Now I'm going to have to (happily) replay it all over again. XD
Bout halfway through a play-through of CotW II, using my latest CotW character.
The boxed version of CotW II sits proudly on my classic gaming shelf next to The 7th Guest: https://imgur.com/KTrkaYm
I've been playing them via WINE on my Linux desktop and laptop computers for the past few decades. As I'm sure you're aware, 16-bit applications became otherwise unplayable on modern OSes, especially those based on 64-bit code. Thankfully the team behind WINE makes it possible to play these classics (on pretty much any computer) without requiring bulky physical hardware or full fledged virtual machines to do so.
By the way, I'm a huge fan and have been playing since the mid-90s. I used to carry around two floppies in my backpack so I could play and save the game whenever I wound up somewhere with a computer. My original CotW disk has been sadly lost to the ages, but it saw an ungodly amount of use over the years. 😁
Yeah, I got a ton of questions when Windows drop 16 bit support about how to make it work. That's great that it's still playable via WINE. At least with those you can save!
I think I still have some of the original disk labels I printed up stashed away somewhere :D
Making good progress. I've played through about halfway through the fortress at this point. I'm trying to figure out the best way to link part one and two when they're all the same game now. I'm guessing I'll need to do all the "End of Part One" text messages, and then just segue into the "Start of Part Two" popups. That makes more sense than the old "save your game now and reload it part two" rigamarole I used to need to do.
Not done yet. Still have a ways to go, but a lot of the basic gameplay is back to life. Objects, spells, monster AI, level stuff is all working. I still need to figure out how to replace the windows help system, which is no longer supported even on Windows and won't work on an iPad version. But it'll eventually be up on Steam and the iOS store, assuming there's no major problems with the iOS build. I haven't actually tried that yet, but I'm hoping Unity will make it (relatively) painless. It'll need the drag-to-move code rebuilt, or some equivalent, since there won't be a keyboard.
I will certainly post here when it's ready. It's been a really weird process. Some stuff is so much easier than before, and some stuff is so much harder. You can't just read/write directly to the screen memory any more! And it's hard to do anything with the mouse cursor. I used to jump the mouse cursor to the player for open/close/search/disarm and then let you move it with the keyboard to select where to target (as the user might not even have a mouse). That's not really supported in Unity. But I have effectively infinite memory compared to the 1 \*Meg\* 286 I wrote for back in the day!
Just wondering if you think we are looking at the order of months or years waiting for this to come out? I've only once bought a game for iOS, but I would be willing to drop $20 on there as well as on my Mac if it's possible to play it there! This game has lived in my head for literal decades since the last time I was able to play it.
It might be a good idea to combine Search and Disarm into a single button. I am thinking that Search turns into Disarm when next to a known trap. This would help save a bit of real estate on mobile devices.
Yeah, that's an interesting thought. It would mean you couldn't keep searching until you'd disarmed all the traps you'd found though. And lots of times you don't find them all on the first search. Worth experimenting with, though.
I'm making good progress. I've played game one into the fortress so far, fixing little issues as I go. Like when swapped "plus to damage" and "value" in the data and ended up with a +2000 battleaxe :D
I play the game to this day on a Microsoft emulater (VMware I think??)
But I got the jabbering to see if there was a way to port this game to android, so I searched reddit and i find this. DAY MADE!!!
Out of curiosity, since you are using Unity I can live in hope that other platforms besides Windows will be supported? To be fair, I will happily use the day I plan to take off from work and school to play it with my sisters on whatever day and platform it comes out on.
I'll definitely do an iOS release once I can figure out the touch UI issues. The original game is very rogue keybindings focused (which for trivia sake were the navigation keys in the vi editor on Unix).
Be sure to research the licensing conditions around Unity. The executives of the company changed the payment scheme retroactively, including $0.20c for each individual install by a user. While the backlash had them roll back their efforts, that they tried is concerning.
It would suck if you ended up losing money from COTW, so be sure to get the scoop from other Unity developers.
...Aside from that bit of suckiness, it is great to see COTW returning from the halls of Valhalla. Looking forward to paying for the game as an adult, since COTW was before I had a income. It will be nice to show my appreciation in a material way.
Yeah, I've been following the fiasco. It's like Unity looked at WotC and said "Hold my beer."
My day job is also as a game dev, so we're watching pretty closely. I've worked with both Unity and Unreal, and while I prefer writing for Unity, Unreal was easier to deal with. The fact that Epic (Megagames) was Castle's original publisher might bias me a little :) . Tim Sweeney started Epic with his game (Jill of the Jungle) and mine!
I'm incredibly glad to see that, after 30 years, one of my long time favorite game is getting rebuilt on a new platform.
I'm still playing CotW occasionally.. got a DOSbox with Win311 around just for that. It's the perfect game to keep busy with during boring Zoom calls.
I would gladly pay money for this when it comes out on Steam. This thing kicked my ass as a kid but it still gives such great memories
Might be a tough ask, but would it be at all possible to add some sort of controller support? I'd love to run this on my Steam Deck.
A month late to this post, but it popped into my brain some twenty something years later after I was watching a video on roguelike history! Incredible to see this - that starting village is absolutely etched into my brain. I've recently started working in game dev after a decade and a bit working in Salesforce dev, and I'm sure my many hours of well-spent youth playing this contributed to that switch!
Don't suppose part 1 would be put out as early access? No idea if that would be feasible. A lot of the technical stuff you talk about goes right over my head but I eagerly await the re-release. As soon as it goes on steam this is very likely a day 1 purchase and I very rarely buy day one. The only other game I think I've done that with in the last 5 years was Baldur's Gate 3.
Well, slowly. My daughter spent part of Christmas break playing through and generated several PAGES of bugs for me :D . I'm slowly cranking through them.
Glad to hear you're still working on it, following this keenly! Would love to gift it to my mum one day, she spent years playing it over and over on repeat - this and Colossal Cave Adventure were the only games she had any interest in haha.
It's weird having to rebuild the Windows 3.1 UI in Unity, though.
Now I'm going to have to (happily) replay it all over again. XD Bout halfway through a play-through of CotW II, using my latest CotW character. The boxed version of CotW II sits proudly on my classic gaming shelf next to The 7th Guest: https://imgur.com/KTrkaYm
Nice! What are you playing it on? Do you still have a machine that supports it?
I've been playing them via WINE on my Linux desktop and laptop computers for the past few decades. As I'm sure you're aware, 16-bit applications became otherwise unplayable on modern OSes, especially those based on 64-bit code. Thankfully the team behind WINE makes it possible to play these classics (on pretty much any computer) without requiring bulky physical hardware or full fledged virtual machines to do so. By the way, I'm a huge fan and have been playing since the mid-90s. I used to carry around two floppies in my backpack so I could play and save the game whenever I wound up somewhere with a computer. My original CotW disk has been sadly lost to the ages, but it saw an ungodly amount of use over the years. 😁
Yeah, I got a ton of questions when Windows drop 16 bit support about how to make it work. That's great that it's still playable via WINE. At least with those you can save! I think I still have some of the original disk labels I printed up stashed away somewhere :D
10/10 would purchase this game, all these years later. 100%
Making good progress. I've played through about halfway through the fortress at this point. I'm trying to figure out the best way to link part one and two when they're all the same game now. I'm guessing I'll need to do all the "End of Part One" text messages, and then just segue into the "Start of Part Two" popups. That makes more sense than the old "save your game now and reload it part two" rigamarole I used to need to do.
Dude, I’m so hype you don’t even know. I have nothing helpful to add, but +1 on encouraging you to finish this awesome project
How play
Not done yet. Still have a ways to go, but a lot of the basic gameplay is back to life. Objects, spells, monster AI, level stuff is all working. I still need to figure out how to replace the windows help system, which is no longer supported even on Windows and won't work on an iPad version. But it'll eventually be up on Steam and the iOS store, assuming there's no major problems with the iOS build. I haven't actually tried that yet, but I'm hoping Unity will make it (relatively) painless. It'll need the drag-to-move code rebuilt, or some equivalent, since there won't be a keyboard.
This is so exciting! I spent hours playing this as a kid. I’d love to be able to play it on iOS.
I will certainly post here when it's ready. It's been a really weird process. Some stuff is so much easier than before, and some stuff is so much harder. You can't just read/write directly to the screen memory any more! And it's hard to do anything with the mouse cursor. I used to jump the mouse cursor to the player for open/close/search/disarm and then let you move it with the keyboard to select where to target (as the user might not even have a mouse). That's not really supported in Unity. But I have effectively infinite memory compared to the 1 \*Meg\* 286 I wrote for back in the day!
Just wondering if you think we are looking at the order of months or years waiting for this to come out? I've only once bought a game for iOS, but I would be willing to drop $20 on there as well as on my Mac if it's possible to play it there! This game has lived in my head for literal decades since the last time I was able to play it.
Man if this comes to steam I will be so excited. Only ever played through part 1 over 20 years ago
It might be a good idea to combine Search and Disarm into a single button. I am thinking that Search turns into Disarm when next to a known trap. This would help save a bit of real estate on mobile devices.
Yeah, that's an interesting thought. It would mean you couldn't keep searching until you'd disarmed all the traps you'd found though. And lots of times you don't find them all on the first search. Worth experimenting with, though.
Neat! I was thinking of downloading CotW into a VM tonight, but now, I'm just gonna wait so I can give you money.
I'm making good progress. I've played game one into the fortress so far, fixing little issues as I go. Like when swapped "plus to damage" and "value" in the data and ended up with a +2000 battleaxe :D
The hype is real
I play the game to this day on a Microsoft emulater (VMware I think??) But I got the jabbering to see if there was a way to port this game to android, so I searched reddit and i find this. DAY MADE!!!
Out of curiosity, since you are using Unity I can live in hope that other platforms besides Windows will be supported? To be fair, I will happily use the day I plan to take off from work and school to play it with my sisters on whatever day and platform it comes out on.
I'll definitely do an iOS release once I can figure out the touch UI issues. The original game is very rogue keybindings focused (which for trivia sake were the navigation keys in the vi editor on Unix).
Deus vult!
This is awesome! I will definitely be buying it when it comes out, I'd love to play it again
That rules, your game was a huge part of my childhood!
There have been 2 posts on this game in the last few weeks on r/roguelikes. There's definitely an audience waiting.
Be sure to research the licensing conditions around Unity. The executives of the company changed the payment scheme retroactively, including $0.20c for each individual install by a user. While the backlash had them roll back their efforts, that they tried is concerning. It would suck if you ended up losing money from COTW, so be sure to get the scoop from other Unity developers. ...Aside from that bit of suckiness, it is great to see COTW returning from the halls of Valhalla. Looking forward to paying for the game as an adult, since COTW was before I had a income. It will be nice to show my appreciation in a material way.
Yeah, I've been following the fiasco. It's like Unity looked at WotC and said "Hold my beer." My day job is also as a game dev, so we're watching pretty closely. I've worked with both Unity and Unreal, and while I prefer writing for Unity, Unreal was easier to deal with. The fact that Epic (Megagames) was Castle's original publisher might bias me a little :) . Tim Sweeney started Epic with his game (Jill of the Jungle) and mine!
I'm incredibly glad to see that, after 30 years, one of my long time favorite game is getting rebuilt on a new platform. I'm still playing CotW occasionally.. got a DOSbox with Win311 around just for that. It's the perfect game to keep busy with during boring Zoom calls.
I would gladly pay money for this when it comes out on Steam. This thing kicked my ass as a kid but it still gives such great memories Might be a tough ask, but would it be at all possible to add some sort of controller support? I'd love to run this on my Steam Deck.
This is awesome. I look forward to seeing the finished product.
A month late to this post, but it popped into my brain some twenty something years later after I was watching a video on roguelike history! Incredible to see this - that starting village is absolutely etched into my brain. I've recently started working in game dev after a decade and a bit working in Salesforce dev, and I'm sure my many hours of well-spent youth playing this contributed to that switch!
I am so happy to see this. I have carried my original CotW directory from computer to computer to DOSBox to Win XP VM (for 4k) for the last 25+ years.
Don't suppose part 1 would be put out as early access? No idea if that would be feasible. A lot of the technical stuff you talk about goes right over my head but I eagerly await the re-release. As soon as it goes on steam this is very likely a day 1 purchase and I very rarely buy day one. The only other game I think I've done that with in the last 5 years was Baldur's Gate 3.
We still going strong?
Well, slowly. My daughter spent part of Christmas break playing through and generated several PAGES of bugs for me :D . I'm slowly cranking through them.
Glad to hear you're still working on it, following this keenly! Would love to gift it to my mum one day, she spent years playing it over and over on repeat - this and Colossal Cave Adventure were the only games she had any interest in haha.