Tag Archives: Doomdark’s Revenge

Baby Steps

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I have been looking into a couple of issues still plaguing Doomdark’s Revenge game play.

The first one is movement. I have to admit, I dropped the ball on this one. I wrote this code so long ago, that I assumed it was working. Well it isn’t. And there are three issues at play.

The first issue is actually a bug fix.

There are two versions of movement tables, one that the Spectrum used, and one that the c64 used. What these tables do, is decide which terrain the character gets for free. The problem is, the spectrum version had a bug. It didn’t point to the required table, it pointed to random memory. Therefore movement on the Spectrum doesn’t work as intended. I had fixed this bug. Which means, movement on the new version isn’t the same as either the Spectrum version of the C64.

Secondly, The Lords of Midnight movement code is based on leaving the current location. Doomdark’s Revenge is actually based on the location you are moving into. I had this wrong.

And thirdly, if you move into a location with a critter, you take a penalty. However because of the difference in the way I implemented the critters on the map, ie: 0 = NONE, whereas 0xff is NONE in the original. My critter check was always triggering. Thus you always got a penalty.

The three items combined, make for pretty shoddy movement, when compared directly to the original.

Doomdark’s Revenge Status Update

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Quick update. The release of Doomdark’s Revenge was not too bad in the scheme of things. Online press has been good, good coverage on Twitter, sales numbers seem to be in line with The Lords of Midnight release.

All platforms were released simultaneously, which in itself isn’t too be sniffed at. The only problem was that OSX on the Mac App Store didn’t make it. Hopefully the issues there will be resolved soon.

The only Major glitch was a graphic memory problem that was hitting a few Android devices, but with the help of some supportive customers, I was able to iron that out last night an get and update out overnight. Interesting, the problem also affects The Lords of Midnight and probably explains some of the random startup crashes and incompatibilities I’ve had there. So as soon as things settle I will update that.

Despite a stressful few hours, I think the Android release probably went better than The Lords of Midnight Android release. Biggest problem was releasing while staying in a hotel where the Wifi decided to be very very poor!

There are a few issues that have cropped up. Mainly recruiting and battles, and a few cosmetics. The Recruitment issues make the game easier, the battles make it harder. I will try and resolve all of them ASAP.