So what is the plan....

So what is the plan...

Hello everyone,
Well, you have all probably been wondering what the heck I’m doing and what type of plan I’m following.  So far I’ve been spending most of my time trying to figure out how to program the movement part of Ulima 1 and boy has this been insane!  Trying to learn a new language is hard enough but trying to figure out how to re-engineer a game that has little to no information on it is near impossible.  I’ve had some major breakthroughs and some downfalls as you have seen on this blog but things are progressing and I feel as if I’m on the right path.  My plan for this project is to take each main part of the game and program it in sections.  As each section is completed and functional, “key word here” I will move on to the next main section of the game.  As I see it, there are 12 sections to the game:
1.  World map movement
2.  World map monster encounters
3.  Dungeon movement
4.  Dungeon monster encounters
5.  Castle and town movement
6.  Castle and town guard combat
7.  Space movement and encounters
8.  Big Boss encounter
9.  Monster encounters and combats functions – Total combat system
10. Character stats and progressions
11. Title images and menu systems
12. Buying, selling, and stealing items
13. Creation of all shapes/tiles that are used in the game
14. Missions, assignments, and requests from kings
15. Anything else I forgot!

The sections I see as being the most involved will be the monster encounters/combat system, dungeon movement, space movement, and mission, assignments, king requests.

Like any program these seem to be subroutines within the main program and it becomes an issue of space as well as functionality.  The hard part for me is trying to figure out how much is accomplished in assembly and how much is in basic.  My assumption when Richard was programming this game was very familiar with basic at the time but not so with assembly.  I understand he had help with the assembly part by a friend named Ken.  Ken did the tile movement part of the game and probably showed Richard how to program other sections of the game in assembly to help make the game faster and more efficient.

I know that certain section will be created in assembly and loaded into memory just like the world map movement section.

No matter what, you will all be informed and updated as to the progress of each section and when they are complete.  I have posted my email address, which I will do here again so anyone can contact me for questions, program files and code or even to just leave comments.

ultima_revisited@yahoo.com

Thanks for hanging around and watching the show because it can only get better!

Sincerely,

Joe