Spending some time drafting up the script system specs. Will be a few days before I can get anything out with respect to that.

So now that I've announced that I'm restarting CaDan, let's get straight to the point, shall we?

The script system, which allows you to create those nice, beautiful patters, is in need of some serious overhauling. Thing is, there's a few limitations on what the system can do. We're here to hammer them all out.

At the moment, I suppose only geekboy happens to have enough knowledge about the script system to actually suggest much, but I'm open to suggestions from everyone else too! After all, it's a public thread, and everyone wants a piece of CaDan action!

Anyway...

Engine details:

* (NOTE) : Henceforth, the term "register" is referred to with respect to the virtual chunks of memory with which the script system has to work with.
* Four one-byte registers reserved.
* All bullet trajectories are done in polar coordinates, with a fixed velocity.
* Instructions used to load a register with the angle needed to shoot a bullet that would intersect with the player's current position.
* Mathematical operations. At the moment, only ADD is supported, since one can always add with a negative number to achieve it.
* Bitwise logical instructions. Only AND is supported.
* Program flow changing instructions, including an unconditional jump (goto) and conditional jumps (jump), with which mathematical operations may affect the "flags". Contains subroutine instructions, but they aren't very intuitive, and requires quite a bit of keeping track of.
* Pause instructions, both single cycle and multi-cycle.
* Special memory access, given a table of allowed values to change. Originally a way to coordinate attacks between boss scripts and enemy scripts.
* Boss setup and spellcard instructions, used to load special pattern tables. They get their own registers.
* Boss takedown and special effects, including explosions and return to stage.
* Stage setup and progression instructions, including background changes, and enemy/boss creation.
* A way to run actual Z80 ASM code.

What is planned in the reboot:
* Full 8 register setup. Stage scripts will be allowed to have two banks of these, accessed by special exchange instructions.
* Spellcard animation scripts, including a fully working sprite routine and background change instructions. They get their own set of registers. Spellcards have been rather... neglected.
* Register to register support for load and math/logic instructions.
* Support for XOR and OR routines, along with actual subtraction routines. We'll go for some real multiplication and division routines, while we're at it.
* Rotation. For extracting nibbles.
* Support for relocatable scripts and associated assets.

What has been suggested in the reboot:
* Support for jump tables and loops similar to C's SWITCH command.
* Second 128 bullet table and modified interrupt scheme to handle it, accessible via slowdown command.
* Tilemapped dynamic backgrounds

What do you think? Would you suggest something else? Or more?

EDIT: Added elements to table.

I'm going to have to put this project on hold for a while. Gonna spend time rebooting CaDan.

I downloaded your Axiom and was looking at the ReadME for it, and I found that the program read from external files in archive. While it is still quite useful in this form, I have a feature request: could we read the compressed data inline so that we can package the whole program as a single file, under the 8811 byte limit? Thanks.

That's a pretty good suggestion. Funny thing is, that's the way the pucrunch decompressor was originally coded. I think it should be easy enough to add in. Just gotta find some time to do it.

I might be an enormous noob, but could you also provide a link to the compressor of Pucrunch (I have never heard of Pucrunch)
Cause this sounds quite interesting to me, but a link would be greatly appreciated

It's in the archive.
DecompAx\pc\pucrunch.exe
Instructions are in the IgnoreMe.txt file.

Details regarding pucrunch can be found here: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~albert/Dev/pucrunch/

Just so you know, I'm a fan of the movie How to Train Your Dragon, and I've played Persona III, so I figured how well it would be for the characters in that movie to have the sort of problems presented in that game. I haven't really fully thought out the idea so it rested on the backburners of my imagination. Now, keep in mind that I'm a Z80 ASM coder, not a storyteller. So with what little I had, I ... uh. Really didn't do much. That was...

Some odd night a few days ago, I was working on a pucrunch decompressor Axiom and I thought about something. Completely random. Very random. So I put it here in the randomness subforum. An exact copy is found in that project's "IgnoreME.txt" file, which is... well. An alternative to the "ReadME.txt" file (it exists too!).

I would post this mess on fanfiction.net, but I'm not sure if it would be classified as a crossover. The content sure indicates that, but no characters are being used from PIII. Just didn't feel like it. So anyway, the copy from my file (make sure the screen's width is set to be able to display 80 columns).

Tell me what you think about my randomness.

EDIT: May contain a spoiler or two from both titles.
___________
: CREDITS |
----------/
Credits are given where credits are due. Those are in the ReadME.
_________________
: RANDOM BLURBS |
----------------/
Though Hiccup had the power of the Wild Card, there wasn't a single Persona
he enjoyed using more than his Toothless. His Night Fury. His friend.
Despite being just a facet of his overactive imagination, this fragment
seemed to him to be the most real out of them all. This fragment of his own
personality... a fragment of his own? It seems to him to be a fragment of
someone else's personality. Something much older than he was. Ancient,
perhaps. Not his. No, it couldn't possibly be his, and yet it was. It was his
Persona. One that really didn't fit in. Like himself.

Every day, he waited. Waited for that dreaded Dark Hour. Not that there was
anything wrong with it, except that it was the hidden 25th hour of the day,
but it was then, all alone in his room, he could without any strange stares
from his teammates, summon his Persona. His personal friend. His Night Fury.
Every Dark Hour he wasn't shifting around in Tartarus, he would be there, in
his room, basking in the presence of his personal guardian. The one who saved
his life many times. It was like a heaven amidst an ever-present Green Death
that permeated that Hour. It is as it should be, with his friend.

Hiccup never really knew Orpheus. Toothless was his first, and he'll never
get rid of him like he did so many times with his other Personae. Pixie?
Toothless had that one for lunch many months ago. Inugami? Got rid of him
as soon as something else came up. Odin? Didn't get along well with Toothless
so he discarded him rather quickly. Helel? Tempting, but only his Night Fury
will hold that special place in his heart.

There was just one thing Hiccup never really understood. While all the other
Persona, and every other Shadow happened to be classified by Arcana, he could
never really figure out where the Night Fury fell in the scheme of things. He
couldn't possibly be without an Arcana, but it still wasn't identifiable.
Margaret and Igor were no help, the bunch of (then) slack-jawed ninnies.
That dragon was a complete enigma to everyone, but it mattered not.

His dragon. His Night Fury. His Toothless. Damned his other more "human"
teammates. Thinking back on his very first encounter, he could still hear
those words echo out under the first full moon of his year-long adventure:

"Thou art I and I am thou. From the sea of thy soul I cometh.
 I am Toothless, nommer of fishies!"

Together, both human and dragon as one, on this fateful day of January 31,
they face that which dareed to desecrate the world the two shared. On that
day, the two of them alone, rose among the stars to defend all life. To
ensure that humans, full of dreams, hopes, and desires, may continue to
dream, to hope, to desire. To ensure that all the fishies in the streams and
seas will continue to swim, to swim, and... uh. To swim? Ahem. Together,
they ensured that for all life, that there will be a February 1st.

And all the while, deep in the mind of Hiccup but unbeknownst to him,
Toothless was thinking the same thing. All of dragonkind will be safe. And
all of fishkind will be safe. For delicious nomming.

I'm not trying hard enough. Gotta get some stuff out of the way before I can continue. The most pressing matter is recreating stat calculations and the like.

Not totally sure how this would apply, but I've gotten that error before. It was due to some faulty input to a _ChkFindSym romcall. Not sure what else could trigger that error, but the TI-OS does have error checking for strange things like that.