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Development => Calculators => Calc Projects, Programming & Tutorials => Topic started by: Dream of Omnimaga on August 05, 2016, 04:55:51 AM

Title: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on August 05, 2016, 04:55:51 AM
So in the past few years, I often thought about reviving Illusiat 13, but finally never would get around it due to various reasons, such as having other projects, ideas or didn't feel like coding. For those who don't know, Illusiat was a series of role-playing games (JRPG style), written in TI-BASIC (some which uses ASM libs) for the TI-83 Plus and TI-84 Plus monochrome calculators back in 2001 and 2002. There were 12 games at the time in the series, then in 2009 I rebooted the series with a 13th one, which tried to remain true to the 6 previous games by using ASCII art graphics, but was much more elaborate and complete. Unfortunately, 90%-95% into project completion I stopped working on it, except to fix some bugs that were present into the version that came out as-is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfad1g_1-mg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEEz0SPHrqg

This game is the second most elaborate TI RPG, behind Escheron, because of its length and content (SPOILER WARNING) (https://img.ourl.ca/everymap.png), so as a result, It's 135 KB large, so it requires an ASM library to copy archived programs to temporary RAM files. As a result, it will not run on the TI-84 Plus-T nor the TI-82 Advanced. It only runs on the following models:

(half-speed, full archive required)
-TI-82 Plus
-TI-83 Plus
-TI-83 Plus.Fr

(normal speed)
-TI-83 Plus.Fr USB
-TI-83 Plus Silver Edition
-TI-84 Plus
-TI-84 Plus Silver Edition
-TI-Nspire Clickpad/Touchpad with the TI-84+ keypad

So I am asking: Would anyone today still be interested by such game?
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: Unicorn on August 05, 2016, 05:03:08 AM
Wow! That is some hardcore TI BASIC! I would definitely be interested in playing this :D
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: Yuki on August 05, 2016, 06:24:18 AM
YES
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: c4ooo on August 05, 2016, 08:16:20 AM
One should never ask if a people would be interested in a *game* project and just do it ;) Good luck!
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: novenary on August 05, 2016, 11:22:21 AM
YES
EE
S S
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on August 05, 2016, 03:45:29 PM
Quote from: c4ooo on August 05, 2016, 08:16:20 AM
One should never ask if a people would be interested in a *game* project and just do it ;) Good luck!
I was asking, because it's for monochrome calcs and the only ones on which the game runs are only sold in North America anymore. All european monochrome models no longer support ASM.
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: c4ooo on August 06, 2016, 11:46:44 AM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on August 05, 2016, 03:45:29 PM
All european monochrome models no longer support ASM.
Realy? I didn't know that :(
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on August 06, 2016, 05:11:21 PM
Yeah, the 82 Advanced removes it and the 84+T is the english version of the 82A
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: p2 on August 22, 2016, 04:58:54 PM
*reviving dead topics, yay*

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on August 05, 2016, 03:45:29 PM
All european monochrome models no longer support ASM.
So you're saying even calcs like the TI-84+ no longer support ASM programs? I hope not! :(
And how is it blocked? The new OS-Versions block it or something?
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on August 23, 2016, 04:44:43 AM
Yes I am serious @p2 . In Europe (or at least most European countries except France), the TI-82 Stats, TI-83 Plus and TI-84 Plus have been replaced by the TI-84 Plus-T. Basically, the TI-84 Plus-T is like OS 2.71MP, but without the random RAM Clears, and you can't install apps other than the official ones. The TI-84 Plus CE-T (the color one), however, has full ASM and C support.

There is an hack to run ASM stuff on the 82 Advanced that could probably work on the TI-84+T but I don't think it ever got released. You would need to ask BrandonW.

Basically, the TI-84 Plus T OS doesn't have the Asm(), AsmPrgm() and AsmComp commands.
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: p2 on August 23, 2016, 09:48:04 AM
and again Texas Instruments makes me hate them even more...  <_<
I still dont really understand why they don't just ignore or even support communities like ours since we're the biggest fans of their products ever ???

So if I buy a 84+ or 84+-se and watch out not to get a -t version, there won't be any problems?
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on August 23, 2016, 03:51:23 PM
I have the feeling that blocking ASM on the TI-82 Advanced and TI-84 Plus-T was more an excuse to make the calculator even more inferior to the TI-83 Premium CE and TI-84 Plus CE-T, just so that eventually word to mouth makes people say the monochrome models don't have as much customization possibilities for softwares/add-ons and to go with the color models instead. Otherwise, TI would have disabled ASM on color models too.

Just get a TI-84 Plus without the T at the end, or get a color one. The TI-84 Plus CE-T is fine, though, if you want a more expensive, but color model.
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: p2 on August 23, 2016, 03:58:31 PM
dont need any now ones at the moment but anyways that really sucks :P
(still got 83+, 84+, 84+SE, 84+SE[TE] so I got enough ^^)
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on August 23, 2016, 04:00:50 PM
Yeah true, I think you should be good for a while. I got two TI-83+, a TI-83+SE, a TI-84+ and TI-Nspire 84+ keypad but only the latter two still works properly it seems, but nowadays I mostly use my color models.
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: p2 on August 23, 2016, 04:07:44 PM
Allow me to quote your profile :3
Quote from: DJ's ProfileTI-83+ (broken), TI-83+ (broken), TI-83+SE (broken), TI-84+,

. . .  9_9
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on August 23, 2016, 04:10:24 PM
Yeah, on the first one the link port died back in 2004 (it already had issues since 2002 or so), on the second one the screen remains blank no matter what I do (it turns ON but I can't see anything) and on the 83+SE the screen is just garbage (I am surprised this one lasted that long because most TI-83+SE had the same LCD problem)
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: p2 on August 23, 2016, 04:12:52 PM
ouch... :(
At least you still got your 84+SE ^^

Btw... now they started this stupid T series with no asm support... Did they stop production of the old series like 84+SE and 84+ or can you still buy new ones from TI?
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on August 23, 2016, 04:20:29 PM
You can, but only in North America or the few countries in which the T series have yet to come out. BUt yeah, as I said, the TI-84 Plus CE-T actually has ASM support, unlike the TI-84 Plus-T, so make sure to not confuse both. Some people already thinks that the color one lacks ASM support due to confusion caused by the monochrome changes >.<

By the way I think the exploit is basically the same as on the TI-73/82/85. There's no easy way for TI to block ASM permanently on the TI-84 Plus series except custom Flash APPs, so basically on the TI-82 Advanced and possibly TI-84 Plus-T, all you would need to do is a shell like Mallard, Usgard, ZShell, CrASH or Ace, which consists of an hacked backup file (82b, 85b, etc) that installs the shell upon transfer. But of course it depends if TI-Connect CE detects hacked backups, so maybe this time around TiLP would be required?
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: 123outerme on August 28, 2016, 02:55:45 PM
It'd be another game I'd choose to play, and more choices = more potential for fun. I'd say go for it!
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on August 28, 2016, 04:04:54 PM
On a side note, do people mind if the game uses over 20 sub-programs? Because its large size and the lower 84+ RAM don't really allow a smaller amount, unlike First Fantasy II on CE
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: p2 on August 28, 2016, 07:12:59 PM
It's truly annoying if a game got subprograms like "A", "BATTLESCREEN", LAUNCH", "SAVEGAME", ...
Just make sure it's gonna be like "ZGAME01" - "ZGAME12" or something ;) Then the games are all in one place and won't get mixed up with our own stuff ^^
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on August 29, 2016, 06:13:27 AM
Yeah I try to avoid that whenever possible. Sadly this isn't possible with certain ASM libs, though, such as Sprites v3.3 (the lib itself is split in 6 sub-programs in order to keep the syntax to a minimum), but I at least try to make the game sub-programs so that they always start with the same letters except one. For example, First Fantasy uses FFMANA for the launcher, while the rest uses MF or something (I forgot if it was FF or MF)
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: p2 on August 29, 2016, 09:33:16 AM
Can't you just put the external programs into a group and unpack at lauch and afterwards delete them again? So we only got these external programs while actually needing them? :)
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: chickendude on August 30, 2016, 06:10:12 AM
DJ, this game (like all your RPGs) looks amazing, i hope you do end up finishing it :)
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on August 30, 2016, 06:27:00 AM
Hey chickendude, I haven't seen you in a long while O.O (except on Revsoft last year or so when Add was working his Danmaku shooter). How have you been? :)

Thanks, by the way. I really hope to get motivation to code again soon (my last game was GalagACE). I still would like to finish two more monochrome games (Illusiat 13 and dual-layer ASCII RPG) before doing a full move to color calculators. By the way, you should introduce yourself here (https://codewalr.us/index.php?topic=32.0). :3=

EDIT: The dual-layer ASCII RPG might be a prequel to the First Fantasy series or a new game in the series, but I'm still unsure if it will be ported to color calcs. If I do so then it will probably use the same resolution for the map layout, with Sprite 3.3's scaled sprite data support. It might also be an action RPG like Ys.
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: chickendude on August 31, 2016, 02:07:42 PM
Yeah, i'm still around, i'm currently in the process of trying to figure out a way to center my life more around programming.

I still check RevSoft, Omnimaga, and Cemetech (basically just the z80 asm help section, Mateo's projects, and the Robot War II thread), but things are a bit quieter lately.

Honestly, i think your games, especially the RPGs, really deserve more ports to other platforms so other folks can test them out. A DS port for example would be really cool.
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on August 31, 2016, 06:37:19 PM
Cool to hear. Hopefully you can manage to find some free time to code as a hobby or maybe a job while also enjoying other life stuff. :). And yeah the TI scene has been quieter in recent years, although there were many project updates a few months ago. It seems like in June or so there was a big downfall in activity but then by mid August things rebounded, although not as high as a few years ago. I wish @grosged released his Sprites library on ticalc.org because maybe it would give the hybrid TI-BASIC community a kickstart for the CE. As for ASM/C I am glad there are libraries/tools now since C is very popular.

Regarding my RPGs I was considering porting them to other platforms, but I don't really feel like learning yet another language, so they would have to be made with RPG Maker VX Ace or something.
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: TIfanx1999 on September 04, 2016, 02:19:48 AM
I think you already know my answer to this question... YES! If you are feeling it, i say definitely finish it. :D
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: c4ooo on September 05, 2016, 02:27:26 AM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on August 31, 2016, 06:37:19 PM
Regarding my RPGs I was considering porting them to other platforms, but I don't really feel like learning yet another language, so they would have to be made with RPG Maker VX Ace or something.
Something I have suggested multiple times is for someone to write an emulator wigh a custum skin so it looks like your playing the game natively on your computer but its actually an emulation. :)
Title: Re: If Illusiat 13 RPG was revived, would anyone still be interested?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 11, 2016, 04:21:40 PM
Yeah that could work, but as I said in the Z80 PIco project thread, it would be illegal because the games require TI-OS to run and would require distributing copies of the TI ROMs inside the emulator executable. For PC ports I was more contemplating RPG Maker or Game Maker. I guess I'll see what to do in due time. Ideally, I would like to make it so it's easy to re-use the engine for multiple Illusiat games.