EDIT: this project was originally being tested on the CSE, but it's now solely for the TI-84+CE

Here's a short screenshot of something I've started messing about with on the TI-84+CSE. It's a block-by-block pseudo 3D engine (facing either east/north/west/south).

It's still very early stages - I haven't finished drawing some of the distant wall tiles, and I've still got to do proper textured tiles for the walls. However the screenshot shows some basic rendering and navigation (the values shown at the bottom are x,y,direction).

The intention is to create a game similar to Eye of the Beholder (originally for Amiga/PC), although it won't be an exact clone. The player would control a party comprising of 4 heroes, each with their own class (warrior, priest, ranger, thief, etc.)

At this stage it's on the TI-84+CSE, but it will probably be for the newer "CE" (and possibly the "CSE" as well if speed permits).

Oh, wow, this is really impressive! For some reason, when I first read this topic, I thought that you were writing this in Hybrid BASIC with xLIBC, probably because of the half-resolution graphics, but I now see that it is in fact assembly. It sure seemed too fast even for optimized Hybrid BASIC. At any rate, I wish you the best of luck with it, and it's hard to believe how far you've gotten on this having just released Alien Breed. I should warn you that we don't yet have a guarantee that it will be possible to directly access things like the LCD's ports or if the LCD has a half-resolution mode yet, so don't get too carried away with TI-84+CE programming plans yet.

This looks awesome! How are you planning to handle texturing?

Haha, that's pretty sweet. Does the renderer work by selecting the correct tile and then displaying it based on the 2D map? Theoretically then, the textures could be anything you want. This reminds me greatly of a Basic Doom port for the monochromes right now. I can't wait to see what this progresses in to! Nice work on getting this done so quickly to!

Thanks! I've had this idea in mind and been brainstorming it for a few months, so my brain kind of had a head start. But I promised myself I wouldn't start any coding until AB5 v2 was finished Very true about the TI-84+CE - in any case when I first thought about this project the CE wasn't even announced yet. If there's no half-resolution on the CE, I'll be trying to do it in full res - hopefully the faster speed makes it feasible!

Textures are already possible (those walls are just a plain texture map), I just haven't imported the textures yet. I'll be working on that shortly

Hah yeah many, many years ago I released a version of Alien Breed 3D in BASIC that used a very simple pseudo-3D engine (screenshot below).

This 84+CSE engine renders by working out which direction the player (party) is facing, then drawing walls 3 rows away, then 2 rows away, 1 row away, and next to the party as necessary (so further away walls are drawn over by closer walls). A simple but not really efficient technique that works at fixed 90 degree multiples. I have considered trying ray tracing though to see if it renders more efficiently or in a better looking fashion, and also without having to store so many textures. As I said anyway, still very early days, this is just the product of bits of free time over the last few days.


Alien Breed "3D" back in 1999!

Bit of an update - I've spent the last couple of days converting some of the original EOB wall textures, as well as putting in basic ceiling/far distance/floor.

That is so cool. The wall textures make it look so much better.

I wrote a quick map editor, added in the ceiling and floor textures and implemented side sliding/strafing.



The textures still need some work - I want to use alternating ceiling/floors as you move around so that they don't stay static. Decisions like this will all come back to how many ROM pages I want to chew up with textures...

Whoa, that was fast! Nice work James! Very impressed. As for textures, I wouldn't worry too much about space. Even if it has a few pages, you have a ton of archive room to work with. Good luck!

Very true - I've decided I will be having alternating floor/ceiling textures as you walk along, etc. I just need to spend the time converting the alternate version.

The last few days have been spent playing around with how the character display will look, as well as the full inventory screen, etc. Once I've finalised these I'll get them into the game and pop up some more screenies

I've got a bit of storyline coming together as well. Whilst I don't want to bog down the gameplay with massive amounts of text every few minutes, I'm currently thinking there will be bits of exposition during the game, whether it's via scrolls or something that are collected along the way, or from NPCs, etc.

Wow looks awesome!

One thing that might be an idea is to have 2 sets of ceiling/floor textures, so that when you turn, it will change so that the pattern of the bricks/ground will change depending on the direction. This might cause some slowdown however?

Thanks! Yes definitely - you can actually play the original Eye of the Beholder here (which is where I've ripped the tileset from), and I'm planning to do the alternating floor/ceiling textures the same way It won't cause any slowdown, just another 5K of ROM

Eye of the Beholder is one of the major influences on me doing this engine (and hopefully eventually full game), along with Knightmare for Amiga and the boardgame HeroQuest.

Ok, i just started EotB up and i now i really hope you put in an awesome introduction like the one there along with the character creation! Also, in my opinion, more storyline is better

Those wall textures look really fantastic!

I'd certainly like to have some kind of introduction like that. The character creation will certainly be there, maybe slightly altered but more or less the same. Cool, I do have a general story overview in my head

I've finally put the character panels & inventory screen in-game, although they're not fully populated as yet. Anyhow, here's a recent screenshot:

The inventory/character panels look really great!

Ths is amazing! I love the look of the walls, and the inventory is something very cool. Why is there four HP slots, will there be helpers in the game?

Because there will be 4 people in your party

What chickendude said; there will be 4 characters in your "party". Also there's a chance that I'll implement adding additional characters that you meet along the way (up to a maximum of 6 in your party at one time)

Oh, ok, could link play be implemented at one point?