Doing 3D games on the Oric ?

Want to talks about games you like, would like to see developed on the Oric, it's here.
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Dbug
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Post by Dbug »

Agreed, looks very good :)

It almost look like a kind of "stargate" is opening, and if you are fast enough you could lock on it and jump after the ship :)
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Post by Antiriad2097 »

Tractor beam lock? Hitch a free ride to another system through a wormhole using someone else's fuel? It'd be an incentive to fire on passing ships, to get them to jump so you can explore further.

Risk/reward again, as you could end up in an ambush.
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Chema
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Post by Chema »

Your ideas guys are incredible.

This one could be quite tricky to implement; ships which hyper, simply dissappear from the game, would need to set another key, check distance, get a close system randomly (means looping creating systems and checking distance, for example) and make the player jump there and then re-create the first ship there...

Well, could be done, the question is if I can do it in the 300 bytes I have left!

Sounds challenging... I will study this :)

On another matter, I just added the two extra equipment addons I had in mind. Those won't be accessible through the market, but will be given as rewards in some missions. I will refrain from explaining here what they are, to avoid spoiling the fun.

So, I am now in the process of designing the 12th and final mission of the pack :)
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Chema
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Post by Chema »

Ok. I have tested again the whole mission pack and solved a couple of glitches I found. And confirmed the story can be played and solved.

Some missions are quite easy, some are really difficult and tricky, but all are doable with reasonable skills.

I think the story behind the 10 missions is quite clear and it is easy to follow, with the indications of what you are supposed to do next in your status screen and the numerous text messages and speeches.

I will, however, have a last look at all the texts to check for anything that could be improved in this sense.

BTW, there are two messages that indicate when you have done something that prevents you from finishing the mission pack, as well as when you have had success with it.

I still have some ideas left on my todo list, but I am not sure if I will address them at all. The game is quite bug-free now (for what I know, although in such a big and complex game it is impossible to test all the possibilities) and I think it is ready for a release.

The only things left are a couple of small details in the manual and the intro, which Dbug is working on. As I am going on vacation in august, I think a reasonable release date will be september 2010, so stay tuned.

I find it very exciting to have an Elite-like game on the Oric such as this. We will be able to play a version of the game that is ranked as one of the most influential videogames ever. And it is not me who is saying this: have a look at this report in which they list the 10 most influential games. Elite is ranked number 3, just after space invaders and pacman.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol ... 455080.ece
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Post by Symoon »

Sounds very exciting!
2010 is amazing, with O-Thrust, StormLord and probably 1337, 3 new games (hoping I don't forget any other ;))
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Chema
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Post by Chema »

Hi guys.

Just wanted to tell you that we have been working in the intro and it is quite finished. Twilighte has offered help in tweaking some pics, which is great news.

I think we will be able to release the game in september, so be prepared!
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Post by Twilighte »

Symoon wrote:Sounds very exciting!
2010 is amazing, with O-Thrust, StormLord and probably 1337, 3 new games (hoping I don't forget any other ;))
I think you meant Impossible Mission Symoon, doubt O-Thrust this year but who knows!
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Post by Symoon »

Twilighte wrote:
Symoon wrote:Sounds very exciting!
2010 is amazing, with O-Thrust, StormLord and probably 1337, 3 new games (hoping I don't forget any other ;))
I think you meant Impossible Mission Symoon, doubt O-Thrust this year but who knows!
Nope, O-Thrust was released in May this year (seeing the thread).
And I didn't mean Impossible Mission, as I don't know when it's going to be released and didn't want to put any pressure on the author ;-)

Chema, glad to read the game is on its way. Finishing a project is always the hardest part IMO. Good luck!
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Dbug
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Post by Dbug »

I guess he understood OType instead of OThrust :)
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Chema
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Post by Chema »

Symoon wrote: Chema, glad to read the game is on its way. Finishing a project is always the hardest part IMO. Good luck!
Yep, it is the hardest part with all the polishing and testing. In this case this is even more difficult than in Space:1999, due to the open nature of the game and its complexity.

The intro is evolving rapidly and we already have something rather satisfactory, though there is room for improvement...

In addition I have included a last "bonus" mission to the mission pack which serves as a good ending to the story (IMHO).

So I still think we will be able to release in early september...

Stay tuned!
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Chema
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Post by Chema »

Ok, the intro is ready. I am waiting for Dbug's approval and, if there are no big changes, the game will be released later on this week...

It has been an exciting work, with a lot of challenges to solve and I have learned a lot.

It could not have been done without the help of many people, and the collaboration of Twilighte (with those fantastic graphics) and Dbug and the help of Thrust and those who beta-tested the game. Thanks to all the community.

Two years of work, maybe even more... I only hope you like it, and would love to hear feedback from any possible player.

Stay tuned.
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Post by ibisum »

My Telestrat arrives this week, so I hope this is one of the first things I play on it! :)
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Chema
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Post by Chema »

Oops... I am not sure if this will be bad news...

This game, as well as Space:1999 requires and Atmos (an Oric-1 could do aswell, not sure) and Microdisc (not Jasmin or other controller).

I have pondered supporting the Telestrat many times, but it requires some changes in the way disk is accessed, overlay is switched on and off and maybe other matters.

I asked Fabrice Frances in the past and he gave me an outline about the changes that should be made, and they were not inmediate at all!

After release, I might consider studying the matter in deep and see what could be done.

Sorry for this inconvenience.
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Post by Twilighte »

Its a great shame i never got that fantasmagoric Disk boot system working 100% otherwise we'd have a solution for all exotic Orics.
Reports came in saying it didn't work on Jasmin and i know the save code doesn't work.
The other advantage of Fantasmagoric is that it was implemented into my Windows Oric Disk manager permitted files to be freely added or removed.
It was used in my Wurlde game so it will eventually be sorted.

Oh dear so much to do :P
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Chema
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Post by Chema »

Indeed this is a common problem we could try to solve somehow. If only we could get Fabrice to come and help here...

About the telestrat, he told me that the only easy way to port this games to the Telestrat was having it booting with stratoric. Else (booting Stratsed) even the memory map is different, so the game cannot be loaded at $500... more changes.

I tried to boot stratoric on Euphoric, but never got it working (I put Bank7=stratoric.rom, but the oric hangs up with the PC at zero page and showing the initial usual garbage screen before booting). Not sure what I am doing wrong.

Appart from this, switching to overlay is done differently (you switch banks instead), but I am not sure if my code (which just switch overlay on forever) would work or a minor modification could do.

Anybody had stratoric working?

Of course I doubt people have a *real* stratoric cartridge.
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