I'm in the early stages of writing a DM-style game for the PICO-8 fantasy console:
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
(This kind of thing is what's delaying any redrawing of hero portraits, Journeyman )
Dungeon Apprentice - a PICO-8 DM Tribute
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- drake_blue
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- The Journeyman
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Re: Dungeon Apprentice - a PICO-8 DM Tribute
lookin' really good right there, drake
nice going.
I'd take my waterskin, bread and apples and go right into that dungeon.
nice going.
I'd take my waterskin, bread and apples and go right into that dungeon.
I'm gonna sleep in the rat room.
- Paul Stevens
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Re: Dungeon Apprentice - a PICO-8 DM Tribute
Great project. Good luck.drake_blue" wrote:virtual "cartridges" which have to come out under 16kb
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?
- Gambit37
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Re: Dungeon Apprentice - a PICO-8 DM Tribute
This looks lovely, what a great project. Good luck with it, I'd love to play this eventually.
- oh_brother
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Re: Dungeon Apprentice - a PICO-8 DM Tribute
I love the look of it.
Dungeon Apprentice: New Life for Old Clonesdrake_blue wrote: ↑Tue Dec 15, 2020 5:27 pm Working title is Dungeon Apprentice. I'm open to any pun-tastic suggestions though.
- drake_blue
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Re: Dungeon Apprentice - a PICO-8 DM Tribute
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.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?
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
- The Journeyman
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Re: Dungeon Apprentice - a PICO-8 DM Tribute
yay, let's all look forward to walk through damp dungeons and fist punch giant eyes
I'm gonna sleep in the rat room.