SyntaxBomb - Indie Coders

I've digged in my very old archives and found my very first game I've finished or stopped at January 12, 1995, ten years before I started with Blitz3D. It is a clone of the old C64 game "Artillery Duel" from Xonox and I wrote it in Microsoft QuickBasic. Unfortunately I didn't add a computer opponent so you can only play it against yourself or a buddy. The language was german only so I decided to translate it to english and recompiled it, it wasn't hard to get into it again after 22 years :-p The game uses Gosubs only and the source is very messy. It is even my first "procedural" game as no external graphics were used, the tanks and the trees are done with PSETs, LINEs and CIRCLEs only :-p As far as I remember the hills were made adding Sinus and Cosinus curves.

As it was written for DOS it needs DOSBOX to run, which is included and ready configured in the ZIP archive, just start the "DOSBoxPortable.exe". Use Arrow keys to change angle/power and the Return key to fire (and ALT+RETURN switches to fullscreen). Have fun with it!

Download Artillery Duell PC (2.0MB ZIP)






And this was the original:

Awesome! Really. I like it.

Gosub madness, ya can't beat it

Cool little game

Thanks. And yeah, "Gosub madness" describes it good, this worked only in a smaller project like this one. My next game was a Strategy game where I only used Subs (Functions), even some Assembler for the Mouse input but it still wasn't object-oriented. I had to stop development after I reached a "64KB" barrier in QuickBasic I didn't knew about before, which rendered the whole project useless. After that I've been frustrated and stopped coding games in QuickBasic and only wrote some savegame editors and finally switched to coding webpages in PHP. When I discovered Blitz3D in 2005 I remembered my old games and went on coding in BASIC until today.

If you want I can try translating and recompiling it, too. It has no AI, too but makes fun playing ruthless against yourself. The title pic was made in Vistapro and Deluxepaint II Enhanced for MS-DOS, if anybody remembers these, too

I love Risk 

QuoteIf you want I can try translating and recompiling it

Oo, go on then

QuoteThe title pic was made in Vistapro and Deluxepaint II Enhanced for MS-DOS, if anybody remembers these

I loved Deluxe Paint and Brilliance ( another paint app ) on the AMIGA.. PC versions need not apply 

Qube, here we go. The final name should have been "World Conquest" and so I renamed the project. And it was a hard piece of work as I had to find my original LBM files and alter the map within Deluxe Paint IIe in DOSBOX. Then I had to convert it with a small QB program to match the BLOAD command, loading the map into the game. The title pic was in german too so I had to dig out my old Vistapro installation, redraw the heightmap with the new english text, rearrange the camera positions and render a new title, phew.

Another problem: the button colors in the game were made just with the Paint fill command which fills graphics with a color and I had to recode the paint positions to match the english characters (every hole needed to be filled separately, argh). So compared to QB45, Blitzbasic is much simpler to use...

But now... have fun. Download World Conquest.zip (2.2MB)




Instructions:
- the game is based on a Amiga game by Bernstein-Zirkel Softworks
- I don't know if the built-in rules are original, I rewrote it like the Amiga version worked (mostly)
- a typical round:
  - place your units
  - select amount of units to handle on the left side (1,5,10,all)
  - attack one or more countries
  - move units (no more attacking possible!)
  - end round
- attacking: first select the target, then collect units and click the target again to attack
- it is possible to collect additional units for an attack from surrounding countries
- to attack large armies you can doubleclick the RMB on the target army to speed it up
- there is no AI, so play against yourself or a buddy
- the game is won if all 42 countries were liberated
- there are no quests, only the "Conquer the World" mode :-p
- the players play in this sequence: red->yellow->green->blue->brown
- attack and liberate at least one country to gain a new card
- if the card limit has been reached (standard is 3), the cards will be traded for extra units so watch out
- you can change some settings at the start of the game
- press ALT+RETURN to enter fullscreen mode
- Sourcecode is included but comments are german
- as the game includes assembler, qb.exe /l is needed if you want to alter/recompile it

QuoteQube, here we go. The final name should have been "World Conquest" and so I renamed the project. And it was a hard piece of work as I had to find my original LBM files and alter the map within Deluxe Paint IIe in DOSBOX. Then I had to convert it with a small QB program to match the BLOAD command, loading the map into the game. The title pic was in german too so I had to dig out my old Vistapro installation, redraw the heightmap with the new english text, rearrange the camera positions and render a new title, phew.

Eek, gawd. You didn't have to go to all that trouble 

Cool version of the game though. Playing against myself I manage world domination in 10 rounds and 76 units - Although for gaining world domination I was sitting waiting for a big fanfare 

Did you ever think about adding A.I. to it?

Quote from: Qube on June 18, 2017, 23:24:06Did you ever think about adding A.I. to it?

Yes but then I must recode everything in Blitz, avoiding the 64K limit of QB like I said before. A Fanfare? I commented out some PC Beeper blips inside the game - they were too annoying IMHO. Beside that - it's a zombie project, hidden in its ZIP grave for 22 years. I think we leave it as it is now.

And good to hear that you've enjoyed it, too. I played several rounds the last days and it even makes enough fun against myself, I'm a tough enemy.

Oh by the way - I've updated the archive about midnight CEST, so if you have older download scrap it - the linked version is now the one and only (I've corrected some typos I found and switched everything to World Conquest now).

QuoteYes but then I must recode everything in Blitz, avoiding the 64K limit of QB like I said before

Ahh yes, I remember often running into the lack of memory limits when coding on the TI-99/4A ( about 14KB was available I think ). Then going over your code to make each line as long as possible to free up any bytes you could.

QuoteAnd good to hear that you've enjoyed it, too. I played several rounds the last days and it even makes enough fun against myself, I'm a tough enemy.

I've played a couple of games against myself and the way it's all put together just works and feels right. As said before, I'm a fan of risk and I prefer the older versions over the newer flashy ones. Such a shame you were limited back then to not be able to do A.I. or even better internet multiplayer

QuoteOh by the way - I've updated the archive about midnight CEST, so if you have older download scrap it - the linked version is now the one and only (I've corrected some typos I found and switched everything to World Conquest now).

Downloaded, thanks - I'll have a nosey at the code tomorrow as I used QBasic years and years ago to write a Yahtzee game.

Uh-Oh a Qbasic expert :-p I wrote World Conquest during my 15 month "alternative civilian service" which was an alternative to the military service in germany back in 1995. All I had to do was guarding a phone (and I only had about one call a day), I've been alone and so I had a lot of time and a reason to code it. But there was only an old IBM 286 in the office without a harddisk and so I had to code it all from the floppy disk. It was my first larger project and I didn't knew much about QuickBasic back then. After I've stopped coding I've applied for a transfer to a more interesting and meaningful position (to do the shopping for aged and infirm people). But the knowledge of Qbasic I collected with these games was a great help when I started with Blitzbasic later.

QuoteUh-Oh a Qbasic expert :-p

Far far from it - I only ever wrote a handful of games in it which were Yahztee, Othello, Connect-4 ( state of the art ya know ). I remember thinking how crap the graphic abilities were compared to the Amiga's Blitz2.

QuoteAll I had to do was guarding a phone (and I only had about one call a day)

Sounds great

Quote from: Qube on June 19, 2017, 18:04:57Sounds great

Yeah, "sounds" but wasn't. It was boring to death. Until I had the idea with World Conquest I remember that I saw a colleague playing his own backgammon game (well, we had a lot of time) and he explained me some things in QuickBasic like how to use Subs and after he finished his duty I started my own game.

He gave me the source and I even found it in my archives too, so if you like Backgammon (I don't know the rules) take a look at it. Unfortunately I don't remember his name so I can't give credit (damn, we were about 20 years old when we wrote these games, time is ticking away):

Download Backgammon (2.0MB)