Progress continues unabated. Huge amounts really. Completely rewrote the title.exe, or at least redesigned it. Gave it some ‘Trinity’ flare. Finished all the locations and code (except random encounters), which included the addition of the underdeeps and 3 new dungeons (at my beta testers insistance). Started the final passes on all quests and dialogue.

So I have added a new animated intro for the title screen, complete with new effects, and an animated ‘flaming’ logo, similar to Ultima V. Also added a whole series of screens to the ‘view’ which tell a story akin to the adventures the player might have in Trinity. All done, done diddly done. No screenshot though, so you’ll have to take it on faith.

The new dungeons are not really dungeons, but rather caves and mines. They are a little easier, lack the devilish arrangment and labyrinthian nature of the dungeons (or crypts!), and are not critical. Or are they… They needed a new style, and that included for the halls/passages as well. Caves and mines are a lot of rock, dripping water and holes. So I tried my best to get that across in the designs. I couldn’t do much for the 3d view (though I have taken a stab at rewriting the 3d engine), but I was able to give new versions of the ‘dungeon combat maps’ to accompany the ‘rooms’ themselves.

The first thing I started on for the dialogues pass was how taverns are handled. I wrote the code a few months back, but now I am taking advantage of it and filling in the ‘content’. The tweak I have made was to first restore taverns to Apple II style. The Dos version had many of the taverns giving answers to all six of the possible queries, whereas the Apple II original has specific taverns only giving one possible response to one of the queries. So 1 query/reponse per tavern.

I then augmented this by adding multiple new unique query/response pairs per tavern, and a new tavern, for a whole bundle of new tavern rumours.

I had a mind to change the whole system, and instead of specific queries, only allow the player to ask about rumours. Or to add asking for rumours as an additonal option to specific queries. But ran out of code space. That’s okay. Just get it done.

Last thing to comment on is the possibility of new, improved graphics! Improved being closer to the original Apple II version! I looked into the ega driver and found some bytes that were holding me back. A little complex to discuss here, but it had to do with how the driver chose which colors to use when doing the screen inversion effect found so prominently in many parts of the game.

I already built the graphics for a 16x16 icon version of Apple II graphics for another, defunct project. So I can now use them here…if I want! Boohoohahahhah!

Anyways…Lots of progress. But certainly a lot of dialogue related work to go. Then…putting it all together.

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2 Comments

Brad Hannah

August 20, 2020 at 10:41 AM

Looking great! This is amazing work! Will the Apple ][ graphics be toggleable?

Cambragol

August 20, 2020 at 06:12 PM

Hey Brad!

I will likely just fully commit to Apple ][ graphics, and they will likely not be toggleable. I thought about that approach at first, but I just don’t have any code space in Avatar.exe to do it. I could push all the code into Title.exe, which runs the opening screens, but that wold be more work thrown in the way of finishing the job.

What I haven’t mentioned anywhere in this blog, I think, is that I spent a lot of code and effort making Trinity a much closer ‘port’ to the original Apple ][ version as possible. I did mention this when I talked about the changes to ‘raycasting’. However, I went further and tweaked the interface so that it operates exactly like the original. All text, including timing, time-outs, spacing etc. was made to operate just like the original. The only bit I held back on was going all in with capitalized text everywhere, though I did add it in a bunch of areas.

So maybe an Apple ][ graphics upgrade is the final icing on my efforts to make it closer to the original. It is also a personal preference for the simplicity of the original graphics. And it is also not a personal preference, as the simple color scheme of the Apple ][ version are aesthetically superior!

Additionally, people who would wish for improved (more colorful) graphics for Trinity, or for whom this would be a deal breaker, will never be able to finish the game. It is hard, easily doubling the time it takes to finish Ultima IV. So I think I can just make my vision of the game, which is nice, without having to worry too much about whether it is accessible/palatable to various gamers.

I could be wrong though! I did make concessions to ‘modern’ gaming in a lot of the improvements and new gameplay elements I have included, so taking them into account, adding a toggle would just make sense.

I have been visiting your blog everyday, waiting on an update. Hope to see one soon! Very pleased to see you over here as well, of course. Thanks for your interest!

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