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[aparrish]

I don't have a title yet, but here's the idea: I'm making a bootleg version of the Legend of Zelda for a mid-eighties PC.  I'm making the game from scratch with vintage-era tools (viz. Turbo C 2.01), with the intention that it run on vintage-era hardware.  (Right now I'm running it in DOSBox.)

Video:



I'm using only 320x200 CGA graphics, which presents some interesting constraints.  The main one is color: the CGA adapter supports only 4 colors at a time, from a static set of palettes--only four palettes in all, I think.  I was tempted to go with the classic black/cyan/magenta/white palette (as seen in Karateka, Sokoban, Loderunner, etc.) but this green/yellow/red/black palette works better with the subject matter, I think.

The video shows pretty clearly that I'm having some flicker problems... I've never hacked this close on graphics hardware before, and CGA is kind of a beast. (4 pixels to a byte, even-numbered lines mapped to a different memory area than odd-numbered lines, etc.)  So, uh, if anyone has any performance tips, I'm all ears.

As you can probably tell, I've mostly just been wading through the technical aspects of this project (it's really my first big project in C)... so I haven't even had time to give any thought to actually, you know, game design.  There's still a lot of work to do, more than I can probably finish in two and a half weeks, so this one might end up in the "unfinished" pile.  We'll see.  But I've had a lot of fun making what I have so far.

[Melly]

Well, that certainly sounds impressive and complex. Best of luck to you. And be sure to drop even a tech demo around the deadline if you can't finish.

[astrofra]

That's totally, massively cool. I precisely loved this CGA palette, that was too rare.
Do you have some sort of engine / libraries always written ?
Do you compile into dos/box ? or cross compile from windows ?
What where the graphics made with ? Deluxe Paint into DosBox ?

Man, this is so exciting !

[Türbo Bröther]

I was tempted to go with the classic black/cyan/magenta/white palette (as seen in Karateka, Sokoban, Loderunner, etc.) but this green/yellow/red/black palette works better with the subject matter, I think.

Oh yeah, this palette is perfect for what you are doing.

[isaac]

Wow, I love that this is something that probably already exists and is sitting on a long-forgotten 5-1/4" floppy disk from 1987. It's like an actual time-machine.

[muku]

And don't worry about the sprite flickering too much, others are actively trying to reproduce this kind of stuff on modern platforms Adds to the bootleggish feel at least.

[moi]

That is  hardcore

[Coriform]

Ya I agree with Melly, please do at least submit a tech demo of whatever you end up building by the end of this month.

[Will Vale]

You're brave (or insane?) to take on this kind of challenge - it's like restoring a heritage building using authentic tools and materials.

(I spent some time recently trying to fix some old games built with TP6 using DosBox, and it was really hard to go back to such an old-school environment - and that was VGA let alone CGA...)

The screen and video look very good too, definitely captures the Zelda feel.

[Derek]

This is amazing.

[aparrish]

That's totally, massively cool. I precisely loved this CGA palette, that was too rare.
Do you have some sort of engine / libraries always written ?
Do you compile into dos/box ? or cross compile from windows ?
What where the graphics made with ? Deluxe Paint into DosBox ?

Man, this is so exciting !

I'm writing the "engine"--if you can call it that--from scratch for the compo.  All of the development work is being done in OS X, but then I have a DOSBox window open to do the Turbo C compilation.  Using a vintage graphics program like Deluxe Paint is probably a good idea... so far I've been relying on Pixen.

Wow, I love that this is something that probably already exists and is sitting on a long-forgotten 5-1/4" floppy disk from 1987. It's like an actual time-machine.

That's the idea!  I've been thinking about putting some copy protection on the game, and then getting someone to do a crack for it.

[Zaknafein]

That's the idea!  I've been thinking about putting some copy protection on the game, and then getting someone to do a crack for it.

That would be awesome. Something like Sim City red sheet? :D

[Noyb]

That's the idea!  I've been thinking about putting some copy protection on the game, and then getting someone to do a crack for it.

Totally needs Link hitting a bush tagged with the 11th word of the 4th page of the manual, which is included in PDF format. Also, awesome idea. The screenshot is so bootleg.

[Zaknafein]

What happened with this? Is there something you could release as a prototype? It sounded, so, so awesome...

[Annabelle Kennedy]

): so many good entries fail to launch....

[Melly]

I want myself some dosbox Zelda.