Cartridge version of Alternate Reality: The Dungeon for Atari
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Guillermo «WillySoft» Fuenzalida (Chile) surprises us with a version for Atarimax cartridge of the remembered role-playing game Alternate Reality: The Dungeon (Datasoft, 1987).
The original program takes up five sides of a floppy disk, and an additional side for storing character progress, with up to four characters per additional side. The game takes up around 500 kbytes, a rather large figure for a computer like the Atari 8-bit - whose CPU can handle no more than 64 kbytes.
Those who enjoyed the game will remember that it loaded data very frequently and forced the user to constantly change disks; the original manual even recommended having four disk drives available in order to reduce the number of disk changes.
«WIllySoft» converted the entire game to a single cartridge compatible with the Atari system. In addition, its version allows you to save up to four profiles as if it were a conventional Atari disk drive; therefore, there is no need to use an additional diskette. Likewise, it is also possible to use a physical disk to store the characters created, which allows greater flexibility in the use of the game.
“I took the work done by Mark “Wrathchild” Keates, who consolidated the entire game into a single ATR file. This was a very important starting point for a complete conversion. From there, I converted the disk reading routines. To do this, I designed a routine that used two virtual disk drives: one ‘D4:’ to read all the game data, and another ‘D2:’ to be used as a character recording disk,” Fuenzalida explained to Atariteca.
“This leaves ‘D1:’ available for use with real disks or ATRs, as the case may be. I had to be more creative here: the flash cartridge has certain limitations, so I had to do a complete emulation routine.”
He said the most complicated aspect was that AR: The Dungeon uses its own disk reading routine. “It doesn’t use standard OS calls, but rather direct low-level calls to the SIO port. That made it more complex to be able to modify the cartridge reading routines.”
He also discovered that the game has a system that prevents using more than one profile on the same character. "This gives you the vertigo that, either you continue with what you have done last, or you assume a cost to recover." In this case, you could lose a point of any of the characteristics of the character in the game - which defines them as Wisdom, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, among others.
In addition, Fuenzalida managed to develop a utility to transfer characters from disk to cartridge or vice versa. “I think it would be useful to make a backup copy of your character on a diskette or to put your old characters on the cartridge. This was highly requested by users of the AtariAge site, who had many characters they had developed many years ago and wanted to use them with the cartridge.”
For those interested in seeing what he modified in the game to make it suitable for cartridge use, Fuenzalida has published the complete source code on his GitHub repository, where the conversion of the game - which at the time of publication of this article is in its ninth version - as well as the character transfer application are available.
“The source code is ready to be compiled with the MADS assembler, which will generate a cartridge image to be executed with the Altirra emulator; or, in conjunction with Maxflash Studio, an ATR file can be generated with the image ready to be burned into a physical flash cart,” he explained.
To use this version, a 1 megabyte Atarimax flash cartridge is required; although it can also be written to an eprom, since either physical disks or ATR files can be used.
“I recommend that when you create the image, the first thing you do is create a new character disk on the cartridge. Otherwise, the game may crash because it won't find the character disk,” he added.
As if that were not enough, “WillySoft” designed the game labels for the Atarimax and standard-sized Atari flash cart.
Regarding the possibility of playing flash cartridges with his version of AR: The Dungeon, he said that he prefers not to do so out of loyalty to Steve Tucker, creator of Atarimax. "I suggest that you buy the flash cart from him, and then you can burn the finished image onto your Atari."
Finally, he ruled out the possibility of doing something similar with Alternate Reality: The City, the first game in this series. “I’m not going to touch it. The truth is that back in the day I only played The Dungeon. The City is a very good game to be able to cultivate a character and develop their skills, increase their level, alignment (good or evil), collect money and experience. But, as I understand it, it remains just that. On the other hand, The Dungeon has a story with a plot, there are several mysteries to discover and a lot to explore. And, in addition, it has different endings depending on how you play it. It is a very different gaming experience,” he said.
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