The first alpha of Darkages: The Continents has been posted. Grab it from the links on the DA1 page. For the first time, the game plays
natively in Windows environments. I’m not exactly sure which ones :) - I use Windows 7, works on that. Probably works from XP to 10, too.
Linux and source code coming soon.
Modernizing a 20-year old DOS game to work on today’s computers has been an unusual experience. Part of me wanted to keep it as exactly original
as possible. But on the other side of the argument, it’s hard to justify not using at least some of comforts of modern computers. In the end I
did keep the game as original as possible, with the idea of overlaying mods in future versions to modernize the game.
The most obvious differences are quite noticeable. Foremost among them is the new title screen. I just couldn’t keep the original PowerPoint (!)
title screen. I’m not even sure if I’ll keep the new one. Most definitely, it will be polished up some more. But I tried to keep that 8-bit NES
aesthetic, including the bulky, pixelated font. More on that down below. From the very first step in the game, you will now notice pixel scrolling
instead of tile scrolling. This was actually difficult to pull off because at 320x200 resolution, pixel scrolling is SUPER CHUNKY on a 24-inch
computer monitor. The solution, in the end was to scale the tiles from 20x20 to 40x40. It gives the appearance of scrolling through half pixels.
It’s tolerable now, but perhaps I’ll double down again for smoother scrolling. After all, I’m getting almost 3000 FPS. Finally, I couldn’t help
modernize the interface just a little. Text boxes and menus are now translucent. I just love the effect. Menus are operational from the cursors,
instead of typing in numbers like on a PC console. The remainder of changes are even more minor, including more descriptive battle text that
everyone will probably just click-through without ever reading. But I feel it is these small touches that count.
There were times as well that I went out of my way to keep the game the same. The font is the best example. I actually created that font from
scratch to look identical to the original game. It turned out so wonderfully old school, I’ll need to release it to the public domain. It’s nearly
impossible to find old clunky fonts; most are actually too good looking to be true minimalist. The quirky quests, such as guessing the name of the
hermit in the mountains is still there, including typing it the name from the keyboard. I’ll probably change that eventually, likely to a
selectable menu, so that the game can be played with a gamepad.
Speaking of which, there are a few features missing from the alpha. The gamepad is a new feature I added, but have not finished yet. But it is
essential for that classic console feel. Maybe alpha 2 will have it. Also missing is the music. That might be a good thing. I was able to
convert the old midi files to sheet music, and can remaster them to ogg, but I should probably rewrite them as well. At the very least, I can
now use console-like sounds instead of midi instrument samples.
So stay tuned in the next few weeks. I’ll keep blogging my progress. And expect to play on Linux soon.
Consider this a birthday party! September of this year will mark the 20th anniversary of the development of Dark Ages I: The Continents. Development continued through the winter of 1997 and
was completed in the spring of 1998, and various bug fixes and upgrades followed over the next year or so. Then DA1 was shelved to begin production
of the sequel. Surprisingly, the game continued to kick around the Internet, and is still playable today through the DosBox emulator. It was this
resilience that inspired me to dust off the old QuickBasic code and do a reboot after 20 years. The end result is Dark Ages: The Continents
version 2.0! I will be posting the first alpha release in a few days. Happy 20th Birthday DA1!
I decided to do a reboot after playing around a bit with Simple DirectMedia Layer. I was playing with the graphics modules for a project at work,
but found the code so easy to work with that I could build a simple rendering engine for DA1 in minutes. After that, it was mostly a
matter of scripting the storyline and recreating the interface. I struggled for a day exporting the original BSAVE (yes, from QBasic!) formatted
graphics to bitmaps, but otherwise the whole process took only a week to build the game engine. Then I spent a few hours a week over the next
few months coding the storyline and play testing. It was amusing to play through from beginning to end after nearly 20 years. It was even more
amusing looking at my old QB code. I barely knew what I was doing back then, and it still compiled…somehow.
In the next few posts I’ll explain a bit more about the upgraded features, the features deliberately not upgraded (to maintain that NES aesthetic),
and what I’ve learned in the process. I’ll post the code to GitHub, including the original QB source, just for grins.
Well it’s been seven years since the website was updated. I suppose it was slightly overdue. DKS is still alive and well and software development continues,
although at a much slower pace. However, there are a lot of new items in the works.
On the site, I’ll continue building out DA2 content and walkthrough on the Wiki page. It will take a long time, so keep checking in. DA2 version 2.0
is in alpha release. It’s got a few features that need fixing, but otherwise is tons better than the version 1.2 release. And it works on modern
versions of Windows. I’ll say more on that in a future post. Finally, I think it is time to revisit DA1 and port it to Windows, possible mobile.
It might be a fun little project, particularly for anyone who hasn’t been able to play it because of its age. I still fire it up on DosBox every now
and then and I’m amazed at how well it holds up (except for the horrible music).
February 19, 2009 · First News Post
The latest build in the new version of DA2 has been available for over a week, but I thought I’d officially announce it in the news. It is mostly playable now, which is good. You can find it by clicking here. I’ve also updated the link section with a new webiste, Orbital Cows, where everyone can find tons of other games to play.
I’ll start updating the website over the next few months. Most of it will remain the same because the content is still relevant, but I need to update the links and start expanding the wiki. Other players can contribute to the wiki as well. It can be found here.
