The Big Dark Adventure

[3DzForMe]

Game Title:   Big Dark Adventure
Download link:   Normally would, however its only 2MBytes and is packed attached to this post:-

BDA_V3.zip (see attached file) Some Bug Fixes put in... in the final hour.

BDA_VERSION2.zip  (see attached file)

OS requirements:   Windows   (tested on Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 10)

Required dependencies:   Something to unpack a compressed folder - double click on bigdarkadventureV3 within the extracted folder to run it.

Info:   The Big Dark Adventure is a homage to the Hobbit format by Melbourne house. I'd a lot of aspirations for this - nearly bit of more than I could chew, but stumbled over the finish line.

Media information:   Included a text input code by rontek from ye 'old blitzbasic archives.

90 percent of text and imagery by me, the other bit by my wife and kids chipping in briefly. 

Please find attached to this post a bug fixed version of BDA - Thanks to Xerra for your feedback - motivated to go back to the old mancave - alongside my dead PC

Post the competition I may be able to polish some more     

[Imerion]

Hi! I wanted to try this but I only run Linux on my machines. Usually games work good in Wine (winehq.org) but sadly I get some sort of error with the font rendering in Wine here - the text is impossible to read. If you would be able to add a Linux build I'd really like to try the game! I really appreciate that you've made a text-based adventure type game - as with many games in this competition I have fond memories of those.

[Derron]

@Imerion
All Blitz3D games might have issues. And the gamemaker games (2 in the compo) crash on Wine here too.
If you dislike dualboot you might be able to run them in VirtualBox + a virtual XP machine or so.
Of course dual booting would suit better when doing votes for something which might not bug out on a real Windows.

bye
Ron

[Imerion]

Yeah, I was thinking perhaps I should not participate in voting due to the risk of things not working in an optimal way. I have a friend decently close by who uses Windows (most others close to me use Linux as well) and there are a few computers with Windows I can usually borrow for testing, but I won't have time to do that on this occasion sadly.

[3DzForMe]

.Hi! I wanted to try this but I only run Linux on my machines. Usually games work good in Wine (winehq.org) but sadly I get some sort of error with the font rendering in Wine here - the text is impossible to read. If you would be able to add a Linux build I'd really like to try the game! I really appreciate that you've made a text-based adventure type game - as with many games in this competition I have fond memories of those.      

Thanks for the feedback, now if only I'd have used BMax. Not sure I could manage to receive write it in 2 days.... So, sorry, it's just Blitz3D, for now.

Although I've a bug fix idea that may make the font readable for Wine, it'll involve quadrupling the resolution to make the font readable, and may not work, I'll give it a roll of the dice on Saturday. Thanks for the feedback.

[3DzForMe]

doh! Bug fix idea finished last Sunday, yay, the prospect of me delving into BMax has been resolved, it's on my dead C drive so phew. As is my virtual Linux machines I used to run BMax in.......

[Derron]

Maybe the next project you should dive in should be called: BACKUP.


PS: setting up a linux VM in VirtualBox takes < 1hr, including downloading a BlitzMaxNG release.
While the Linux in there installs you could already tinker in your Windows NG installation :-)

bye
Ron

[3DzForMe]

@Derron, I do have backups by Acronis11, never had to try and use one though. Times somewhat precious these days, for example I'm reffing at a team GB roller derby session (2.5 hours away..  .) And that's just for starters.

So..... List for this weekend (let's be more realistic....week) -

Get another hard drive.
Maybe buy a recent copy of Acronis11.... To try and restore backup....
Tryout blitzmaxNG on Linux 

I think I'm struggling to face my failure to actually try restoring any backups, in my defence you need a spare hard drive, come to think of it I'll be getting 2 hard drives, thanks for the inspiration. Oh yeah, need to pump my man cave too.


[Edit] *Pimp!

[Derron]

Why not restore your images to a virtual drive? Saves the spare drive.

Eg if you had a full linux partitions-backup ... create a virtual harddrive + machine in VirtualBox. Plugin the Restore-USB-stick (or whatever you have), In VirtualBox you then just pass that device to the virtual machine, it boots it up, you restore the stuff to the virtual machine ... bamm, backup running in the virtual machine.
Of course you might need to update graphics drivers as linux is a bit pedantic there .... but then ... all other stuff should work.



Virtual Machines can help for a lot of stuff - I eg. installed Mac Yosemite on a hackintosh without optical drive (did not have a DVD to burn stuff on it ;-)) and which refused to boot from the USB sticks I had laying around.
Plugged the to-use-HDD to my computer, created a virtual disc pointing to that HDD (so the virtual machine could actually use the whole harddisc). Booted up the VM with the mac.iso as optical drive, installed the system on the HDD (install works with AMD too ;-)). Shut down the VM, unplugged HDD, plugged that into the hackintosh and it booted up to finish the installation. Phew - hard work but at the end I got a working hackintosh without DVD or USB.

VMs are your friend - for daily dev, backup testing, 3rd party software testing - and for fast bootups. I have multiple Windows VMs (XP, 7, Vista ...) which have certain programmes running which I just suspend if I do not use them anymore. They have certain software dependencies which might "clash" with other stuff. Also it eases the pain to do network programming as you just move the VM to your second screen (or the background) instead of needing a second computer, keyboard, mouse (or kvm switch) ...
Just clicking on "Windows XP PS" to be right in my Photoshop, with all my images still open ... is cool and needs only a bit of drive space.

bye
Ron

[Imerion]

Although I've a bug fix idea that may make the font readable for Wine, it'll involve quadrupling the resolution to make the font readable, and may not work, I'll give it a roll of the dice on Saturday. Thanks for the feedback.

Smart, that might work! I'd love to give the game a try if it does. No stress though, I can try it later on as well.

[3DzForMe]

Trying to increase font size, gotta comment out my other eight debug terminals though..... I might wait for feedback from Qube though.... Debug finished last Sunday, if trying to resolve format problems inside an emulator by increasing font size is not in the spirit of the competition, it'd be a shame.....

@Derron, thanks for the idea about using VMs, will explore this week.

[3DzForMe]

Going to release the source code plus files to compile and stuff later this morning.

The code will never win any coding standard stuff, just need to check for any inappropriate comments I maybe left in the code.....   (Incoming......) 

Going to include how to run the Debug version, with the equivalent of 9 Spectrum screens at once! Yeah, I know, crazy stuff.

[Edit] just gotta shift an oil filled radiator into the old man cave, it's a bit nippy out!

[3DzForMe]

Required an impromptu dad knap - which stopped me from uploading the old source until now.

Attached below, all files and source code to compile The Big Dark Adventure.

Readme file within directory advising on how to use IDEal.

Please note - Blitz3D v1108 is available on itch.IO

  

[Edit] took out an errant waitkey in the Go West code, so if you compile it yourself, you can go west without it just sitting there waiting for a key press!