Dragon Song [Beta]

[Madskillz]

Cant wait to try it out! It looked really nice from the screenshots I had seen earlier!

[Erktheorc]

Well here it is: http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~erikjb/filer/dsbeta.zip

A few important notes:
Use MirageOS for the ti83+/ti84 version and Venus for the ti83 version.
Check the readme for more information

There are a few bugs in the level, I will not fix them if they are not critical (crashes the calculator).
The beta.xml file is the source code for the level. All the hexdata was generated using picture converters or graphics studio for the tile map (and some find & replace .
The DSBeta0 is the header file and stores some information about the campaign (not about the levels in it more than how many there are). DSBeta01 is the level file (both are generated from the xml file).

The AI sucks in this demo level, it can be used much better in other levels, but for this one I kept it simple
There are four different henchmen you can get in the level (only one per try though), some of them are easier than others to get

Please tell me what you think about the current attack system and if I should change it to something more like Fire Emblem (see an earlier post for some explanation of how I want to do it).
The control might be a bit difficult in the beginning and that is one thing I want to change...

I hope all the files works, please tell me if they don't and I will try to fix them

Edit:
I think I forgot to mention that the Del key is used to end the turn

[cartj]

I just tried it, looks great and is really fast, no problems yet

[Erktheorc]

Changed the title of the thread to indicate that the beta is released.
The only issues so far is that the game won't load the level if you don't have enough ram free (13-14KiB should be enough though), and that I forgot to add the Del key to the readme (which I have now)

And about the speed, I still use the romcall _grbufcpy and _getcsc to show the screen and check keyinputs, so it can be a lot faster if I change those two.
I actually used direct input and ionfastcopy first, but it was too fast with those two, so I had to change

[JavaMan]

I've waited too long for this and now it's finally playable!

[tr1p1ea]

Very cool game, but i had a little trouble getting the character to move around, it didnt seem to notice when i pressed 2nd next to the unit?

[Erktheorc]

Very cool game, but i had a little trouble getting the character to move around, it didnt seem to notice when i pressed 2nd next to the unit?

You have to first put the cursor over the unit you want to move and press 2nd, the cursor should now disappear. Press the direction you want to move the unit in (you can press 2nd to get the cursor back). When you don't have any moves left that turn the cursor won't disappear (the cursor will also reappear when you don't have any moves left). Attacking other units works nearly the same way, but instead of pressing 2nd press alpha. Notice that ranged units cannot attack units next to them. The enemy unit should blink when attacked, as should you when the enemies attacks.

If it's unclear whats a unit or not, put the cursor over it and press mode to show it's status. This will also show the status of enemy units though. SP is the amount of steps/attacks you have left that turn.
I hope this helped to clear things up a bit.

I wont be home for a few days... so I probably wont be able to answer any questions for a while. But please post them anyway since someone else might know what to do
And as said earlier, the control is a bit to complicated it seems so I'm will change it... but that have to wait to next year

[Erktheorc]

Next beta will have some major changes. First attack types (melee or ranged) will be replaced by weapon types. There are now three different weapon types instead and they will also have there own custom image. The new weapons works like in Fire Emblem (one type of weapon is better against another and so on). Also alpha key will not be used for attack anymore, simply moving your unit "over" another will pop up a attack dialog. A few minor changes to the AI will be made, it will be a little bit smarter.
I will also make a few changes to the level format, a few things will change in the xml file. The level compiler will now also check for errors.

I don't know when the next beta will be out but it will hopefully come with a new level

[necro]

any chance this will go grayscale? Anyways, pretty neat, I would suggest not overdoing it in terms of complexity and itd be cool if there were battle animations like in fire emblem.

[threefingeredguy]

I'm sure he wants to redo the whole engine and double or triple the size of his data.

I've been looking forward to this game for the longest time. I wish you'd update every day, though when you post updates at wide intervals it makes them more exciting.

[Erktheorc]

any chance this will go grayscale? Anyways, pretty neat, I would suggest not overdoing it in terms of complexity and itd be cool if there were battle animations like in fire emblem.

Well, there wont be any grayscale graphics and no battle animations like those in fire emblem. But I'll see if I can fix at least some sort of animation. The level files would simply be too large if I added battle animations since all graphics are loaded from from the level files themselves (and even with quite simple animations the levels would still be 6-7k larger which is probably too large
I will probably display how much damage a unit does when attacking and also how good the weapon is against another so the introduction of weapons hopefully wont make the game harder to play... The controls will at least be much easier I hope

I'm sure he wants to redo the whole engine and double or triple the size of his data.

I've been looking forward to this game for the longest time. I wish you'd update every day, though when you post updates at wide intervals it makes them more exciting.

Well if I posted updates every time I added something it would be quite boring
Latest update for example was that I changed the index of the start event from 4 to 3 (since victory event that had index 4 before doesn't exists anymore... it was replaced by a victory event instead
Though with a new level in next beta it means new graphics and more screenshots



Edit:

Also found some old screenshots from version 2.0, 4.0 and 5.0 (the beta is v9.69)


From 2001, the 2nd version of the game. Was written in basic for ti83 The game worked but was a bit slow... only 2-player mode.



From 2002. v4.0 was for ti89... only made the map loading routine so was never finished...



From 2003 v5.0, still in basic but used a tiny asm library for drawing the graphics, most of it was completed and I played it with some friends in school. Had a simple AI and a few levels (5 if I remember correctly, and 3 campaign levels).

[Erktheorc]

Since I haven't posted in a while I thought it was time for a small status update
I'm still working on the new level compiler, it's nearly complete but until then it's hard to test the new features.

Anyway the new things:
*A new level compiler that is nicer than the old one
*It's now possible to turn of the fog for levels that doesn't need it
*Weapons! Also icons for weapons, specified by the creator of that level. Each level can have it's own weapons.

And the things left to do before next public beta:
*A new attack pop up that tells you how efficient the weapon is against the enemy.
*Change the controls (remove alpha as attack button)
*Change AI, merge both AI codes and add check for weapon types.
*Maybe change the number of registers from 16 to 256...
*Add at least one new level (will probably be sci-fi based). I will also include the old beta 1 level, modified to work with weapons.

Things left for the final release:
*Make a better manual
*Create a campaign

[threefingeredguy]

Cool stuff. Can't wait for a download.

[kalan_vod]

Not much left, well unless you call making a campaign much >.>..jking, I really am looking forward to the release!

[Erktheorc]

Well I can remove a few things from the todo list
The new level compiler is completed and works ok. It compiles the beta level fine.
Also removed the alpha key as attack key, it now works fine to just move "over" another unit to attack it.
Made a small attack window pop up when attacking a unit:

I maybe change it later, but it will have to do for now
1x is the damage modifier and 1x means normal damage (2x double, .5 half), also the ugly things to the left/right of the damage modifier are the new weapon icons (this time both units had the same weapon

The campaign will probably be the most boring thing to make, but I will release the tools I used to develop the beta level with the next beta. So everyone that wants to make a level/campaign while they wait for the official one can do that