FORMAT13 is still under heavy testing, and I'm putting together the actual game that I'll include with it. You see, FORMAT13 has been designed so that it can handle all kinds of different games and data. Actually, a lot of it's data was originally designed to be hardcoded (permenantly placed) into the executable itself. Well, for easier debugging, I made a large data file that holds all of the game's vital data; this file is ASCII based, meaning that a 5 year-old could even hack it (well..., maybe not) Anyways it runs under mode 13 (320 X 200 256 color palettes available) The executable game is a skeleton and the data file is the flesh and organs. Game tiles (15 X 15) are free for redesigning and with the game I'm gonna include CDraw (program to draw weapons/images and game tiles), and MaP13 (the map maker for FORMAT13).

OK!!! I gotta an alpha version put together. It's all ready for dowload. I've zipped it up, so you must decompress it using PKUNZIP, or some users may have UNZIP. Once you've unzipped, it run the executable FORMAT13, to see a little sample demo I threw together in 10 minutes. Click here to download FORMAT13.

I can't garuntee that it'll work perfectly; I've got most of the buggies zapped, but there still a few more that are pestering me now. Cool? Cool! Umm...... You might want to know what type of system that I recommend that you run it on. Since it was programmed in VBASIC, it's kinda slow for anything lower than a 486. I'm pretty content with it's speed on my system (486 DX2 80) I have no idea how it'll run under Windows 95; I'm running on DOS 6.2. Currently, the game executable is around 300K in size excluding data. Tiles and images take up around 850 K I think... Data and text files take up around 40 or 50 K. Sometime before I post the beta, I'll try to get a sample image of the game.

One more thing about FORMAT13. If you're thinking ahead of me, you're probably asking something like, how can something like this be used to create plot? Well, I do have little sprites and characters you can talk to, but the primary method of creating plot for FORMAT13, is writing Session files. The session interpreter (17 pages of code) is sort of like a little programming language within the game. With a session file, the game clears the maping space, and opens up a specified session file and executes it just like the BASIC interpreter (well, sorta like that...) Get the picture? I've got a command listing available for viewing if you wanna take a look.

That's all for now folks. EMAIL ME PLEASE!! Tell me what you think about this project. Is the idea behind it good? Sometime afterward, I'd like to completely rewrite it in C++ (that is when I *learn* C++ :)) moonzie@yahoo.com


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