just to let you all know there is a trogen horse in the pc game link (my virus scanner picked it up)

Evil... Or maybe your virus scanner is a Trojan Horse. THAT would be interesting...

Whoa! That site is definatly not appropraite. Look at the top downloads!

I don't remember seeing anything bad... did I miss something?

Let's just say... hmm. How to put this? The genres for the top games were mostly, "Adult".

Yes. The link had an available download for a copyrighted program.

Bad.

Whoa.

I've changed the link to a different site. It was also pointed out that the original site allowed for a download of the PC game, which isn't legal.

The new site has links to download sites. (If anyone cares.)

To give you an impression what I think the negative aspects of my version of the game are:

What is really missing is the funniest minigame where you had to build a pipeline in a short period of time; when exceeded the oil starts flowing and pouring out if it was not finished in time. Also there should be some more (negative) random events, more regions (the original had 8 or so) and computer opponents, or at least the possibility of human opponents - originally this was done round-based and would have been easy to implement here.

The main problem with this all was the memory limitation (~60KB! if I remember correctly, remember there was no mem upgrade in 1999; it was already on the very limits when finished), and, regarding the pipeline-minigame, the slowness of BASIC.

Although there's pretty statistics, nice pictures and so on, the game gets boring after a while due to the lack of variety. Maybe - if I ever find the time - I'll try to improve on it. (Or would be happy if anyone wants to do so.)
If I had the skill I would re-do the whole thing in assembler; would improve and give more possibilities to the minigames a lot.

My game that I've been working on for over a year now has become so big that it needs to be in three sequential programs. Kindof like using three DVD's for a movie or three cd's for a game.
August 1st!
BASIC is too damn slow. After I finish this, I will learn assembly. But BASIC really hampers my ideas. Whatever. Epic 2 will be a good game, at least to me.
So anyone out there, it is better than the demo. Much better. Download it in two weeks (hopefully) and see for yourself.
Thanks for the support so far.

Exactly. Basic is perfect for beginners and maths functions but awfully slow for bigger projects or games with realtime interaction.

Have you considered using a launcher and a program compressed with FLib?

No, there comes a time in every BASIC programmer's life when he (or as it may sometimes be) needs to move to ASM. Not all realize this, though names will nt be named.

Don't mess with him moving up, it is good!

-W-

He complained about the size of his program, so I suggested that he compress it. What's wrong with that?

I am jus' jabbin' ya'.

But seriously, more programmers need to dabble in ASM (or C as the case may be). That was all I was tryin' t'a say.

-W-

I thought my idea was pretty ingenious. I was getting kinda pissed off when my file reached 24,000 bits and I was not close to being done. So I figured, "why not make this 2 or 3 separate parts to the same game?"
Great idea.
Now, I get to add in more things I wanted to before and soup up the existing frame. Fantastic!
Also, some people will decide to download all three parts of the game at the same time. Ergo, I get three times as many downloads! Genius.
Lastly, most people will choose to download one part at a time. So, if I have plenty of downloads on the third part, I can assume that at least some people have played all three parts. Therefore they must find it halfay decent.

I was in no way, shape, or form knocking your idea. The idea to have "modules" or to the game is a great idea. I was just saying that moving to ASM is a good thing.

-W-

Then they could be grouped and compressed.

SO how does this compressing work?
And thanks, I didn't think you meant that my idea was stupid. I appreciate the input though. I look forward to the jump to ASM. Lots of ideas fill my mind, and I'm gonna love porting them to the small screen.
Thanks.

I don't know but you can find it in the FLib source.

Maybe it works like zipping does on the computer. <blabber type="technical">When you zip something, the computer uses it's own kind of shorthand. So for a jpeg image, it will say (red, and the next 10 pixels). Then it might change to green, where the computer says (green, and the next 3 pixels), and so on. I'm not sure if this is correct. I read it somewhere, but that doesn't mean it's true.</blabber>

That sounds like RLE...I think that's sort of what it does, except with it's more like "this block of data occurs 5 times, so I'll just include it once and stick in a reference to it the other 4 times"...and jpegs will also sometimes make colors that are very similar exactly the same so that it only has to reference that color once...

Don't trust me completely on this. :-)

I was talking about zips and jpegs, not that compression for the calc, which I have no idea about.

...unless the first part sucked...