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[DrSnuggles]

Thanks for looking and good to see you are still here.

[DrSnuggles]

Added features to: https://DrSnuggles.github.io/Bloodwych

• QuickSave F4
• QuickLoad F9
• Save to file
• Load via drag'n'drop
• use UZIP to store >4 saves in localStorage
• RMB closes opened menus
• consume water/food

[DrSnuggles]

Happy Easter !!

I reworked loading.
Since i added ZIP support to make the eight saveslots useable i was sure to pack the whole data dirs into ZIPs.
I also added preloading of BW.zip and fade out loading screen like amiga did.
The key inputs on PreStart screen are now working.

[karadoc]

Hello there.

I've just stumbled across this project. I've glanced at the working copy at http://www.bloodwych.co.uk and it looks great.   (Although, the menus on that site don't seem to work. Eg. character info, faqs, etc, don't seem do anything. Only game works.)

And seeing that there is source code available on github, I thought I might be able to satisfy some of my ancient curiosities some of the game mechanics. -- However, I by the looks of it, its a full recreation, and so not necessarily 100% faithful to the original.

I'm just wondering, how close to are the mechanics compared to the Atari ST version of Bloodwych? For example, does disrupt really only deal 1 damage when it doesn't completely kill an enemy? (Were all those times spamming disrupt at enemies a waste?! I thought it just had highly random damage to be 'chaotic'.) Do the special weapons, fleshbane, brainbiter, etc, really have no special effects based on character colour? I was never sure about this.

I've only browsed through the code a little bit, but there does seem to be some effects that I know of that are missing. For example, I couldn't see anything in the code about what the 'staff of power' does; from what I saw in the code, it seems to do nothing special at all. But I know in the Atari ST version it does reduce spell costs and slightly increases spell power. I've never been sure if the other staffs do anything; but the staff of power has a clear effect that is easy to test. Also, I see that the wands, eg. chaos wand, do boost spell power for their colour; but I can't see how it effects spell cost / success chance.  I know from my own testing that the chaos wand increase the effectiveness of chaos spells for whoever holds it, but for non-chaos spell-casters it also improves their success chance. So, for example, for Murlock the wand will not change how easy it is to cast vivify; but for Zothen it will help a lot. Maybe I just want' reading carefully enough; but I didn't see that distinction in the code.

So anyway, I'm curious as to how closely the remake rules match the Atari ST rules.

Other things I've been curious about include:
 * How much damage do arrows do? What does it depend on?
 * How are experience points distributed - in particular, is it possible to 'waste' experience by letting a summon get the killing blow?
 * Does spell-tap do anything to NPCs?
 * Does casting spells over and over continue to make them more powerful indefinitely, or is there a cap or something?
 * Do different enemies have different spell resistance?
...

I'd code-dive to find the answers to my questions, but I my questions are mainly about the game that I remember from years ago! If the remake has totally different internal rules, it would still be of interest to me, but I guess it wouldn't really answer my long-held questions about the game that I've had years of experience with.

In any case, I'm glad to see that the project exists! It is looking very good. Maybe I'll try a full play-through some time.

[DrSnuggles]

Hi karadoc,

i also stumbled over this project and digged into the code.
Play: https://drsnuggles.github.io/Bloodwych
Source: https://github.com/drsnuggles/Bloodwych
I tried to compare with amiga version playing side by side in emulator. Feels and plays different, but i don't care too much.
I added some features to help me having more fun playing it, like RMB closes menus.
There is also F4 = Quicksave, don't know if i like the key position that close to F5 (browser refresh)
This saves a JSON file, which you can edit and load again by drag'n' drop, maybe that helps you to explore this version more quickly.

[karadoc]

So you're continuing this noble work! Awesome.  I'm pleased to see it.

I guess I don't get the answers to my questions though. There was nothing particularly special about the original game mechanics. I certainly don't think they were carefully balanced or anything - so changing them freely could be an opportunity to improve them game...  but I do remember spending hours of experimentation in my younger years, and it would be good to have some answers. The things I was asking about aren't really the things I was experimenting on though - because the experimentation answered my questions... stuff like which colour trolls are the most powerful, and is the colour the other thing that matters; what affects the cost / sell price of items --  superseded by the discovery that you can cheat / cheese the game by buying anything for 1 common key; also if you buy food from an NPC, your character level will be set equal to your strength...   ...  etc.  I assume most of this stuff is 'common knowledge'; although I have seen on a Bloodwych website somewhere that the chaos gem 'seems to have no effect' when put in the socket - whereas I know it casts vivify! So maybe some stuff is less well known than I thought!

In any case, I'm just rambling. It's good to see that the game lives on. And it's cool that two-player mode is set up nicely enough that it would be viable to play as both players simultaneously!  That could be interesting enough to warrant a play-through of its own. I wonder if it would possible to have two mouse cursors on the screen simultaneously for actual two-player mode though. Back in the days of the Atari ST, I'd play two-player Bloodwych with my brother. I doubt he'd want to play it with me again now, because he knows that I've basically got the game memorised, whereas he'd get lost a lot... but I reckon he'd be interested in playing it with his son. I'll suggest it to him; but at a glance it looks like two-player mode might not actually be good for two people at this stage.

[DrSnuggles]

At least i try

Sorry for not answering your questions. The reason is simple. It looks like you know the game much better then i do. I remember playing it with my school friend back in the days and two player mode definitely cought us.

Most of your questions about this HTML remake are found inside the code.
For example arrow damage is calced based on values found in data\BW\json\items.json:
Munition
Arrows: = powerFactor: 1.0
Elf Arrows:= powerFactor: 1.2
Weapons
Long Bow:= damage: 4
Frost Bow:= damage: 7
Cross Bow:= damage: 10
How it's calced is in js\champions.js Champion.prototype.useItem
which creates a projectile js\projectiles.js.
The final doDamageTo function is also found in js\champions.js
Btw. looks like you get kill XP from summon spell.

So i can help in finding the answers for HTML version but I'm doing hard reading asm ressource to know how it should be

Two mouse cursors: I was thinking of changing from std. cursor to more independent canvas drawing cursor, mostly to get rid of css cursor size deprecation warning. But canvas drawing is different here, not all areas are updated all the time. Also would need a lot of click event rewrite.
If you connect multiple mouses to one computer they all share same cursor. Don't think browsers transparently give me information about each device. So don't expect that soon. There are still other problems i'm hunting. Right now i found out when last two party members get killed simultanoues there is an error in finding active champion name. Things like that.

I'm happy you are here. MadMunky also had help from Wishbone, as far as i read. Bloodwych should be a team effort. Simply makes more fun to have company. Maybe i should invest time into networked two player mode. Hope to find time for some ideas.

[karadoc]

How it *should* be is an interesting question. I suppose one has to make a choice between faithful emulation vs what's 'good'.

You've already put in a some UI features that are good, but new. And although I'd be interested in having a version that has identical game-mechanics to the original; there are a few issues, the main issue being that we don't know exactly what the game mechanics were in the first place, and a secondary issue being that perhaps there are some improvements to be made. There could be minor things, such as adjusting stats of ♥ and ♦ characters to make them a bit more viable; but there also could be major things such as adjusting which spells are in which colour etc. (It's commonly acknowledged that most of the spells in blue are junk; but most of the spells in yellow are great. That could be tweaked...)  One change I think would be interesting is to flag certain items on the main map as being '2-player' items, so that they don't appear in single-player games. (The amount of loot in the game is obviously balanced around two-players. So when player solo, everyone is over-equipped. I reckon it would be good to reduce the amount of loot on shelves etc so that solo players don't have so much gear so quickly.)

I guess ultimately it would be good to have a 'standard' version; and an 'rebalanced' version. But all that is long-term thinking. In the short term I think it would be more important to fix / polish some existing stuff. The main thing that comes to mine is that communication is not finished; in particular, shops are unusable. Shops aren't important to the game, but I think games always feel better when they are 'complete'. Another little thing is that spells auto-cast even with the spell-book is open. (This means that you can't control the spell power and timing during combat, because it just casts immediately when you click the spell.) In the Atari / Amiga versions, the primary character wouldn't participate in combat if the spell book or the inventory screen was open - so they wouldn't auto-cast spells like that.

Regarding multi-player, I think network two-player mode would be excellent; but I'd expect that to be a very difficult thing to implement (I'm imagining syncing problem and stuff like that). For local multiplayer, we'd just need some way for player-2 to control their own cursor and that's about all; but for remote multiplayer it would need that and a lot more.  You're right that the OS generally does not make it easy to use a second mouse for what we'd want here; but I suppose we could try to do it the Atari ST way: ie. player-2 controls their cursor using a game-pad rather than a mouse.

Unfortunately I can't really offer much practical help with any of this stuff; so although I'm saying "the game could do this, or this, or this, and this would be good too", I'm unlikely to actually help implement any of it. So ultimately it's up to you what, if anything, is worth your time and skills to work on!

[DrSnuggles]

Comm/Trade: I don't know how the logic worked. Do prices vary for different shops? Do I need a list of item prices or is it calced?
Rebalance: Champion stats and spells can be changed in JSON save file. Maybe easiest to find nice balanced stats.
2nd mouse: Possible with analog gamepad as input for player2.

You see for the first 2 points i need your help.

Meanwhile i fixed autocast "feature"

[Hungry Horace]

The HTML version wasnt developed to cover everything in the original, so Karadoc, you are right it is very likely missing things like the quirky features you mention.
There was a 'live emulation' of the 68000 being worked on by 'bit' at one point, that would have played 100% accuratly - it was effectively a wrapper which would translate the 68000 for modern machines.

does disrupt really only deal 1 damage when it doesn't completely kill an enemy? (Were all those times spamming disrupt at enemies a waste?! I thought it just had highly random damage to be 'chaotic'.)

Where did you get this idea? It is an interesting one, and I'd love to know if true! Maybe when/if the 68000 asm source can be worked through we could find the answer

Do the special weapons, fleshbane, brainbiter, etc, really have no special effects based on character colour? I was never sure about this.

Anthony 'Tag' confirmed in an email once that this was the case.

I couldn't see anything in the code about what the 'staff of power'

items like these I believe are +1/+2/+3 etc enhancements for spell casting or similar. Same with Swords/Axes etc for strength or damage.

I certainly don't think they were carefully balanced or anything - so changing them freely could be an opportunity to improve them game...

I actually disagree here, i think Bloodwych had one of the best mechanics of any dungeon-crawler i ever played

[DrSnuggles]

Added 2nd mouse cursor.

You need an analog gamepad for two cursor mode which only works in 2 player mode 
The first found analog stick is used for cursor control.
Just had x360 by hand and defined following keys:
Analog stick click = Cursor click
LB = strafe left                                                RB = strafe right

                                          Y = walk
                X = turn left                               B = turn right
                                          A = walk back
DigitalPadUp = action
DigitalPadDown = closeMenus

Maybe an option setting dialog would be nice.. Future.
Personally i start to dislike the click on stick, but start to like the more relaxed gamepad play style.

[Edit]: Switched to more classic CD32 controller style.

[Hungry Horace]

DrSnuggles - have you tried the amiga version with controller support?

This is a really fluid way to play the game    There is a seperate button for attack and another for opening doors.

Pressing one specific key toggles the cursor on/off... when it's off you can use Directions and SHoulder buttons to walk around, when its on, the buttons control the cursor

[DrSnuggles]

Didn't know that such a version exists.
I had Cruiser and Competition Pro joystick with two buttons but both used same signal wire. So electrically just one button.
Can you link to this special controller version?

[Hungry Horace]

Sure. It's the WHDLoad installed version here:

http://whdownload.com/games/B/Bloodwych&ExtendedLevels_v2.51_0439&0043.lha

You'll need to load it in an emualtor like FS-UAE which has WHDLoad booting support, or unpack it in a Workbench environment.

You then need to set CUSTOM3=1 and set your joystick to being a CD32 controller layout.

The details /Readme are here:
http://whdload.de/games/Bloodwych.html


I based the idea off of how the game used to play on PSPUAE, but wanted to adapt it to work with real Amigas

[DrSnuggles]

Mea culpa.

i used my ancient WinUAE hd file for too long without an update
Started playing a bit with CD32 controller gamepad layout which is a nice experience.
Thanks for this adaption. Sure i will port that layout and maybe the menu *