Download it here: http://ceme.tech/DL2207

20 years minus 7 days ago, I released my first ever TI-83 Plus RPG, Illusiat. Today, after over 16 years without releasing an original RPG for calculators, I am finally releasing a new one: Darkblasters!

Inspired by Lufia, Quest 64, Dragon Quest, Illusiat and Mana Force series, Darkblasters is a role-playing game meant to showcase pure TI-BASIC graphical capabilities while trying to keep speed as fast as possible. It features over 390 rooms to explore, NPC's, some items and magic spells, many monsters and sprite-based graphics. No ASM/Axe/Grammer lib were used, in order to ensure full compatibility with 15 MHz z80 calculator models that lacks official ASM support.

A long time ago, mankind became nearly extinct after the entire world population did the Tide Pod
eating challenge simultaneously. From the dead rose a new illness that transformed animals into
monsters and many humnan survivors into Darkblasters, evil mages that look like knights.

Today, the Darkblasters stole the three crystals protecting the Kingdom of Walritia. You must defeat
the mages before they take over the world.

Here are the download links:
https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/476/47684.html
https://tiplanet.org/forum/archives_voir.php?id=2790407
https://www.cemetech.net/downloads/files/2178/x2423

Also some map tiles are actually 3 or 4 bytes large, since some tokens are 2 bytes.

I made a Youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCM-IucyDcY

Back in late 2012, when the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition color screen z80 calculator got announced, I wanted to experiment with layered text sprites, often referred to as dual-layer ASCII sprites. Games like Serenity and Metroid Pi used this technique, although the latter did not use the shifted method. In the process, I wanted to attempt making an RPG like Illusiat 6/Nemesiat, but with larger maps while being (hopefully) smaller.

I eventually got the color calculator model before pushing this RPG engine further, so only the walking engine was done and in 2014 it was posted in Omnimaga downloads section. I have recently uploaded it to TI-Planet, Cemetech and Ticalc.org as well.
https://tiplanet.org/forum/archives_voir.php?id=2790407
https://www.cemetech.net/downloads/files/2178/x2410
https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/476/47676.html

Almost 9 years later, it's being revived as Darkblasters! It will feature four dungeons, a town and a forest, some magic spells and items, but no shop and in-game currency. There will be no experience points, so your max HP/MP will go up every battle, along with your skill points. Magic will get stronger the more you use it. You'll also not be able to enter buildings in the town, but you will be able to talk to NPC's.

My goals:
-Keep the game and its RAM usage as small as possible
-Hopefully keep it in one file, unlike my entire RPG calculatography.
-Make sure that the speed remains fast enough for 15 MHz calcs. 83+ will be playable, but not the most optimal experience.
-Keep compatibility with the TI-82 Advanced and TI-84 Plus-T models. (This is why the game remains in pure TI-BASIC)

Screenshot showing some of the event sprites that you will be able to interact with. Collision might be tricky for some of those, though… (the game detects any sprite where the top-left-most pixel is turned ON as a solid object)
https://i.imgur.com/F0hSnZU.gif

Battles are currently disabled, since they just endlessly play one of the magic animation.

EDIT: New screenshots:

-Changed Holy animation to show crosses instead of the letter I.
-Updated cutscene after you get four crystal shards to look better and be fullscreen, fixing a bug introduced in v4.3 in the process.
-After opening a treasure chest the screen no longer reloads entirely. Only the part erased by the text box is reloaded.
-Fixed graphs being drawn over the CW splash screen.
-Fixed leveling up bug introduced at an unknown time.
-After some magic animations such as Flare and Blitz, the sprites re-appears faster now.
-Using lightning-based magic spells while in the swamp now causes you to take damage as well.
-The main character sprite now faces all four directions while walking.
-The magic casting animation is now shorter.
-Fixed display bug in the 3rd dungeon
-Added map walkthrough in mapsWalkthrough.zip file included with the game. The password is the name of the final boss in lowercase letters.
-Changed many magic spell and battle command icons.
-Cleaned up the code a little bit.

https://tiplanet.org/forum/archives_voir.php?id=185757

If you were planning to try the second quest, then I'd recommend waiting until version 4.1 comes out, because 4.1 adds treasure chests in almost all dungeons, and they respawn after exiting the dungeon like in Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest/Mystic Quest Legend for the Super Nintendo (which means the save data remains unchanged), so it will be easier to stock up on items and gold to fight those boss-like enemies (in one of the new dungeon, almost every random encounter is like a boss fight).

I also need to fix a background color bug with the final boss (the backdrop turns cyan after casting Omega during his first form and pink when doing it during his second form).

My Discord name is DJ Omnimaga#3630 btw ^^ . I also used to have pictures of all game maps (except the bonus dungeons), but I'm not sure where they're located anymore. I know I posted them on CodeWalrus but SMF search engine is garbage.

EDIT I did find some very early alpha version of First Fantasy II from 2016 that also uses CE Textlib, though, on CW forums. I uploaded it on TI-Planet at https://tiplanet.org/forum/archives_voir.php?id=2710181 but I had more recent screenshots afterward of versions I lost, such as this one:

And I had even planned to reduce map tiles to 3 rectangles plus the background for faster loading speed. I never got past alpha stages, though, and lost my progress.

I gotta keep up with the newer versions lol
I probably should update my editor, maybe we can collaborate in discord?

I have some questions I'd like to ask ya DJ about it UwU

Also good news, version 4.0 is out!

-Four bonus dungeons added via an entirely new quest unlocked at the end of the original
-Some graphical improvements in dungeons and the village
-Title screen copyright layout changed and reduced in size
-In-game controls that are displayed on-screen now shows up as button icons for better readability.
-Fixed save loading bug introduced in 3.1.
-Some dungeon colors and graphics changed.
-If a second quest is started after beating the game, a star now appears besides the save file on the title screen.
-The last error mentioned in the previous version changes might have finally been fixed once and for all.

https://tiplanet.org/forum/archives_voir.php?id=185757 (I also uploaded it on ticalc.org and Cemetech)

Thanks,

CalcNerd

Here is the optimized code:

StoreGDB 1 ClrDraw AxesOff ⁻10→Ymin 10→Ymax ⁻10→Xmin 10→Xmax 4→H {0,0,0,0→L₁ Horizontal 7.5 Horizontal ⁻8 Text(1,0,"ABACUS- TATERTOMORROW Text(57,0,"EXIT COUNT: Line(⁻6,Ymin,⁻6,⁻8.5 For(A,1,4) For(B,20,80) Pxl-On(12A+3,B End For(B,1,9) For(C,1,5) Pxl-On(12A+C,20+2B End End End Lbl A Text(12H,8,"> Text(57,45,L₁(1),L₁(2),L₁(3),L₁(4 0→A While not(A getKey→A End Text(12H,8," " If A=11 Goto D If A=25 H-1→H If A=34 H+1→H If not(H 4→H If H>4 1→H If A=26 and 9>L₁(H Then 1+L₁(H→L₁(H If 0≠L₁(H Then For(A,12H-2,12H+2) If 12H≠A Then Pxl-Off(A+3,40-L₁(H)2 Pxl-On(A+3,80-L₁(H)2 End End End End If A=24 and 0≠L₁(H Then ⁻1+L₁(H→L₁(H For(A,12H-2,12H+2) If 12H≠A Then Pxl-On(A+3,40-L₁(H)2-2 Pxl-Off(A+3,80-L₁(H)2-2 End End End Goto A Lbl D ClrDraw RecallGDB 1 DelVar GDB1"