<> *4@2 ROSWELL - DIARY OF A GAME PART THREE *3]5@3 by SKiDZ / A51 *1]1 @4 Welcome to the third installment of the Roswell diary. I've not actually been doing much to the game over the last couple of weeks due to other Amiga/Personal commitments, but I'll let you see what has been done so far.... @1 Honestly, one of the biggest time wasters (for me anyway) is searching through all my CD ROMs for that much needed util. I've actually seen myself spending hours upon hours browsing through CD's trying out utils, reading files and playing silly games! @5 I've also been hard at work contacting a few of my contacts and they will no doubt tell you that I don't just write a single page letter, but between 3-10 A4 pages worth! @3 When you take into consideration that I have quite a lot of contacts, it takes many hours to reply to their/my queries etc. @4 Let the diary commence.... @5May 1996 (17th) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@1 After reading the letter from Alan - zYLAX/A51 - I noticed he had tested Roswell on an A600 1 meg machine and the in-game music didn't load! Ahem! Well, what can I say? It's not my fault but another GRAC problem! I simply loaded up the GRAC source code and altered the music loading routine to stop checking for a vast amount of free memory! I don't know why Edmund (author of GRAC) decided that the code should check for so much free ram! After all, a simple TRAP command will stop any errors if memory is low. So I simply altered it. The actual way that Edmund had coded the music loader is like so: *3@3 Open up the module file (read it from disk). Check how much space it takes up in RAM. Check for that amount of free RAM and some extra RAM just in case! Then load the module. *1@1 This is rather silly. First of all, why load the file in twice? It takes time. Plus, call me thick, but why do all the above in the first place when only a handful of mods will load due to the extra ram required! Yeah, I know, it's so 1meg users can load all the gfx. etc. But hey, if the gfx artists and coders/scripters of the game are on the ball, the use of 32 colour screens in low res and as few object banks as possible will mean that the music should also be fine to load and play without any major hassles on a 1meg system. No doubt Edmund (GRAC coder) had his reasons, but I think my way is much better as all Amiga users with 1meg Chip RAM or more will now have the in-game music. :-) If anyone has either seen the first preview of the game or indeed the latest 2-disk preview, then you will have seen my neat F1 Software dual playfield scrolling screen/logo. This was an effect I saw in Super Street Fighter II Turbo and wanted to have the same effect, but SSFIIT had a diagonally scrolling screen, whereas mine was a vertical scroller! So into trusty old AMOS Pro and I spend the best part of two hours trying to have a diagonal scroller! It worked 100% until I added the dual playfield. (2 screens - one on top of the other with transparent background so both screens can be seen). The minute I added Dual Playfield, the scrolling screen jerked like Hell! Eventually I managed to get it running smoothly with no jerks at all with a bit of trial and error and a good read at my AMOS Pro manual. Dave Kirk from Apex Systems also told me of the problem and after taking his advice and reading my manual, I slapped myself very hard. It's always the simple things in life that frustrate me! ]5Arrrggghhh!]1 Due to my many commitments, I had to put Roswell on hold! For a long, long, long, long time!!! @3[...in a galaxy far, far away (Ahem!) zYLAX!]@1 DMC GOLD V3 and a NEW DATA DISK for Ult Quiz II got in the way, as did this little lot.... I started a Computer Course and eventually got a "real" job too! Had family problems! (Booo!) I starred in a few porn films, so had to lie low for a while! :) zYLAX begged me to do some PD stuff for A51 such as CONVERGENCE and a new code for the BTF engine! My Dox Disk Creator was brought back from the dead also and is almost completed too. Gave up AMOS in favour of Blitz, but soon got bored and returned :) And now, almost a year later I return to the Roswell source code... @5Mar 1997 (25th) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@1 Yip, it's almost a year since any work has been done to Roswell and this year will see the release if it kills me! Over the last week or so, my m8 Jim Allan has been re-writing the whole script and coming up with great ideas for the game. I myself have been drawing/testing new characters for the game also and I'm getting bored doing this!!! So far Jim has come up with a great storyline, but will it ever end? It's quite large just now and it isn't even half finished! I won't say too much about it here, coz hopefully by the next diary installment, I'll have a new demo of the game ready for playtesting. I'm sorry it's taken myself so long to get back to work on this game. If you've been waiting for it, then fear ye not olde impatiant one! Roswell will be even bigger and better than I had ever planned. I don't wanna make it too big, but I don't wanna make it too small. At present, myself and Jim are aiming towards 100 locations! Gee! Each location will be drawn up roughly by myself and Jim (I've started on a few of 'em already) and when the whole game is coded and scripted, I may pass it all over to a gfx artist to touch it all up (ooh errr!). [2 Gobliiin/A51 is very interested in doing the gfx, so he'll be asked first nearer the time, but if he's too busy, then I have someone else in mind. As far as a release date goes..... ]5HAHAHAHAHA!]1 I cannot put a date on it for a few reasons:- zYLAX is always asking me to do loads for AREA 51! (hehehehe :) My "real" job takes up too much of my spare time :( I'm not motivated enough due to the state of the Amiga! :( Ya see, obviously I don't wanna spend months working on a title unless I'm gonna make some pennies from it to pay for my time. The way the Amiga is going, it looks like I won't make any money at all. Let's face it, I'll have to pay Jim and maybe a gfx artist (if we use one) at the end of the day! As you all know, sales of Amiga software is going down each month, so is it really worth my while completing Roswell? The answer is "YES" simply because I love the Amiga and want to support it 'til the very end. Who cares if I don't make too much money (if any at all) from the game. At least I'll know that I had fun writing it. Plus I can show it to my grand children one day.... Erm, well, maybe not! Just think, one day "Roswell" will be a Retro Game on some CD comp full of Amiga snapshots for an Amiga Emulator! Or will it??? Enough of my twaddle for now. Look out for the EXCLUSIVE PART 4 of this diary only in BEYOND THE FRONTIER. Until Then.... *3@7 Andy Gibson (AGAS Productions) (a.k.a. SKiDZ/A51)