First Fantasy: Mana Force RPG Color remake! [84+CSE] [hybrid BASIC] [DCSE8]

u/Dream of Omnimaga February 16, 2015, 05:22:01 PM

Update (small due to lack of time this weekend)

All sub programs renamed to get rid of all theta characters. This should eliminate some file sending problems.

Also some loading speed improvements in the village.

I'm thinking about replacing the entire map engine. Game is also going to be renamed to First Fantasy: Mana Force, as tribute to the fact it would be the first ever CSE RPG and also in reference to Final Fantasy series

Last Edit: February 16, 2015, 05:23:37 PM by DJ Omnimaga

u/CKH4 February 16, 2015, 05:31:41 PM

Will there be sub programs in the final version? They always annoyed me so I tried to write my programs without them.

u/Dream of Omnimaga February 16, 2015, 11:57:11 PM

There will probably be some, unless Kerm or tr1p1ea fixed the appvar utilities in Celtic2CSE (DCSE wouldn't let me set appvars for some reasons, only sub-programs). Early versions of the game will be split in as many sub-programs as the original since the plan was to do the optimizing later, while later versions will try to merge as many as possible (within the extreme 84+CSE RAM constraints). Making an RPG this large in hybrid BASIC in just 1 file is impossible.

Last Edit: February 17, 2015, 12:00:53 AM by DJ Omnimaga

u/CKH4 February 17, 2015, 02:58:10 AM

OK, cool. I'll make sure to download if I ever get a cse or ce.

u/Dream of Omnimaga February 17, 2015, 03:03:21 AM

Glad to hear.

It won't be Reuben Quest nor Illusiat 13 in terms of features and gameplay but since this game was often overlooked in the past due to how long it took before an English translation happens (11 years of wait), this remake will probably help getting it more known

.

Also, the game is now officially rebranded. See below:

I also made it so that it turns the screen black after selecting something in the menu. It looked weird before because the game would freeze for 1 second then the HUD appeared above the title screen or something.

Doing fade ins/outs with Celtic2CSE text is a major PITA because you use two values ranging from 0 to 255 as opposed to RGB values from 0 to 31 (or 7)

.

u/CKH4 February 17, 2015, 03:06:56 AM

Well, it looks really good anyway. How's it doing on file size right now and how big do you expect the final version to be?

u/Dream of Omnimaga February 17, 2015, 03:12:13 AM

Thanks.

The size right now is a bit larger than the original (I think it's approximately 18KB) because of all ClrHome commands that got replaced with 9:prgmMFCH (custom screen clear that does any color rather than just white), the extra color commands and some adjusting for screen size differences. However when I replace the map engine I think size will go down significantly. I think I'll use strings instead of matrices too so it requires even fewer RAM.

EDIT: It turns out that if you use identical values for Celtic text colors, then you end up with xLIBC color palette. So it's better than I expected I guess and should make it easier to choose colors for stuff I guess.

Last Edit: February 17, 2015, 06:03:20 AM by DJ Omnimaga

u/Dream of Omnimaga February 18, 2015, 12:04:57 AM

Good news!

I finally managed to figure out how to erase the screen much faster without the glitchiness that ensued last night:

Basically, last night I tried to erase the screen using drawfilledrectangle instead of an Output command through a For loop. It was originally innefective because I got the dimensions wrong. Now I got them right (although I have to work around certain glitches as you'll notice in the gif above, which involves Output() drawing stuff 1 pixel off. The glitch is basically an horizontal line that is being left behind below the HUD. To work around it the text I display at the top of the screen must fill the entire screen width, resulting in minor file size increase. This won't be a problem anymore in future versions, though, if I decide to no longer make village menus full screen.). Using draw shape is made possible by the fact that Celtic2CSE colors are not just limited to the ones on Cemetech wiki and that using the same value for both parameters basically gives you the xLIBC palette.

Anyway, notice the big difference

Last Edit: February 18, 2015, 02:25:43 AM by DJ Omnimaga

u/Unicorn February 20, 2015, 04:25:42 AM

Wow this looks way more smooth (in terms of color) than an Basic Games I have seen for the CSE. I will be sure to try this out when it is realeased!

u/Dream of Omnimaga February 20, 2015, 04:53:12 AM

Thanks. My goal was to make the most out of Celtic2CSE's det(12 command. I wanted to use as much ASCII as possible for this game in particular to keep it truer to the original so I have to be creative with colors. The village turned out better than I expected, though. It reminds me of some early NES or Atari 7800 games.

u/Dream of Omnimaga February 28, 2015, 04:23:52 AM

Not much work on this last week, but a few minutes ago I just started moving walking/map code inside the main program. Some code will remain separate for now (and archived) due to lack of RAM. The ending was also moved to the main program for the time being. This eliminated one sub-program. The main file is over 10 KB. I will soon write code to launch the map data, the in-game menu and battles from archive.

u/Unicorn March 01, 2015, 03:55:01 AM

Can't wait!

u/Dream of Omnimaga March 10, 2015, 03:04:14 AM

Thanks.

Some more work has been done tonight on this, although more backend stuff. I scanned the entire game for which real variable was actually in use in-game and what each list used were used for, because it has been 13 years so I needed to make sure. Back then, I used mostly real variables to store game data, sometimes missing one or two, so I didn't take any chance and included all the ones from A to W in save files. With tonight's update, variable H and P are no longer included in game saves.

However, in longer terms, there is still A LOT of work to be done, because look at how the game was setup in early 2002 (the lists were added afterward):

[spoiler]A=LV
B=Current HP
C=Current MP
D=Job equipped
E=Enemy HP
F=Current Mana
G=Gold
H=
I=Dungeon 1 completion
J=Dungeon 2 completion
K=Dungeon 3 completion
L=Dungeon 4 completion
M=Dungeon 5 completion
N=Dungeon 7 completion
O=Enemy LV (dungeon-wide)
P=
Q=Enemy HP
R=Enemy ID/random encounters
S=Damage caused
T=Item 1
U=Item 2
V=Item 3
W=Item 4
X=Animation/For loops/temporary vars
Y=Animation/For loops/temporary vars
Z=Animation/For loops/temporary vars/Getkey
Theta=Animation/For loops/temporary vars
|N= Char Y pos in room
I%= Char X pos in room
PV= Y position in dungeon
PMT= X position in dungeon
FV= Dungeon ID
L1(1)= Char Y pos in room (copied to |N once dungeon map data is loaded)
L1(2)= Char X pos in room (copied to I% once dungeon map data is loaded)
L1(3)= Y position in dungeon (copied to PV once dungeon map data is loaded)
L1(4)= X position in dungeon (copied to PMT once dungeon map data is loaded)
L1(5)= Dungeon ID (copied to FV once dungeon map data is loaded)
L6= Temporarily used to copy loaded save data into its respective set of variables.

Former vars:
L2(1)= Battle mode (was removed in color remake)
L1(6)= Game difficulty (now only normal difficulty is available. Besides, even in normal mode it's not that hard)[/spoiler]

I might also expand the intro with some prelude text like in early FF games. New Game + mode (like in Chrono Trigger) was also scrapped since this game is now part of an entirely different series and there wasn't any point in this particular game to start a new game + other than doing dungeons in any order and the ending will most likely be expanded a little bit, since it was basically non-existent in the original game.

Last Edit: March 10, 2015, 03:06:40 AM by DJ Omnimaga