been waiting for so long to see what you'll say about it! (That game helped me learn English when I was about 10 years old [I'm Italian])
@Sylveon_LowRes_123 We were talking about this one :)
Quite honoured of this mention, actually.
@jalanhenning : "extremely streamlined", I think that belongs to you π
https://bsky.app/profile/konstantinosd.bsky.social/post/3l2xlikvwnc2h
@jonnypencils This one helped me a lot with XC=BASIC!
@jdyer This one came out in December 2022:
https://diduz.itch.io/the-daring-rescue-of-pacuvia-the-sheep
The author is Italian like me.
In that game, you have to use the *simple past*, so it's "PRESI LA CHIAVE" (I took the key) instead of "PRENDI LA CHIAVE" (I take the key), an even weirder choice π
All the Italian text adventures I played back then always used the second person ("PRENDI" and not "PRENDO"). But surely it makes sense to use the first person... π€·ββοΈ
@rubereaglenest It is a lovely post indeed! Thank you so so much!
I was especially thrilled to read "the automap is beautiful and nifty", awww π
Linus #lftkryo Γ kesson has been at it again, this time covering Computers by ClownC0re using quite a few #Commodore #C64 and #Amiga computers, as well as a few floppy drives and his trusty C=tar. The faux sax solo on the latter was really great!
@jalanhenning Hehehe πβ
If you complete the game with full score, it does a little video/audio effect :)
Here is my QB port! You can use it as a cheat sheet :)
You should see it is mostly unchanged, the most edited part is the MAP command, as of course I had to adapt it to QB commands.
Also, in the "post-process" section I've fixed a couple of bugs πβ
Oh, that is actually the QuickBASIC dialect of FreeBASIC (https://www.freebasic.net), in case you want to run it. If you need any help in running it on your computer, you just have to ask πβ
@jalanhenning Ok great! π
I'll give you the actual source code of my QB port so you can compare: I made as few edits as possible, as QuickBASIC is mostly compatible to what Lowres Coder used as its own BASIC :)
@jalanhenning Well, that was your idea after all! :) You used it to randomize the rooms, I just made another deck for the objects, so that they would spread more or less evenly around the map. I even kept the same routine for the actual shuffling, which I found simple and effective! π
When I discovered your card game version after the Lowres one, I thought "Oh, that's where his idea of using a card deck comes from!" π
@jalanhenning You're absolutely kind in saying that π
Yeah, my version looks like a C64 BASIC game, except it's quite fast as it's cross-compiled BASIC π
I did port your game "as is" to QuickBASIC first though, just so I could play it. By the way, I was curious about the reason why Lowres Coder was shut down by Apple, I couldn't imagine it was for its custom message boards, so thank you for that!
That image about inaccessible rooms in my dev-blog post, that is from my QuickBASIC port. If you're curious about it I could make it available too :)
I spent the afternoon playing @JJFlash's hack of my take on Colossal Cave. Lots of fun! https://troypress.com/advent-101-streamlined-randomized-colossal-cave-adventure/ Thanks, J.J.! #InteractiveFiction #ColossalCave
@jalanhenning One of the most beautiful surprises in my life! π€©βπ€©β I would NEVER think you'd actually go back to my version, let alone spending an afternoon on it, so long after we first talked about it! I'm completely flattered! And you even blogged about it? Wow! πβ
I can't take credit for the font, it's the standard C64 one! πβ
You don't need to draw a map on paper to find the Live Map, not even the game knows where it is. I use a separate deck of cards for the objects, the Map card will always be between the 4th and the 7th position in the deck (inclusive), so you just need to keep moving around in new rooms, and you'll find it soon πβ
I removed the "corridor frame" not only as a workaround for inaccessible rooms, it was also boring to walk in it! πβ And it took some precious RAM space too; after removing it I could only think of making the map wrap-around. I can see it can be confusing, but I couldn't think of anything else πβ
Thank you SO SO much, this made my day! πβπ€©β