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Just something I'm really wondering about, seeing all these posts of ports from SNES and N64 games.
But, forgetting about that, I'm gonna talk about one of my small little projects.

Gundam Wing Battler is sort of like the Gundam Wing Merc's game, but I programmed the entire thing myself, and it's half the size (currently). It'll have a 2 Player Battle over a link, and it should appear in the archives soon....I need Testers though... E-mail me if you wish.

Gtb

I am working on a game called Final Fantasy 7 TIdbits.
It will bring many of the coolest elements of FF7 to your TI 83+ (minus the huge worlds and rich dialog, of course).

The format will be like a board game. You will roll a die, then have a choice to move along the board in one of several directions. When you land on a space, you will collect materia, or visit a shop, or fight a battle, or find a treasure chest, or bet on chocobo races, or get a new character, etc. The game boards will scramble every time you play, and the high score will be saved, both ensuring long lasting FF7 goodness on your 83+! :)

Expect about 8 playable charcters, 2-3 weapons per character, 2-3 limit breaks per character, 20-30 types of materia, 10-20 items, 15-25 enemy types (including 3-4 bosses), FF7 style battle, FF7 style attributes, 5-10 shops.

The final version will be in one program file, which you can archive and run from MirageOS. There will also be 2-4 pic files required which will automatically be unarchived/archived at the start/end of program execution.

Post any comments, suggestions, or criticisms here.

As I think about this, I think about how cool this would be....great, great, great IDEA! I wish I thought of it..... well, have fun with the project, being that's gonna be the main part of your life for about a month or two! =) I'll be the first to d/l it when you're done.

Gtb

Glad you're interested. It's coming along pretty good so far considering how busy I've been. I'd like to get into some heavy coding over the next week. So far I've got the board game engine working, the animated chocobo races, and have started on the equipping code. I hope to have a demo version ready in about a month. This game is gonna be super-fun! :)

Sounds like you're doin' pretty good.......if you need a pre-release beta tester, I'll be happy to do it even if it crashes my calc =)
e-mail me if you need one dan_gtb@yahoo.com

Gtb

I thought I'd post an update on my progress for whoever is interested. The file now weighs in at a hefty 7kb, though about 25% of that can be shedded with optimization. I'm projecting the final file size to be about 14kb (plus the 3-4 pic files). You can now move around the board, collect materia, bet money on chocobo races(cool animation), view attributes for 6 characters, and view the partially functioning battle engine. Some other aspects of the game are also under development. Looks like I'm right on schedule for a release of v0.9 within the next month.

GTB, yeah I'd be interested in having pre-release beta testers, I'll email you with the files when I'm ready.

And I'm sitting w/ my e-mail box open, ready and waiting =) Just make sure you take your time and make every part the best it can be. I've got one or two ideas for you.......maybe you've already done them, but I'm gonna say 'em anyway.

3-4 Boards would be a good idea, w/ different enemies on each. Make the program as big as you want, I don't care if it takes up my entire Ram and Archive =) .

Uh, six characters? Wow.....you really did some work... I think that 4 would be a good number, or maybe 5 like FF2/4.

Choco Races are great in my book! Kweh!

Gtb

I was already planning to do 3-4 boards :) (thats why I said 3-4 bosses :). And about the characters, adding new characters or enemies is as easy as entering a few values into a matrix. Thanks for the suggestions though. I'll try to get you the files real soon.

Arrrrgghh. Development on this game is now suspended. I have run into a major difficulty.

I was getting curious if this game was going to run on the limited RAM that the 83+ has, so I did some things to test it. I went ahead and put a bunch of comments into my program, to make it about the size that I was prediciting the final file to be. Much to my dismay, even another 4 kb or so is too much. I dont get why it doesnt work, because there should be enough memory to run it....here's the rundown:

a 10kb program file + 6kb of runtime variables(matrices) + 2.3kb of pic files = 18.3 kb

I have about 24 kb after clearing my RAM, so it should run, but apparently it needs more than that. Anyone know where the extra 5-6 kb is coming from?

Well, anyway, for this program to work, I would need to code the rest in less than 4 kb, and I dont see that being very likely. So I dont know if I'm going to continue working on it or not. I might try optimizing it now, to see how much I can trim it, but I dont think it's going to be enough.

Hey, what OS are you using? If it's Mirage, I got something that might work, but I'm scared to actually try it. When you run a program in Mirage, I haven't seen if it will unarchive a program that's called in the program you're running.... if it can, your problem is solved through use of 3 - 4 programs....else, we've still got a problem. Um...you could try just unarchiving the pics right when you need them... that might help. Just really trying to think. I'm a programmer too, just not z80. Got the C++ and stuff...Basic = My best language...So this isn't my specialty area....Geez, I don't know what the heck you can do.... this is a big problem, and I hate not having enough space (I try to make my games really big too) ...Can't archive run-time vars....but you can archive the pics. So...Just send it to my e-mail, I'll figure out a way to work it w/o changing the code. I can't really do too much unless I can see it and exactly what's wrong. Try what I said, and if it doesn't work, I'll be back. You should be able to run it on the 6KB, it's weird it's not letting you. I ran a 20 K ASM game yesterday. dan_gtb@yahoo.com

Gtb

Hey geno. I never said the game was in assembly. Its in BASIC. I'd rather wire a piece of hardware than write a program in assembly. I think I have found a way around the problem though. However, I've been really busy with other things lately and I dont know if I'll get back to working on the program for a little while. I'll send you what I have though. Oh about archiving pics as needed - thats not a very good idea since flash rom can only be written to a limited amount of times. I wouldnt want to run a program that had 40 writes to archive every execution.

Also, archiving the pics before running the program wont do any good, since the pics have to be unarchived by the program anyway. And, any program that is currently being run must reside in RAM, unless its a flash app.

What about other apps and variables? Each local variable is about 18 bytes, use alot and that 18 adds up quickly. List variables are the same way. If you are going to do the game, try minimizing the variables used by your code.

Hey, if you do send me those files, I will try to finish it.......I've got tons of time, especially during school =)

I just sent you the files, check your email.

I've made sure all other apps and vars are cleared before execution. Also, my code is pretty clean. I'm no novice coder, if thats what yer thinkin ;).
Anyway I think I've figured out the problem, and the solution.

Geno, heh, I'm still planning to finish it, or at least do a lot more with it. If I get to a point where i dont want to work on it anymore, I might let you have a go at finishing it. I havent done anything to it for several days now though, but I will get back to it soon.

you could aslo use zflash

I don't know a single thing about assembly programing, but I was wondering if it is possible to make a first person shooter for ION? I personally don't think that the basic ones run fast enough for a first person shooter. So if it possible tell me.

Thanks

Yes, it is possible to make a first person shooter for 83+ in asm. I have seen impressive 3d engines for other calculators, but have not seen any completed games. To make a good, complete FPS would take a LOT of time and hard work, but it can definately be done.

NOTE on 3D:
raycasting in assembly can be a recipie fro disatser

I would like to have the source to mario82 so that I might finish it and make it available !!WITHOUT EXTERNAL LEVELS!! so that 83+ users can play it.

Whoever made this please post your source.