SORCERESS: new AGD game
From the creator of CYBERMANIA! I've written a new game, SORCERESS - an AGD maze shooter/adventure. It was quite an ordeal, as I ended up having to write the whole thing from scratch three times because AGD kept running out of memory and glitching, but I presevered and now it's finally done.
Download link here. It's a .z80 snapshot; I've had a really hard time saving out a .TAP that works for some reason (AGD 4.7 in ZXSP on Mac - I didn't have the same problem with Cybermania, which was written in 4.6), but if anyone desperately wants to try it on a real Spectrum, I'll see what I can do.
The plot: the Sorceress must rescue her love from the evil necromancer. Find keys to unlock barriers and blast the undead with magic bolts.
The controls: QAOP space.
Hope you enjoy it!
Download link here. It's a .z80 snapshot; I've had a really hard time saving out a .TAP that works for some reason (AGD 4.7 in ZXSP on Mac - I didn't have the same problem with Cybermania, which was written in 4.6), but if anyone desperately wants to try it on a real Spectrum, I'll see what I can do.
The plot: the Sorceress must rescue her love from the evil necromancer. Find keys to unlock barriers and blast the undead with magic bolts.
The controls: QAOP space.
Hope you enjoy it!
Comments
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If you make the z80 of the game embedded in AGD available I could see if I could get a .TAP out of it.
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I have no knowledge at all about it, so may I ask if the AGD memory limitations are one of the possible reasons of the limited size of the maps that can be built.
Naturally if you design screens with just a few basic elements and limit the number of total sprites and the frames they employ, you will end up with more memory available to create larger maps. You won't believe how much memory sprites, especially when done with more than three frames, can eat in AGD.
Cybermania had 20 screens and more enemy types, but the maps only used one or two different types of block per screen. The maps in Sorceress are more complex, and even though I did everything I could to save memory - AGD can compress screens if you use long horizontal rows of the same block - I could still only fit in 17. The Sorceress herself also used four sprites, one for each direction, while the player in Cybermania only used one, which made a huge difference. The AI in Sorceress is also more complex, to the point that I kept running out of memory to edit some of the sprite events because they were so long!
I'd love a version of AGD that could work in 128K mode, but even though it now needs a 128K model to run as of version 4.7, it's still designed to output games that will work on a 48K model. You get 27K to play with, and that's it! (And it starts getting twitchy once you've got less than about 5K free, so you need to be even more careful.)
will read instructions to get the most out of it next
AGD needs those RAM banks for editor routines and scratchpads! They're paged in and out as needed and various bits and pieces are copied to wherever they are required before the game is paged back in. Trying to use these banks for more game data would not be at all practical.
You actually get 34K, as that's roughly the amount of RAM AGD games can occupy which isn't bad. Don't forget games aren't just graphics and screen levels, they need an engine and buffers too! There's also nothing stopping you putting your own menu, start/end game sequences etc in the RAM below an AGD game either so you could take up all 40-odd kilobytes of usable RAM that way.
With the AGD editor out of the way you could also use the extra 128K RAM banks in an AGD game but you'd have to manage the RAM yourself using your own routines. Alessandro has done this.
As for the game data, pre-shifted sprites are expensive but the alternative would be a tiny number of sprites on screen and/or lots of flicker and tearing. Screens take up a lot of RAM too. Even text is expensive when memory is tight. You're probably realising now that Spectrum programmers through the ages have not had an easy time squeezing stuff into games. In a bespoke game you can make compromises that squeeze a bit more out but in a generic tool there are fewer tricks that can be employed. Sorry about that, it's just a fact of life for Spectrum developers. :)
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Those colour shifting hellhounds are terrifying! The sound effects complimented it nicely for me, it gave the game a haunting, nasty atmosphere.
Is the lesbian backstory a first for the Speccy?
As far as I know, yes. I wondered how long it would take for someone to pick up on that!
Link here
Yep, it is working on ZX Spin
Loads fine into EmuZwin.
Download the latest version of Bomb Munchies Ver2210 4th July 2020
Played on a real Speccy - 128k .... Love this sort of game (enjoyed Cybermania too)... Great fun. Well made... loved the skele-sprites. I did pretty well on my first go - Got the key and nearly made it to the door.... Don't know how long it is after that ? anyway - liking it.
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Is it Ok for me to take a look at this on a video I want to do?
REVIEWED!
https://shar.es/1Tdd68
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