Fun fact: This version of Reuben Quest: Ev Awakening is 35376 bytes on-calc. The original, if we include the Omnicalc app, was over 100 kilobytes large and in order to run, it required almost as much RAM as Gemini 3D.

This was because the original used Omnicalc to generate grayscale (using sprite(0,0,0,96,62,0,0 commands after almost every TI-BASIC line of code to XOR the checkerboards fast enough to generate grayscale on 15 MHz calcs). In addition to that, maps were generated using xLIB (before it became an APP), which used matrices and could only draw tiles from Pic0. Also, Flash Gordon was not very reliable for RAM management compared to real(10 in xLIB.

Had the original been written half a year later, it would probably be several dozens of KB smaller and run twice as fast. It would be nowhere as smooth nor small as this remake, though.

Here's a Youtube vid of the game in action:




So far, it's near perfect, although I noted the following issues (most are minor or just nitpicking):

-The first frame for the sword animation appears for a shorter amount of time than the other two. At some frequencies, it's so fast that we only see the 2nd and 3rd sword animation frame. On the regular 83+, the 2nd frame actually flickers (the entire sword flashes once so it's like if the frame showed up twice)

-The battle backgrounds for the 1st and 2nd dungeons are not the right ones. I don't know about the mountain nor the Ev Palace, though, because I haven't reached them yet.

-It would be nice if we could access the grayscale/delay setup menu from the title screen and battles instead of just on the map.

-The enemy death animation doesn't fill the enemy sprites completely. It's worse with larger sprites.

-There are in-game inconsistencies such as how you can exit dungeons without pressing enter, but have to press enter to get in. You should maybe make doors so that you can enter any building without pressing Enter.

-On the title screen menu, the x2 and down arrow keys go back to the title screen the same way CLEAR does. Not that this is a problem, although this was a bit strange

-Talking to the first guy is kinda hard because Reuben keeps moving past him. I guess I can live with it, though, since the new walking routine makes it MUCH easier to walk through narrow areas.

-The enemies never seem to attack first. In the original game, they sometimes did.

-Random encounter rate is very high. I think in the original game it was randomly set between 10 and 30 steps after every battle, but now it always seems to be 10 or 15 (multiples of 8 pixels).

-The intro scrolling animation is missing, but I don't remember if this was intentionally left out or not.

-When setting up the grayscale quality, if you go too low, the calc keys almost completely becomes unresponsive. Maybe make the grayscale settings so that if the user doesn't press any key for 1 minute then it exits the program?

-There's absolutely no indication at the start of the game stating who made the game or at least a copyright (such as 2004-2014 Omnimaga or 2004 version by DJ omnimaga/2014 Remake by Sorunome). If someone sends the game to a school friend without the readme then he won't know it's from Omnimaga. Maybe before the title screen the screen could turn black with the following text on two lines "2004-14 Omnimaga" "www.omnimaga.org".

-The readme itself misses the credits for the original sprites. Although they were converted by Art of Camelot for the most part, almost all enemy sprites were originally ripped from Final Fantasy II and III for the NES (Square-Enix). It also doesn't state that I made the original 2004 game. It might also be a good idea to include a link to Omni in the readme since the original game came from here (although it came from Epic Programming Studios but EPS has died long ago so...) and put a download link for the beta on reubenquest.net


I might have forgotten some stuff but that's what I could find so far. Most of those are mainly nitpicking, though, and minor issues, except the wrong battle backgrounds and very high encounter rate.

EDIT: Wow I didn't realize this post was this long

Here's a Youtube vid of the game in action:

Thank you!

So far, it's near perfect, although I noted the following issues (most are minor or just nitpicking):

hehe

-The first frame for the sword animation appears for a shorter amount of time than the other two. At some frequencies, it's so fast that we only see the 2nd and 3rd sword animation frame. On the regular 83+, the 2nd frame actually flickers (the entire sword flashes once so it's like if the frame showed up twice)

They should all be the same amount of time as the delay is the same. It consists out of 5 frames, up, up+left, left, left+down and down

-The battle backgrounds for the 1st and 2nd dungeons are not the right ones. I don't know about the mountain nor the Ev Palace, though, because I haven't reached them yet.

I pulled the ones form here: http://www.omnimaga.org/ti-z80-calculator-projects/reuben-quest-axe-remake/msg381495/#msg381495

-It would be nice if we could access the grayscale/delay setup menu from the title screen and battles instead of just on the map.

Will do from the menu, battle would be too much code IMO as probably noone will ever need it

-The enemy death animation doesn't fill the enemy sprites completely. It's worse with larger sprites.

If I made it fit in it would clear "Level up!" partly, thus I decided I'd put it like this

-There are in-game inconsistencies such as how you can exit dungeons without pressing enter, but have to press enter to get in. You should maybe make doors so that you can enter any building without pressing Enter.

IMO interaction by walking onto something is only very good if you walk whole tiles at a time.

-On the title screen menu, the x2 and down arrow keys go back to the title screen the same way CLEAR does. Not that this is a problem, although this was a bit strange

Wut......that might be an Axe bug

-Talking to the first guy is kinda hard because Reuben keeps moving past him. I guess I can live with it, though, since the new walking routine makes it MUCH easier to walk through narrow areas.

Maybe I can add that it doesn't do that aligning with NPCs

-The enemies never seem to attack first. In the original game, they sometimes did.

Crap, knew I forgot something Do you happen to know out of the top of your head what the chance for that was?

-Random encounter rate is very high. I think in the original game it was randomly set between 10 and 30 steps after every battle, but now it always seems to be 10 or 15 (multiples of 8 pixels).

I used this http://www.omnimaga.org/ti-z80-calculator-projects/reuben-quest-axe-remake/msg330930/#msg330930

-The intro scrolling animation is missing, but I don't remember if this was intentionally left out or not.

Omitted on purpose

-When setting up the grayscale quality, if you go too low, the calc keys almost completely becomes unresponsive. Maybe make the grayscale settings so that if the user doesn't press any key for 1 minute then it exits the program?

Grayscale tuner is by Runer, it is part of Graylib, so won't fix

-There's absolutely no indication at the start of the game stating who made the game or at least a copyright (such as 2004-2014 Omnimaga or 2004 version by DJ omnimaga/2014 Remake by Sorunome). If someone sends the game to a school friend without the readme then he won't know it's from Omnimaga. Maybe before the title screen the screen could turn black with the following text on two lines "2004-14 Omnimaga" "www.omnimaga.org".

I decided to move that to the end of the game as that fit in there better IMO, but I guess I'll have to look some credits through again and add some more

-The readme itself misses the credits for the original sprites. Although they were converted by Art of Camelot for the most part, almost all enemy sprites were originally ripped from Final Fantasy II and III for the NES (Square-Enix). It also doesn't state that I made the original 2004 game. It might also be a good idea to include a link to Omni in the readme since the original game came from here (although it came from Epic Programming Studios but EPS has died long ago so...) and put a download link for the beta on reubenquest.net

Same as above

I might have forgotten some stuff but that's what I could find so far. Most of those are mainly nitpicking, though, and minor issues, except the wrong battle backgrounds and very high encounter rate.

the game

EDIT: Wow I didn't realize this post was this long

Hehe

I've found a bug:
when you've reached level 16, your maximum hp is 14...
this makes the game impossible to play

Wut, Level 15 is supposed to be max

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on May 08, 2014, 01:08:44 am

-There's absolutely no indication at the start of the game stating who made the game or at least a copyright (such as 2004-2014 Omnimaga or 2004 version by DJ omnimaga/2014 Remake by Sorunome). If someone sends the game to a school friend without the readme then he won't know it's from Omnimaga. Maybe before the title screen the screen could turn black with the following text on two lines "2004-14 Omnimaga" "www.omnimaga.org".

I decided to move that to the end of the game as that fit in there better IMO, but I guess I'll have to look some credits through again and add some more

It doesn't have to show up for very long (1-2 seconds?)...just the rho with "Omnimaga: 2014" underneath. I think it would look a bit cooler with the splash.

what are you supposed to do after returning the shovel?

For the battle backgrounds, the first dungeon is supposed to be the brick background, the cave the rocky background, the mountain and final boss room must have the background where you see a rock border with the sky at the top and the ev palace has the castle background with windows in the wall.


For the sword animation I don't see 5 frames, just 2 (Or 3 if I manage to barely see the up left frame). Maybe a 84+ only issue?


And yeah IMHO there should be a 2004-14 Omnimaga or something at the start. That way people don't have to finish the entire game before knowing who made it, and generally readmes also have a full copy of the credits. It's common netiquette when releasing stuff.

Yeah it's just a plain brick background. I didn't put it in the post you linked to because it's identical to the dungeon bricks, so it didn't need any new tile. Here are the color ones btw (although the 2nd one in the original is really made up of just 1 plain brick tile)



For the animation, what I basically see is the following on the TI-84 Plus:

Up+left during 0.05 seconds
left during 0.2 seconds
down+left during 0.2 seconds


On the regular TI-83 Plus I see:
up+left during 0.01 seconds
left during 0.25 seconds
left (yes, I see it twice) during 0.25 seconds
down+left during 0.25 seconds

I can't see any up nor down frame

On an unrelated note, was the beta uploaded on TI-Planet and ticalc.org?