Dungeon Apprentice - a PICO-8 DM Tribute

Lesser known clone projects or isolated news items about rare or unusual clones.
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drake_blue
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Dungeon Apprentice - a PICO-8 DM Tribute

Post by drake_blue »

I'm in the early stages of writing a DM-style game for the PICO-8 fantasy console:

Image

Working title is Dungeon Apprentice. I'm open to any pun-tastic suggestions though.

As it's 33 years since Dungeon Master was first released today (I think) I thought it might be nice to give people a sneak preview of what I've been doing.

PICO-8 (https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php), especially as it's restricted to 128x128 resolution, is easily fast enough to allow a reasonable clone to be made and at 2MB of space for Lua runtime I'm fairly confident that it's got enough memory. The big problem I'm having is with the size of the virtual "cartridges" which have to come out under 16kb after compression. Given DM used image compression itself and had approx 20 times that space for storage I'm struggling a bit even after knocking together my own compression routines and cutting down scope. The plan is to get something playable into a single cart then look at spreading data across multiple files (a bit awkward, but can be done) in order to make something a bit closer in scope to the original games.

I'm hoping to make a few introductory levels that feel a bit more like the start of DM for people who haven't had the pleasure of munching on dragon steaks with a side of corbum, then have a clear "prepare to meet thy doom" point where it gets a bit more... fun :twisted:


(This kind of thing is what's delaying any redrawing of hero portraits, Journeyman :) )
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The Journeyman
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Re: Dungeon Apprentice - a PICO-8 DM Tribute

Post by The Journeyman »

lookin' really good right there, drake
nice going.
I'd take my waterskin, bread and apples and go right into that dungeon. :)
I'm gonna sleep in the rat room.
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Paul Stevens
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Re: Dungeon Apprentice - a PICO-8 DM Tribute

Post by Paul Stevens »

drake_blue" wrote:virtual "cartridges" which have to come out under 16kb
Great project. Good luck.
But I am confused. Documentation for PICO-8 (https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php#m)
says cartridges are 32KB, not 16kb. What am I missing?
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Gambit37
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Re: Dungeon Apprentice - a PICO-8 DM Tribute

Post by Gambit37 »

This looks lovely, what a great project. Good luck with it, I'd love to play this eventually.
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oh_brother
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Re: Dungeon Apprentice - a PICO-8 DM Tribute

Post by oh_brother »

I love the look of it.
drake_blue wrote: Tue Dec 15, 2020 5:27 pm Working title is Dungeon Apprentice. I'm open to any pun-tastic suggestions though.
Dungeon Apprentice: New Life for Old Clones
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drake_blue
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Re: Dungeon Apprentice - a PICO-8 DM Tribute

Post by drake_blue »

But I am confused. Documentation for PICO-8 (https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php#m)
says cartridges are 32KB, not 16kb. What am I missing?
Yes, you're right. I've got myself a bit confused. There's 32kb of cart in total: 16kb (0x0 to 0x4300) of data which is "guaranteed" and just under 16kb for code which is subject to a proprietary, variable compression step and is thus a bit unpredictable. I've been using the latter to "squeeze" more content in and been so concentrating on it that I've said the wrong number above. Sorry - didn't mean to be misleading.

I can't see a way to edit the post or I'd correct it (maybe I've missed that?).


Thanks for all the kind words, it does encourage me to keep going :)
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The Journeyman
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Re: Dungeon Apprentice - a PICO-8 DM Tribute

Post by The Journeyman »

yay, let's all look forward to walk through damp dungeons and fist punch giant eyes :D
I'm gonna sleep in the rat room.
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