8bit-Dungeon - Work in Progress

[8bit-Dude]

The next version of 8bit-Unity will add scrolling charmap support for all platform, including the Oric! To demonstrate the new features, I am working on a Tech-Demo called 8bit-Dungeon that is a Diablo inspired crawler.

Here is a sneak preview on YouTube, showing the Oric from 2:06:



I believe that this Tech Demo has potential to grow into a full game (that follows the Diablo 1 story line, or at least part of it). So I would like to gauge interest from the community: Is it worth considering a proper boxed release of the completed game?

Furthermore, to produce a quality result, I wonder if some people would be interested in helping with the following areas:

(1) Conversion of Charsets to AIC format by someone experienced with the format (I currently use Pictoric to auto-convert the Charsets, so the results are acceptable but not amazing, as shown below).

quedex-in.png (6.11 KiB) Viewed 634 times

quedex-out.png (894 Bytes) Viewed 634 times

(2) Using Arkos 2 (or equivalent tracker), write YM soundtracks for the game (again, inspired from Diablo 1).

(3) Contribute Sprites (Piskel) and Maps (Charpad) for the different levels (the maps in Diablo are randomly generated, so these should simply follow the storyline). To give an idea, I have attached the assets created for the Tech Demo.

I look forward to seeing if there is any reaction to this proposal.

[ibisum]

This is really nice work - I've just spent the evening getting set up to build and test this myself, including a bit of tutorial on CharPad .. For anyone out there that wants to contribute to Oric at the ART level, this project is RIPE for the effort. I'm very impressed with how well it runs, even in its current state - just gotta work on the art assets to make it a bit more friendly on the eyes.

[8bit-Dude]

Thanks Jay! I made a special effort on the scroll routine: it is written in assembly and the charset data ordered in the most optimum way (in line groups, so that I calculate the Hires line address only once.

I would love to have this game follow some of the Diablo storyline (start Village (with shops), king Leoric, the Butcher...).

[ibisum]

Yes, the assembly listings are clean and nicely included in the project. I've been impressed with the code so far - you've definitely put a lot of energy into making things work on multiple platforms - and while it is a lot to wrap ones head around, the basic engine and structure is pretty neat.

There are a couple weird glitches with the graphics attributes here and there - but I think a more careful approach to the art itself can be used to address this issue.

The artwork itself, such as the blocks and map components, are very dense, so this is quite a good time for an artist to come in and start to refine the graphics, in case anyone is reading and feels like getting into some sophisticated graphics work on the Oric - and other platforms too, of course, but they don't have the challenges that the Oric does.

I will have a hack session with my kids this week and see if we can't come up with some new levels .. only thing I didn't quite grok yet is how to load/transfer to a new level, but I'll make some maps first, and then see how it rolls. Pretty neat tooling rig, I have to say ..