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1995-10-02
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4KB
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99 lines
DC Software, 7908 Kettlewood Ct., Plano TX 75025
September 15, 1995
Dear DC GAMES user,
The long awaited and often delayed upgrade to DCGAMES is
now here. I want to thank everyone for their patience. I
hope it was worth the wait!
NEW FEATURES IN DCGAMES 4.00
o Mouse interface (Block Editor, World Builder and Game
Driver).
o Multiple landscaping palettes (10 maximum) each having
up to 256 tiles.
o Configurable 256-color palette.
o Transparent color for objects and characters so you
don't see a black box around them when playing.
o Encoded/Compressed games for copy protection and
reduced disk space requirements.
o Support for generic sound blaster/adlib cards!
o Voices can be played through the PC speaker (with a
loss of quality) if you don't have a sound card!
o Ultra-fast graphics display routines makes the high
resolution modes even faster than the lower
resolutions!
o 6 standard landscaping palettes with 200+ high
resolution tiles each (outside, desert, swamp, arctic,
underground/cave and interior).
o Tons of high-resolutions object and character tiles!
o Configurable icon bar for mouse playing.
o Fully re-worked character information window shows
character graphics as well as wielded/worn and backpack
items.
o Fully configurable keyboard and mouse event handler
through the scripts allows you to change all key press
and mouse click actions.
o Enhanced fighting control allows you to control each
player and monster individually from a script file!
There are so many changes I've lost track of them (but
I'll create a complete list when I update the
documentation).
THERE ARE ALSO SOME COMPROMISES IN ORDER TO GET 4.00 OUT:
NOTE: These compromises can be temporary or permanent,
depending on your comments!
o Sound: I've dropped support for the 'text-to-speech'
product 'SBTALKER' because of it's memory requirements
and incompatibility with other products. Was anyone
using it or counting on it?
o Speed: While the graphics driver I'm using (FastGraph
from Ted Gruber) is hundreds of times faster, the
extended scripts features and expanded memory
requirements take a hit in game response. A 4.77MHz PC
may no longer be a viable platform.
o Graphics: I've dropped support for the old Tandy-1000
graphics mode. I don't have the equipment to test and
they are too slow.
o DOS Calls: Calling a DOS program from a script is still
working, but the program uses so much memory that there
is very little left for doing it. I've seen some
programs that 'swap' the invoking application to disk
and then swap it back when the called application ends.
I'll be looking into this kind of solution later.
o File I/O: Being able to write information into a file
and retrieve it later is a requirement for some of the
more complex game implementations. I will add this
feature as soon as possible after 4.00 is released.
Being able to store and retrieve complete objects and
characters would also be useful.
o CONTAINER objects: The ability to put objects within
objects is needed to implement true chests, carry
multiple 'small' items and have them count as a single
'backpack' item as well as the implementation of
collections, such as spell books, etc.
As you can see, there are many new features I want to add,
but just don't have the time to do quickly. For every
feature I manage to include, there are 5 new suggestions
waiting in my mail box. Keep them coming and be patient.
I'll get around to all of them (sometime before the turn
of the century, I hope).
Sincerely,
David A. Hernandez
DBA DC Software
P.S. Some of you have formed User's Groups to exchange
ideas, games, graphics, etc. I've will be creating a list
of such groups and including it in the 4.00 release. If
you have formed or belong to a group like this and want to
include the information as part of the release, send me
the information with your upgrade form.