mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5195
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

To preserve game source that risks being lost to time, I've uploaded source and binaries for an old school game I wrote, The 'Merican Adventure, on GitHub.

This is a DOS ASCII game I wrote in Turbo Pascal when I was learning to program in the early '90s. It is a 2-D top-down game on a grid, inspired by classics like KROZ and ZZT. Concepts reminiscent of familiar DROD game elements appear here.

I recommend running the game in DOSBox to play it the way it was meant to be played. No special setup configuration is required.

I actually created a set of modified ASCII graphics for the game, which you'll be able to see properly when running the game in full screen mode in DOSBox. Otherwise, the special "sprites" may look incorrect.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

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[Last edited by mrimer at 01-14-2021 11:33 PM]

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5195
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Hey, what do you know. While rooting around in my proverbial attic for DROD artifacts, I stumbled across a box containing an old ZIP drive and disk. I plugged the drive into an old PC and the drive was recognized on bootup. I inserted the disk and it was still readable. A good sign, and slightly surprising!

On the disk, I found a source archive for the first two games in the 'Merican series (CITY and QUEST). These were practically my first serious game programming projects.

There may be some missing pieces, and I don't have .exes on-hand to run these "out of the box", but I've uploaded the source to the above GitHub repo to make the Archivists happy. They should still compile via TP7.

Historical note: I used extended ASCII characters in the source to represent certain game elements, like walls and crumbly walls (ASCII 176-178, 219). They used to render properly on my ol' EGA text monitor, and felt like an intuitive thing to include at the time. The characters now look weird when viewing the source in modern text editors. The game should still display properly in DOSBox though.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

---

[Last edited by mrimer at 01-14-2021 11:46 PM]

Dischorran
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3417
Registered: 09-10-2005
IP: Logged

You know who else found something lost from ages past and just had to try it out?



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[Last edited by Dischorran at 01-19-2021 12:46 AM]

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5195
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Good thing it wasn't a cursed drive -1 (MB). I'm pretty sure I can take it back out of my case if I wanted to. Pretty sure...

Okay, I'll tell you another story.

One day, coming in to work one day about five years or so back, I found a 5 1/4" PC floppy on my keyboard at my desk. No idea who put it there.

I wonder what's on it. I have nothing that can read it.

Maybe it has NORAD codes. Or a copy of Cloak and Dagger with secret plans. Or Lemonade Stand. Or it's the One Disk of Power. Or maybe it's blank. Who knows?

I still have it, on the off chance I can ever find a way to learn what's on it.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

---

[Last edited by mrimer at 01-18-2021 08:42 AM]

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2796
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

I'm guessing you hand-edited the levels inside the .PAS files?

https://github.com/CaravelGames/merican/blob/main/Quest/src/QLEVELS.PAS

I know you showed me this long ago, but I'm really getting it now... It was some sort of weird pre-determined thing that we were going to work on DROD together.

-Erik

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The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5195
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Hah, yes, the levels for QUEST were input before I implemented a level editor. (When I saw the 'Neather code, it reminded me of what I'd done here.)

I first drew the game levels on graph paper. (Some of these pages are featured in post-mastery areas of the DROD games.) Then I just typed up the levels in the text editor. Easy! What more could one need?

I know you showed me this long ago, but I'm really getting it now... It was some sort of weird pre-determined thing that we were going to work on DROD together.

Ah, yes! I remember I showed you some of these levels in person to share some legacy work. You gave me a great suggestion at the time, which I also still remember:

(paraphrasing)
Given the real-time movement taking place in a discrete space, providing a musical rhythm or a beat that would indicate to the player when the monsters are moving would be a nice UX affordance.

(When I saw Crypt of the Necrodancer, I thought, "Yes, that works great. Erik was Right.")

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

---

[Last edited by mrimer at 01-29-2021 08:17 PM]

vittro
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 483
Registered: 04-17-2005
IP: Logged

Would love to see a video or some screenshots

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http://vittorioromeo.com

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5195
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

File: Merican sshots.zip (304.9 KB)
Downloaded 63 times.
License: Public Domain

Sure thing!

I don't believe it was always the case, but Dosbox and Windows now play together nicely so I can take true screenshots of the modified ASCII set shown in "Adventure" in fullscreen DOS mode without loss of fidelity.

So, here you go! Happy I can share these.

In addition to some levels in Adventure, and a view of some of the rules and the level editor, I included a few screenshots of the earlier Quest (which also has a demo level you can see from the title screen).

Looking over room layouts here, I note some vague echoes of layouts appearing in a couple JtRH rooms I built later on. Funny how that happened subconsciously.

There are also game elements that ended up in DROD, like tunnels, deep and shallow water, plus many of the staples that Erik already had in the original KDD (though the interactions are a bit different here).

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

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[Last edited by mrimer at 03-12-2021 01:04 AM]