8-Bit BTCS --- BTI Dungeon EDITOR FULLY FUNCTIONAL

[Darendor]

So I finally had some time to myself and so I downloaded this "Dungeon Wizard" that Twoflower pointed out. After messing around with it for 15 minutes I'll post my micro-review thus:

1) The program is written in machine language but runs as though it's in BASIC. Hardly a complaint given my program was also in BASIC, but I feel it should be slightly more responsive. Oh well.

2) I tried with all my might but I just could not get to the "marker editor" without it throwing a tantrum. I'd enter the menu for it, and then in exactly 1 second after displaying the menu it would say "NO FREE MARKER!", despite following the instructions on exactly placing a "marker" within the dungeon level...

3) Some of the sub-menus have no escape mode. For instance, I selected the "Disk Menu", and it prompted me to LOAD a dungeon disk. I didn't actually want to load anything, so I hit the back arrow key but to no avail. No amount of key mashing would let me return to the main menu...

4) Finally, the most glaring issue I have with this software is that the method of implementing doors and walls is straight up wrong. Casual BT players might not realize this, but each dungeon level's cell has its own 4 'walls', which contain either a wall, a door, or nothing. Which means that there is no way at all to place one-way walls or one-way doors.



I find that it's a nice build upon what I attempted, but my opinion is that it's unfinished and it needs refinement. The programmer(s) could have done away with the graphic intro screens and the music and used that space to expand it a bit better.

Still, not awful.

[q0w]

Just to clear up some things, the "Dungeon Wizard" is a commercial product from 1989. Keep in mind that reversing the thing was alot harder back in 1989 than nowedays.

1) The program is written in machine language but runs as though it's in BASIC. Hardly a complaint given my program was also in BASIC, but I feel it should be slightly more responsive. Oh well.

The programm is mainly basic, only a few routines like that interlaced-viewer are ml.

2) I tried with all my might but I just could not get to the "marker editor" without it throwing a tantrum. I'd enter the menu for it, and then in exactly 1 second after displaying the menu it would say "NO FREE MARKER!", despite following the instructions on exactly placing a "marker" within the dungeon level...

You should add a (free) marker (in the special-editor) to the actual dungeon before going to the marker-editor.

3) Some of the sub-menus have no escape mode. For instance, I selected the "Disk Menu", and it prompted me to LOAD a dungeon disk. I didn't actually want to load anything, so I hit the back arrow key but to no avail. No amount of key mashing would let me return to the main menu...

In the sub-menus i.e. [4] Disk Menu, you simply can press joystick right to go back to the main menu or cancel load/save!

4) Finally, the most glaring issue I have with this software is that the method of implementing doors and walls is straight up wrong. Casual BT players might not realize this, but each dungeon level's cell has its own 4 'walls', which contain either a wall, a door, or nothing. Which means that there is no way at all to place one-way walls or one-way doors.

That's correct, the editor can load and save one-way-doors/walls, but you can not create them. There are a few other limitations mentioned at the end of the documentation.

The basic-code can be extracted and improved for sure, that release was just done for preservation. The "Dungeon Wizard" is still the most complete editor available so far.

Have fun!

[Darendor]

Alright, well, I was under the impression that the Dungeon Wizard was something that was created in recent times, not 1989. If that is indeed the case then, yes, it would be the first attempt at a third party editor program for the C64 version of Bard's Tale.


Regardless, it would be amazing if it could be tweaked/augmented to be even more robust.

Back into the ether I go...