Quick Update – Event Manager

admin April 27, 2018 0 Comments

I’ve changed how the event Manager works.  It now runs on its own Thread.  So the game uses multiple threads now.  Event Manager handles,  all events like  Spells, Potions, World Time and etc…. 

It will start when the game starts and updates every Game Minute.  It keeps a list of all events that is running and updates any of them if their time has experied.  World Time, weather and such run independent of the game loop.  It runs based on the general idea of every 4.8 seconds is a minute in the game.  So unless the game is paused, the event manager will be updating all these events.

Snow Update

admin April 20, 2018 0 Comments

I’ve changed the snow to be a texture picture instead of drawing it on the screen.  I think it came out pretty good for emulating 16-bit feel.   Check it out.

Guild Updates

admin April 18, 2018 0 Comments

I’ve been working on getting guilds completed to be more like the Dungeon.  Many features are missing from ARX guilds.  Only the basics are in the game right now.   So guilds do not accept you automatically.  Some days they do not accept new people and you have to come back the next day and check.  Also,  if your alignment changes and moves outside of what is acceptable by the guild, then you can be ejected from the guild. So if you join a good guild and start to turn evil, they will give you warnings like the Dungeon and then will kick you out as you get outside of the alignment requirement.   I think that is a good feature,  being good and getting into a guild and then turning evil shouldn’t be accepted.  I like the Dungeon thought of this,  so now it is part of the game.  If that guild is you main guild, then when they kick you out then you lose everything in your locker.  So watch it.  If you show up and you alignment is way out of wack then they might not give you a warning and just kick you out.  So watch it.

The other new feature of about guilds is you end up killing people from that guild.  You will get a warning and then kicked out if you continue it.  If you get kicked out, then they will attack you.  Also, you will lose your locker if that is the main guild.  So watch it.  The city didn’t have these features but they are now part of it,  even listing the wizard is from a certain guild.  So watch it.

Next thing is huge and has been taking most of my time when I have it.  It is spells.  I completely rewrote the spells section because it was not even close to be completed.   First step was that I load in the spells from the original Dungeon Binary.  The city didn’t have spells but the 16bit city did.  So I created those spells into the dungeon spell binary, so all spells are loaded from the binary.

I have to say, I love how spells, potions and special items work in the game.  It is a great design and very very efficient.  Unlike how we code today, it was very tight and generic.  I love it.  So I took that idea and recreated it in ARX game.  All spells, potions and special items use this “Special Effect” class inside ARX.  These special effects define things like timer, when it becomes active,  how many time to loop through the timer,  an area of telling the game what memory locations to add/sub or other options on how to effect the memory location.  These memory locations, can be player related, encounter and/or area related.   I’ve mapped all the memory location to an ARX option.   There are a few spells that are special that have special code related to them.  Those are the only one left to re-create in ARX.   It took many many days to get all the memory locations mapped out.  There are many websites that talk about memory location, but are far from being completed.  I’ve got all of them except one memory location mapped out and two spells call that location and I can’t figure out what that is related to.

My favorite is 0x6320  for the dungeon.  Normally you will see 0xff (255).  This field mean the active encounter which you are battling.  So trying setting it to 0x00 and see what happens.    This way you can test fighting every single encounter in the game.  Want to fight againt the “Long arm of the Law” F.B.I agent.  You can at anytime.  They are around 0x06,  I don’t remember its number. 

So I’m making changes to the game to match the Dungeon.  Like certain areas where the spell “Location” will not work.  So for this, I’m preventing the “Auto Map” feature to work during these areas also.  So you can’t cheat and get through the maze area easily.   I’m trying to make sure the hardness of the original is in the remake.

Of course the remake is a remake and is not an emulation, so it will be different from the original.  Acrin1  did such a great start on the game and allowed me to pick it up to complete the game.  I don’t think I would have started from scratch to create Alternate Reality.  I saw the bases was there,  I couldn’t let it go.  I wanted to see the city/dungeon completed. 

Also, when it comes to the dungeon, there are many screens missing from the 16-bit.  So I’ve been busy taking the 8-bit screen and converting them to appear to be 16-bit so you get the same look and feel.  When I’m done, there will be a 16bit graphics for each and every thing the 8-bit had.  I don’t want someone to play 16-bit city and then when they go to the dungeon to be swapped back to 8bit graphics for most of it.  I’m going to complete the 16bit graphics conversions.

I’m also, adding new features into the 16-bit graphics.  There can be animation in the 16-bit screens.  I’ve taken the time to allow any texture in the game to have animation.  So when it calls an texture to render then texture will determine what texture to render, to end up creating the animation effect.  

I don’t want to do much inside OpenGl for animation.  I want to make sure the look and feel ends up being 8bit or 16bit and not a game with todays physics, lighting and animation with 8bit or 16bit graphics.  I want the feel to be authentic to the version you selected.  So the animation is based on what was used back in those days.

Once the spells are complete, it will be easy to allow the items to use the “Special Effects” without any code changes to turn that feature on.  I still have to get alignment check in the game for picking up items so a good player can’t easily use an evil item or the reverse.

This is just a quick update on what I’ve been doing.

Alternate Reality X 0.83.5

admin April 15, 2018 0 Comments

This is version 0.83.5.   This is just a quick fix to fix the ability to save your game.

If bugs are reported, then I will look at fixing them.  If the bug is related to unfinished code, then nothing will be completed until the city is completed.

You can download the release here.

Version 0.83.5 – 15th Apr 2018
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• * Fixed –  Missing saves directory in the zip file.

Version 0.83.4 – 25th Feb 2018
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• * Fixed –  Missing Ini file in the zip file.

Version 0.83.3 – 13th Feb 2018
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• * Fixed – Graphics mode Alternate would cause a crash on start.

Version 0.83.1 and .2 – 13th Feb 2018
—————————-

• * Fixed – Game crashed when entering the city
• * Fixed – New Character Immobilized, clothing caused this when inserted into inventory.

Version 0.83 – 4th Jan 2018
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• * Fixed – Hours in certain Inns wrapped over to the next day and you where not able to enter that inn.
• * Fixed – Player position on automap being off by one.
• * Added – A timeout option during fight, opponent will not do something instead of waiting forever.  
            If player leaves,  it will timeout after 20secs and clear the screen.
            No more locking up the games in waiting for keyboard inputs.
• * Added – when you try to flee an encounter there is a chance it doesn’t work.
• * Added – Added 16bit graphics to the graphics Mode
• * Added – When you charm,trick or attack certain opponents, causes alignment decrease
• * Added – Ghost attach can now be the “Bone-Chilling” attack.  Certain percentage. Reduced STR by one if was successful.
• * Added – 2 new diseases.  Mold and fungus from MOLD, slime.  Slime will foul your food once it becomes active.  These takes 48hrs before they become active.    
• * Added – Sun set and sun rise to 16bit graphics.  It is not done by still graphics. Drawn on the screen based on time.  that way it moves like a real sun.
• * Fixed – Ghost information was not correct on armour.  He is suppose to be invulnerable to blunt, sharp weapons.
            you need magical weapons for the most part.  Fixed that.
• * Fixed    – put back in the weapon selection for opponent when they attack.  Many opponents have different attacks was hard coded to just the first weapon.
• * Fixed – Armour ability to handle different weapons is back into the system.  If using a blunt weapon and the armour is invulnerable to blunt.  You will not be able to do any damages with that kind of weapon.
• * Fixed – Certain armour is vulnerable to certain weapons, and these weapons cause double damage.
• * Added – Added in 3 missing encounters from binary, Cutthroat, Brigand, Master Thief
• * Added – Put these encounters into possible city/dungeon encounters.
• * Added – capture the number of encounters variable from binary.  When in the dungeon you can have multiple encounters now, up to the max defined in binary.  City still is only allowed 1
            encounter at a time.  The number of encounter is affected by your level, dungeon level. your alignment
            vs. encounters alignment  will increase or decrease your chances for more monsters at once.
• * Added – Started loading in attributes for weapons. Its loads in weapons that causes curses and dieseases.
•           Not active in the code yet. Have not loaded the weapon attributes values into the system yet.  Like, How long it last.
• * Adjust- Adjusted the Treasure finding stats.  Potion should only be in affect until you find treasure and then it should go away.  In the code, the treasure just kept getting higher.
            Adjust treasure.  You got a weapon on almost every encounter.  The original game was not like this.  It was much hard to get weapons.  The chances for finding a weapon is much higher now.
• * Adjust- Treasure Torch and Keys will not show up in the city anymore.  The city didn’t have these items.
•           You end up with so many of these items you never have to want for this.          
• * Added – When you find a potion you get 120xp points like the city gave you.
            You get 255xp for each Jewels,  128xp for each Gems
• * Fixed – Fixed Weapon damage.   It was calculating weapon damaged wrong.  Way to high.
            It was doing a bit check for number of dice and number of sides to the dice.
            This was not correct. a Value of 36 would be 3 dice and 6 sides.  bit check would turn this into      a different value.

                    
Notes:
    Graphics Mode is now  
        0 – 8bit,
        1 – 16bit (Amiga),
        2 – Alternate Small,
        3 – Alternate Large                
    16bit Amiga has a sunset.  Added sun to the game.  You can see the run rise and
    set.

* Charm,Trick, Attack – on certain good characters causes your alignment to decrease.
     first time cause a huge decrease before good no matter what your score was.  Once below
     good, then each act causes it to go down a bit.

City and Dungeon Update

admin April 1, 2018 0 Comments

Its been a bit since my last update,  been busy and this is what has been completed since last update.   Moving data around so Player doesn’t keep track of everything like guilds, tavern data and such.  Player only has player related data now.  Other data has been move into the correct class they are related to.  Did some tweaking of the different window sizes to make them more correct on scaling for the different sizes. Got mip mapping in Java working now.  So little to no flickering in the distance anymore. Added code to limits frames to 60 fps.  This way no matter what the game is played on it moves at the same pace.

All jobs in the game can now randomly generate wounds during working.  It will be displayed at the end if you received a wound during working.  Guild now do not automatically accept you,  it is based on a percentage this was in the original 8-bit City and 16-bit City.  I liked that, so I put that in.  Each Guild has a different percentage for accepting new people that day.  If they are not accepting, check again tomorrow.  Guilds can remove curses and disease even if you are not joined.  They just do it for a cost.

All shops in the city are now real time,  sitting in the place, time move forward.  Also in any of the City shops you have hit the F1-F8 or the ‘<‘ and ‘>’ key to move forward through those menus.  Menu 0 is the main menu and that is the menu the shop menu will show up if you do this inside the shop.  You can flip through any of those menus now.

Added a new feature for the smithy sound when outside the shop.  The sound level fades depending on how far away you are from the shop.  This way you can tell if you are getting closer or further from the shop. Smithy shops are complete with friendship levels.  Has effect of friendship, saying,  barter system.  You can raise or lower you barter system.   Friendship changes if its been a long time since last visit,  will get kicked out if drunk. Going in to the shop drunk will lower your friendship.  Get that friendship up and you get a weapon at a better price.

[image:23]Next one is a big one.  I told myself to work on the City first and move to the Dungeon once completed.  I screwed that up and loaded the Dungeon, that cause 3 days of coding to get many items working and completed.  So I never loaded the dungeon once I converted it to Java.  So I decided to load it and have finding the endless loop,  it worked like a champ.  So, it made me notice how far from complete the Dungeon really was.  So first step was add in the ability for the torch to function and for areas in the dungeon you need a torch were working.  So I added the dark area.  Now you can light a torch and see inside the dark area.

[image:24]It also looks great.  Dark areas get darker based on the distance from you, light source,  even the 8-bit does this.  You can’t see as far as you can in the well light area.  The lighting is done in a generic 16-bit style.  The shading is based on x,y locations.  I think that fits the game very fell.

Next step was I love the 16-bit graphics and there are some sequence and shop images but no wall images.  So I took the time to create several of the 16-bit dungeon wall images based on the 16-bit city game.  Many of the I just had to hand draw to make them work.  I think they came out pretty good.  They have the dungeon feel and look like the 16-bit version.

Next step was how imcomplete the fixed treasures in the dungeon where in the C++ version.  But I understand now.  Only items in the game where basically the items from the monster binary file.  I completed the code to load in the Dungeon Items from the original binary file from the Dungeon.  This was need for all those fixed treasure and Quest items.  This took a day and an half to get the loading down to the 8-bit format.  Many different structures for the different items.  The longest section was getting all those Special Effects loaded.  Weapons, Potions and Card and etc….   Many items have special effect and several of them can load up with 3 and 4 effects at a time.  I have the load code complete to load in every aspect of the items.  This way all the items can be completed correctly.   I still have a few areas where the special effect will not work.  The effects tell you which byte to adjust and how to adjust them.  Many of those bytes are undocumented,  I figured several out by my self.  Like if you blow the “Gold Horn” adjust byte 0x6320 in the dungeon.  This value had all kinds of comments over the internet on what they though it might be.  I figured it out and love this one.   Setting this variable forces an encounter depending on the value.  So now I can test encounters with anyone I wish by adjusting this value.  Only problem is the encounter in ARX is off from the Dungeon.  Because ARX doesn’t load all the monsters from the original monster binary file.  It skips about 6-10 monsters, so this caused the index to get off between the two system.  Have to work on that.  But I can fight the FBI anytime I wish now.  There are several bytes not documented and was unable to deteremine what effect in the game they have.  Still working on those.  

Loading of the Dungeon Items was needed to complete the Dungeon.  Was not going to hard code all those items into the game.  Like the couple of Quest items ARX has right now.  They are not real items and the name is just hard coded to be an item inventory.   I’ve removed all this because now you just tell it to put an item in the players inventory.

I started adding in the fixed treasure location throughout the game.  Just taking a bit of time but easy enough to do.  As I’m just teleporting in the 8-bit dungeon game by adjust the x,y and level bytes to put me in a new location a to verify ARX plays just like the 8-bit did.  It works out well, except that as in the City the entire 64×64 was loaded into the game. While Dungeon level 1 is pieced into 4 sections, I assume that was the reason for the teleports, it can cause a load sequence to get the next section loaded.  So I have to get into that section and then I can teleport anywhere I want.

[image:25]Quest One
  Quest One was not in ARX,  So I’ve added the first half of the sequence with Ozob and the prison.  The first half of Quest One is complete and working in the game. I’ve changed the sequence just a bit from the original.  See if you notice it, it doesn’t affect game play or how you can play.  But I thought the slight change was great addition.

• Added – Load all items from the original Dungeon Item binary file.  This is need for all the missing items.  Only items really in the game where the items of the monsters.
          nothing else was in the game.  
• Added – Ozob, Acrinimiril prison sequence is complete.  Getting key, releasing the prisoner and teleporting complete.
            Quest One Part 1, Last part of quest one if to find tomb and getting new item is left to do.
• Added – All shops inside the City run in real time.  Time moves forward just sitting there.
            The Tavern, Bank, Inn, Shop and Smithy are not complete with friendship system, jobs, and menu systems.
• Added – Smithy shop is complete now.  Has effect of friendship, saying,  barter system.  You can raise or lower you barter system.
            Friendship changes if its been a long time since last visit,  will get kicked out if drunk. Going in to the shop drunk will
            lower your friendship.  Get that friendship up and you get a weapon at a better price.
• Fixed – Smithy sound adjustment.   The sound level is adjusted depending on how close you are away from the shop.
            It was hard coded to certain squares to play the smithy sound.  Now the game checks to see if a smithy shop is when a certain
            distance of your location and then plays the sound.  it adjust the sound level depending of the distance.
• Added – Added the alter menu to work in shop, taverns adn etc….  This way tipsy and drunk can put up random screen and make it hard to navigate.
             Also, you can check your equipment, gold and such in a shop.
• Added – Added cost to remove curse when you are not joined with the guild. The guild will still remove curses but for a cost.
• Added – Guild percentage for acceptance has been updated.   Even the original 8bit city didn’t automatically accept new members.
            Now all guilds will be accepting or not, if not check back the next day.
• Added – Jobs now in Tavern can randomly generate a wound.  All jobs in the city can cause injury during work.
• Added – Frame limit to 60fps.
• Added – Mip Mappings is functional now.  The flicker is gone.
• Fixed – Tweaking the different window sizes layout.  Getting them to be more perfect in positioning.
• Added – Pulled out all the of on player data out of the player class and put them into the correct class they are related to.