reproduction of dungeon master screen

[goyo]

Good evening,
I tried to reproduce the Dungeon Master game screen on the Oric using the Orichir tool.
Visually, it more or less works
here :
http://rari.free.fr/dm_oric.png

[Dbug]

Not bad

I've been thinking about that game on the Oric for quite a while, and I even wrote an article about it a few years ago.

Basically the main issue is the fidelity of reproduction versus the playability.

Like typically most of the Dungeon Master interface is designed to be used with a mouse. There are few options to get a mouse on the Oric, like using the LOCI USB or the 8bit hub, but the majority of people would not have that, so even if the game could work with the mouse that would only be limited to a very tiny number of people... and implementing a proper mouse system on the Oric would be quite complex since there are no hardware sprites, no double buffering, quite harsh color clashes, etc...

"Loriciels" had a "mouse cursor" type selection to paint, etc... but it was so less efficient/slower than for example "Master Paint".

So after all these tests I made, I reached the conclusion that I would not make Dungeon Master, but instead make a dungeon crawler type game with some homage/references to Dungeon Master here and there, but the game would be 100% keyboard driven instead of trying to get a mouse.

Even with the keyboard you can still make things real time, but that would change the design because you could not have things like "pixel hunting on a wall to find a hidden button" anymore, but you could have the character stats automatically detect there is something and show dynamic options in a text menu: Attack, Search, Open Door, Press Button, Rest, etc...

[goyo]

Thanks, Debug, for these clarifications. I’ve seen your demo and I think it looks great. Regarding the mouse, I find the cursor system used in Blake’s 7 to be quite effective, but it’s true that for real-time gameplay it’s a bit limiting when you need fast reactions, like grabbing an item from your inventory and throwing it. I find your idea of adding the ability to search for a hidden spot or observe the surroundings very interesting.

[Dbug]

Generally speaking, it's the whole topic of "conversion/adaptation".

Quite a few arcade games were impossible to port on home computers due to the complexity of what was on screen, which was only doable because there were multiple processors and dedicated hardware for sprites, sound, etc...

Some of the 8bit ports of these games are better than the 16bit ports, because instead of trying to convert the game, the developers identified what were the important part of the game, and then tried to make a game on the machine putting these elements at the core. Atari ST and Amiga programmers on the other hand tried to replicate the parallaxes, the zooms, the color gradients, the special effects, etc... and ended up with things that looked quite good on screenshots but were pretty much unplayable because of performance or approximate gameplay.

When porting from the Atari ST to the Oric, we have to be smart

[Chema]

I completely agree with Dbug. You can implement a working cursor, but without a real mouse to handle it, it is a nightmare. If you ever tried to use an atari st or similar with the keyboard or a digital joystick, it is the same.

You can make it work for point and click games, menus in an application, or even a lemmings clone, but for fast action the user experience will always be poor, imo

[goyo]

Thank you both for these clarifications. Indeed, we need to find the best technical adaptations for a machine like the Oric, demonstrating great ingenuity and creativity, things you both already practice as Jedi Masters of the field