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thwill

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Joined: 16/09/2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 4251

Posted: 11:21am 04 Jan 2022

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vegipete said For other UI improvements, I'm open to suggestions. I suppose a mouse to select items for purchase is 'modern'. I don't want to go too overboard or too CMM2 specific as ports to other *mites are still easy to do.

What I was thinking was that rather than having the mysterious incantation ULRDSATXP at the command prompt? (where ULRD are the arrows) you instead have a line at the bottom of the display containing something like:

(U) (L) (R) (D) (S)tats (A)ttack Pass(T) (P)ause Enter(X)

With the bracketed characters being in inverse video rather than brackets.

Best wishes,

Tom

MMBasic for Linux, Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures

Mixtel90

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Joined: 05/10/2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 7504

Posted: 11:28am 04 Jan 2022

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I was trying to find something that rhymed with it so that I could sing it.

I failed.

That looks like a nice idea, Tom. One of those things that the original writer might have done had it been possible at the time.

Mick

Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini
Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs

thwill

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Joined: 16/09/2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 4251

Posted: 02:11pm 04 Jan 2022

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Mixtel90 said That looks like a nice idea, Tom. One of those things that the original writer might have done had it been possible at the time.

I'm sure it was possible, but perhaps the idea of a "menu/toolbar" with highlighted mnemonics wasn't invented by the late 70's (don't really believe that) or more likely Richard G. wasn't familiar with it, he was a "kid" at the time he wrote Akalabeth and would probably have had limited exposure to what else was out there.

Also back then every game would have come with a manual, players would have read the manual, and it would have been a quality manual containing actual information, instead of just a pamphlet containing warnings about the possibility of epileptic fits and other legalease in a dozen languages.

Best wishes,

Tom

MMBasic for Linux, Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures

vegipete

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Joined: 29/01/2013
Location: Canada
Posts: 1122

Posted: 05:26pm 04 Jan 2022

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thwill said That's very neat, have you got actual Ultima 1 source, or is it a "workalike" ?

Some combination of the two. There is a Github 'Open Ultima" project, plus I found a web site dedicated to RPGs, including Ultima 1. Between scraping the two, plus pulling code snippets from Akalabeth, I was able to quickly write that demo.

=================
UI improvements: as currently arranged, there isn't really enough screen space for a "menu/tool bar". However, a change to a higher resolution mode would solve that easily. Only the overworld graphics would require much rework, the dungeon monsters are already in 'vector' form, so to speak. I'll think about it.

Visit Vegipete's *Mite Library for cool programs.

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