Tower And Dragon

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Mon, 13 Mar 2023 17:39:26 -0400 last edited: Tue, 14 Mar 2023 13:07:10 -0400

Tower And Dragon

toweranddragon@hub.inktada.com

Welcome to Tower And Dragon V1.1 Only 8K

Play Online Here: Masswerk: Tower And Dragon.
Or download the game directly here: TowerAndDragon.zip (This includes d64, tape cassette .wav, .tap, and more.)

Release Video (3 minutes)

New in V1.1: Super Nintendo Game Controller Support!

For a PET, this adapter is required: SNES Adapter. You will also need a game controller. I had success with this controller: Hyperkin "Scout" Controller
From Masswerk Online Emulator, it is recommended to play using Firefox. I found this USB controller (set) worked well: kiwitatá Super NES

Tower And Dragon is a classic dungeon crawling adventure with primary and offhand weapon, armor, quest storyline, moving walls, teleportation, and unique tilesets and monsters for each dungeon level. Your character starts out just after climbing down the stairs into an ancient ruin, discovered by following a dream. The game is a tribute to the game that inspired me to become a programmer: "Dungeon" from 1979. Like Dungeon, this game only requires 8K of memory.

The Making Of (36 minutes)

IndieRetroNews Release Link: IndieRetroNews: Tower And Dragon

Tower And Dragon is written in assembly language, only requires an 8K Commodore PET, and is playable by disk drive or tape cassette on ROM1, ROM2, and ROM4 systems. You can play with more memory, but part of the design was to make sure the game would work on some of the oldest stock PET systems still around. Designing under these tight constraints was a monumental task where every byte counted.

The audio soundtrack on the splash screen uses Shiru's BuzzKick engine, converted to the PET and gives Tower And Dragon a unique and distinct audio that new games will follow. He also converted the theme music to run under BuzzKick. While the splash screen utilizes BuzzKick engine, it is not used in-game due to lack of memory. Therefore, only simple audio is utilized while in-game.

Lastly, to keep with the vintage theme, I recovered the data from maps in a game that I made as a boy in 1980. Those vintage maps are utilized in Tower And Dragon!

Norbert Landsteiner has a wonderful online PET emulator with recently released version 2.0 that includes audio. Play Online Here: Masswerk: Tower And Dragon. This will make it easy for anyone to try out the game, as well as any other vintage games for the PET. His powerful emulator correctly works with Back To The Pet, A Bright Shining Star, and Faulty Robots.

Version History

2023-03-13 Version 1.1 Released
- Added support for Super Nintendo Controller.
  - For a PET, this adapter is required: SNES Adapter. You will also need a game controller. I had success with this controller: Hyperkin "Scout" Controller
  - From Masswerk Online Emulator, it is recommended to play using Firefox. I found this USB controller set worked well: kiwitatá Super NES
- Minor bug fixes.
2023-02-27 Version 1.0 Released

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 20:10:23 -0400

Tower And Dragon

toweranddragon@hub.inktada.com

I've been working on a version 2.0 of Tower and Dragon. It is still a bit of time from release, but the primary focus is room decorations. Functionally, game play is the same.

In addition, this version will also fix a minor bug with the tape cassette version where screen corruption could occur on save on some ROM versions of the PET computer. In the current version, there is a workaround: Immediately reload your character.

Here's a sample screenshot of a room with decoration:

Of course, the updated game still only needs 8K to operate.