Remake of an ancient board game

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stefano
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Remake of an ancient board game

Post by stefano »

This game was launched in Dec. 1982 for the ZX Spectrum, making good use of its BASIC.
I liked it and I tried to port to Z88DK which sadly produced a quite big binary block, because of the inclusion of a lot of libraries (floating point maths, graphics, etc).

Source is here:
https://github.com/z88dk/z88dk-ext/blob ... s/dallas.c

My ZX81 port attempt is still quite crap, game is slow, no graphics symbols are included yet, Y coordinate is sometimes shifted, etc..
By the way it comes in three languages and is playable already ;)

To run the game you need 32K.
Before loading, type:

POKE 16389,166
NEW
LOAD ""
Last edited by stefano on Wed Jun 09, 2021 8:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Moggy
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Re: Remake of an ancient board game

Post by Moggy »

There is also a UDG version of this I did some time ago that can be found here..

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2542&p=27032&hilit=dallas#p27032


Doesn't appear to run in Eighty One.
Moggy
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Re: Remake of an ancient board game

Post by Moggy »

Hi Stefano.

Just a few points (played on real ZX81)

1) The cash amounts are not lined up correctly on the right of the screen.

2) The line "insufficient funds" never gets cleared from the screen.

3) The seismic survey is the first thing that is used in this game yet it just keeps throwing up "Not available" so not usable.

Otherwise a good version of the simulation so far.
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SANY0280.JPG
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stefano
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Re: Remake of an ancient board game

Post by stefano »

thank you,
Yes, it's still quite crap (but it is nice to see it running on a real zeddy)!
The text alignment is an oddity I'm working on, if built for a Spectrum or an MSX the problem does not exist. UDGs are present in the game source, I still need to find a way to load them correctly.
The C version can be used to get a native Windows version too, even more crap than the zx81 one, though..
A French version is something I didn't know ! Oddly it seems that the original zx81 versions of this game were published after the Spectrum one (quite buggy, as said)!
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stefano
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Re: Remake of an ancient board game

Post by stefano »

Graphics introduced and text coordinates fixed.
There could still be something on graphics (lines etc..) which I couldn't test yet.
Is the timing better?
Last edited by stefano on Wed Jun 09, 2021 11:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Moggy
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Re: Remake of an ancient board game

Post by Moggy »

Seismic survey still not working and this is supposed to be the first thing you do and you have to do a few before concession sales appear.

Screen becomes very messy with duplicated headings, CASH, LOAN, BALANCE SHEET etc not being cleared (see picture)

After a while also the top row of co-ordinates vanish. and when pipeline laid there is no longer a graphic for it.
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stefano
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Re: Remake of an ancient board game

Post by stefano »

ouch! sorry!

the seismic survey worked in my tests, it must be done on an acquired land, before placing the drill.. and sometimes still it is not available on a random base. probably I should study the zx81 version, perhaps it's more stable, being more recent. it's so strange that the spectrum version was all written in block capitals! I should adjust some text too.

edit: I purposedly disabled the survey on a not owned position.. now I understand that paying money by mistake is part of the game!
Moggy
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Re: Remake of an ancient board game

Post by Moggy »

On the ZX81 version seismic survey has to done first before the concession sales appear as there is no point doing a survey on land you already own, it is supposed to give an idea of what might be in an area any oil etc so when a concession nearby comes up it is worth buying.
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stefano
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Re: Remake of an ancient board game

Post by stefano »

does it cost money even when not owned?
Moggy
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Re: Remake of an ancient board game

Post by Moggy »

Yes.
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