Looks great, only... well, I have the same gripe I had with Int. Karate- it's not ppg compressed, which would probably allow it to take up like half as much space on the calculator... if that could be implemented, then these two games would be even better than before! (Maybe Int. Karate could even fit in one file)

What's the problem? asmash takes only 13kb, that's less than phoenix.

Phoenix is, as far as I know, not ppg compressed either :p

true, but you can use the source and make it one

I am in the process of combining IK+ into one file. I have succeeded with the 89 version. It is at 59Kb. The TI92/V200 version is still around 65Kb. I need to trim another 1200 bytes. I have some ideas in the keypress reading function. I am trying to stay away from compression if possible. The graphics in IK+ require 32Kb for the 89 and 38Kb for the 92. I could compress them to around 12Kb but, the game would still require an additional 32Kb (or 38Kb) RAM buffer for decompression. However, I could still be convinced if enough people ask for it.

What language are you writing it in?

If TIGCC, are you compiling with -Os (optimize for size)?

I am using TIGCC v0.95 Final. Thanks for the note on -Os, it saved another 400 bytes.

you should use the latest beta (currently .94 beta 4) because thay use GCC 4.0.0 which produces better code.

When optimizing for size, GCC 4.0.0 usually does indeed better than previous versions. When optimizing for speed (-O2 and -O3), GCC 4.0.0 is somewhat an extremist, to the point that I've been forced to lower the -Ox settings on TI-Chess.
I'm going to make two different versions, one being optimized for size and the other one for speed, to let users see if the small version is too slow, or the fast version is not faster enough compared to the small version...

Still, the code is often far from optimal, and worse, it is hack-ish and hard, even often usuccessful, to force it to generate the code you want instead of the crap it thinks good ! Even Kevin doesn't manage to do that.

About the whole compression thing, I mean I'm not saying it's necessary- I understand the buffer is still necessary and all- but when nearly all asm files on your calc are compressed (I've sort of gone into a compression obsession you might say) this does leave more room for the buffer to operate, since those other files don't take up that room. Considering its not hard to do (check/unckeck a box in tigcc and recomplie...) I would just release both a compressed and uncompressed version in your next ZIP file. I don't want to sound demanding, or annoying, I really really like your games, but, well, just a suggestion.

make that *recompile* not "recomplie"

That is a good idea. I will look into that.

I achieved about a 50% compression rate. Does the new loader/decompressor file work on all 68K calcs - more specifically the TI89 Titanium?

I'm not 100% sure if it'll work just like that for the titanium, but I THINK it'll work as long as you have the newest version of tigcc. Even if this isn't true, however, the newest version of ttstart (1.21) supports all 68k calcs, including the titanium.

In any case, I think compression is worth it, because both IK+ and Astrosmash are relatively large games. I think you should also release a compressed version when you release a version of this long-awaited "Ultima V" game, which will no doubt be very large as well.

I am implementing your suggestion and compressing IK+. It compressed down to about 27Kb. Send me an email an I will send you a version to test out. Wow... IK+ started out at 70Kb and ended up at 27Kb.

Ultima V is currently about 350Kb uncompressed. I will definitely be exploring some compression methods for it. I expect it to approach 500Kb uncompressed. You are right, this is one big game. It required four 5.25 inch floppies (front and back) on the Commodore 64 (about 1Mb).

Astrosmash only compresses to 9Kb. So it may not be worth the overhead to compress it. Astrosmash only has about 2Kb of graphics data (including fonts). Graphics data is where you gain the most for compression.

Nope, the most recent version of ttstart is 2.00.
The program is much smaller (the first ttstart in a long while whose size decreases - despite the on-calc compatibility, but I'll spend my time on other things first), and the decompression is much faster (in case you don't use the small version, that in all custom decompressors generated by TIGCC 0.96).
Download it ASAP from http://tict.ticalc.org

I did it!... I managed to trim another 1500 bytes from IK+ for TI92 Plus. It now fits into one non-compressed file.

I love the remakes of old games for TI calculators. This was an excellent game to remake. Nice going!

Is this game Nostub for ti 89 titanium

Yes it is.