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Mars Adventure Game
Post by Jack Kelly on Mar 31st, 2016, 3:46pm

Take a trip with me down memory lane – back to the early days of personal computing in the 1970’s – when MS-DOS, Visicalc, and Zork were the most exciting things that were happening. Yes, back to text-based adventure games – interactive stories where the only video was in your mind.

When I got my Radio Shack TRS-80 I bought an adventure game called “Mars”. It came on a 5 ¼ inch floppy diskette in GW-BASIC source code. Yes, the old floppy disks that you could actually bend nearly in half! You could turn them over in the drive and record 512kb on each side. The game was a bit lame so I enhanced it as much as I could within the 64kb memory restriction that I had at the time. My family, friends, and I enjoyed it for many years.

Just for old times sake I recently converted “Mars” to Windows, using LBB of course, and cleaned it up some. It runs in an 800 x 600 pixel window, so if your screen resolution is enough for that you can give it a try by downloading the EXE file with the link below. Believe me, you don't want to see the source code - pure spaghetti. At least there are no GOSUBs or line numbers anymore, but still far too many GOTOs.

Click the following link to download it from my homepage-- Get it here.

If you try it and have any comments, criticism, suggestions, etc., please let me know. Or if you encounter any bugs or annoying glitches. Or if you just want to share some nostalgic stories of your own from years back. The thread is open ...
Re: Mars Adventure Game
Post by Richard Russell on Apr 1st, 2016, 10:56am

on Mar 31st, 2016, 3:46pm, Jack Kelly wrote:
If you try it and have any comments, criticism, suggestions, etc., please let me know.

Sadly I can't run it, because the opening screen doesn't fit on my display! My (widescreen) laptop has a 1920x1080 display, but because of the high DPI figure (144) Windows automatically scales it so that it appears to be 1280x720 to an application like yours, and I'm guessing that your opening screen is more like 800 pixels high.

I could override the scaling by creating a shortcut to your program and changing the compatibility settings, but it's a fiddle and I suspect not many people would bother. It would also result in the text being uncomfortably small.

So if you want your program to be compatible with a laptop like mine you'll have to ensure that none of your screens are taller than about 600 pixels (I always think an 800x600 window is a good 'safe' choice).

Richard.
Re: Mars Adventure Game
Post by Jack Kelly on Apr 1st, 2016, 6:47pm

Thank you for your feedback (again), Richard. I have changed the window size to 800 x 600 and put out a new version with a few more minor enhancements. The same link should work.

Jack
Re: Mars Adventure Game
Post by Richard Russell on Apr 3rd, 2016, 11:58am

on Apr 1st, 2016, 6:47pm, Jack Kelly wrote:
I have changed the window size to 800 x 600 and put out a new version with a few more minor enhancements.

It seems to run fine now. I haven't the patience to proceed very far, but it appears to respond sensibly without me having to type in commands that are too contrived. I did notice that it spells 'gauge' incorrectly, which is the kind of thing that rather jumps out at me I'm afraid.

My one significant concern is that it let me quit (by clicking on the close button) without prompting me to save the game state, or saving it automatically. If I was trying to play it seriously that would be very annoying!

Richard.
Re: Mars Adventure Game
Post by Jack Kelly on Apr 3rd, 2016, 4:09pm

Thank you. Your comments are noted and applied. The game is aimed at young people, but it still takes a lot of time and patience. Has anyone else given it a try? Download a fresh copy of the EXE file first.
Re: Mars Adventure Game
Post by michael on Apr 15th, 2016, 02:57am

Nice effort.
It really is a blast from the distant past. You ever thought of making some graphics for each scene?
Even 4 potential doors and a room for each scene and items that you can see and remove and drop in a room.
(even if they are different colored blocks or letters)
That would be the 80s style game look. Then the text based game would be more luring. Just an idea..
Recently I was thinking of making a game of this sort, but on the choose your own adventure style.
I now see how graphics (even simple ones), can make a world of difference.
Re: Mars Adventure Game
Post by Richard Russell on Apr 15th, 2016, 11:52am

I wonder if either of you has come across the 'DJY Adventure Game Engine v3' for Liberty BASIC, by James Young? It's a classic adventure game but with graphics screens, although they are very low resolution.

The code is exceptionally well commented, much of it in amazing 'ASCII art'. This is a unique program which has to be seen to be believed!

Google can't find it but it's very clearly indicated as being Public Domain (see below) so I doubt that there would be any issues with making it available. However linking to the original would obviously be better if anybody knows where it is.

Richard.

Code:
'
'    .----------------.   .----------------.   .----------------.
'   | .--------------. | | .--------------. | | .--------------. |
'   | |JJ________~'  | | | |Yttci_____~.. | | | |Jt____  ____  | |
'   | |6|_   ___ `.~.| | | |65JJ|_   _|:''| | | |6|_  _||_  _|.| |
'   | |SS5| |   `. \:| | | |X66YJj| |+>;;~| | | |S65\ \  / /!::| |
'   | |QXX| |    | |;| | | |QDS_5Y| |c=+!!| | | |QXX6\ \/ /=+>;| |
'   | |KK_| |___.' />| | | |HQ| |_' |cc==>| | | |KQDX_|  |_ii++| |
'   | |W|________.'c=| | | |NN`.___.'Jtjii| | | |WHH|______|jc=| |
'   | |MWNHQQXS55JJjc| | | |MWNKKDDS6YYtjc| | | |MMNHQQXX65YJjj| |
'   | '--------------' | | '--------------' | | '--------------' |
'    '----------------'   '----------------'   '----------------'
'    _      _             _                  ___           _
'   /_\  __| |_ _____ _ _| |_ _  _ _ _ ___  | __|_ _  __ _(_)_ _  ___
'  / _ \/ _` \ V / -_) ' \  _| || | '_/ -_) | _|| ' \/ _` | | ' \/ -_)
' /_/ \_\__,_|\_/\___|_||_\__|\_,_|_| \___| |___|_||_\__, |_|_||_\___|
'                                                    |___/
'                          :::     :::  ::::::::
'                         :+:     :+: :+:    :+:
'                        +:+     +:+        +:+
'                       +#+     +:+     +#++:
'                       +#+   +#+         +#+
'                       #+#+#+#   #+#    #+#
'                        ###      ########
'
'                        _.------------------.
'                 _.---''                     `-----.
'             ,-''                                   `--.
'          ,-'_____  _     _ ______         _____ _______`-.
'         /  |_____] |     | |_____] |        |   |         \
'        /   |       |_____| |_____] |_____ __|__ |_____     \
'       (    ______   _____  _______ _______ _____ __   _     )
'        \   |     \ |     | |  |  | |_____|   |   | \  |    /
'         \  |_____/ |_____| |  |  | |     | __|__ |  \_|   /
'          `-.                                           ,-'
'             `--.                                   _.-'
'                 `-----.                     _.---''
'                        `------------------''
Re: Mars Adventure Game
Post by Rod on Apr 15th, 2016, 1:31pm

I would just publish it. We have lost vast amounts of code with the closure of files archives.

Then folks can enjoy it again.
Re: Mars Adventure Game
Post by Jack Kelly on Apr 16th, 2016, 07:47am

I'd love to have a look at Adventure Engine, if anyone can find it. I'd also love to get my hands on Infocom's old text game compiler - the one they used to make the three Zorks and many others. Text games are interactive story books. Like books, all the graphics are in your mind with just suggestions from the text. That's the real beauty of it. People, especially kids, are much too addicted to the video-like graphics of today's games. (IMO)

Actually though, I'm much better at orchestration rather than composing.
Re: Mars Adventure Game
Post by Richard Russell on Apr 16th, 2016, 09:35am

on Apr 15th, 2016, 1:31pm, Rod wrote:
I would just publish it.

I've uploaded it to the LBB Yahoo! group's Files area here (members only):

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/lbb/files

The file is djyv3.zip. A few things to note:
Richard.
Re: Mars Adventure Game
Post by Jack Kelly on Apr 17th, 2016, 2:02pm

Thanks for uploading Adventure Engine to the Yahoo site. It looks like something more for Michael than for me, but it's piqued my curiosity about Cheetah.

Years ago I used a great database system that seems to be lost and gone forever, like so many things. It was one of the modules in a DOS suite called Enable. Have you ever heard of it? They never upgraded to Windows unfortunately. A Wikipedia link follows:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enable_Software,_Inc.

I can't get this link to work. Search for "Enable Software" in Wikipedia. Sorry.
Re: Mars Adventure Game
Post by Richard Russell on Apr 17th, 2016, 3:40pm

on Apr 17th, 2016, 2:02pm, Jack Kelly wrote:
I can't get this link to work.

It contains a comma and a dot, which should be escaped as per URL standards:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enable_Software%2c_Inc%2e

But no, I've never heard of it.

Richard.