For anyone who may be interested, here are the tools disk and source
disk for the game. The game is divided into two binary executables and
two data file types. The driving program displays all the scenario
text, loads the escape engine binary (escape.obj) and the level files.
Level files are comprised of an image file (.IMG) and a map file (.MAP).
The image file has both textures and sprites. They can be edited with
IMG.ED on the tools disk. The map file contains the object (sprite)
database, texture page map, and wall/door/panel map. The map file can
be edited with the MAP.ED file on the tools disk. However, the editor
is limited to 32x32 map dimensions. The actual escape engine is capable
of 128x128 levels. The editors are very crusty and primitive. Some
hand editing is still required on certain features. The Apple monitor
program makes that pretty easy though. Neither editor's commands are
documented. Use the source, Luke. They are both written in AppleSoft
with a small assembly helper for the map editor (source included).
The driving program, HBCC, is pretty simple. You may notice that the
game disk boots into this binary file directly. I applied a patch from
Beneath Apple DOS to do this. Don't INIT any disks with using the game
disk or they will expect to run a binary file at boot time. The source
to HBCC is HBCC.S and assembles with MERLIN. Here comes the rub. I
built the escape engine on my Mac using the cc65 tool chain. I was able
to convert the source files over to MERLIN compatible text files.
However, I made some labels too big for MERLIN. The error messages
returned are less than helpful in tracking them down. I had to use the
DSK and PUT ops because there is no way it will all fit in memory. As
it is, the render file is too big for MERLIN to handle. If you are
feeling industrious and have too much time on your hands, feel free to
get this assembling with MERLIN. Instead, I have included the build
directory from my Mac. Install the cc65 toolchain, make sure it is your
path, then type 'make'. In less than a second you have the escape
binary. I use Virtual ][ and its ability to mount directories as ProDOS
partitions to test. I then copy the files to a DOS DSK image and ADT
them to my II for final checking.
Enjoy,
Dave...
http://schmenk.is-a-geek.com/tarfiles/HBCC.TOOLS.DSK.zip
http://schmenk.is-a-geek.com/tarfiles/HBCC.SRC.DSK.zip
http://schmenk.is-a-geek.com/tarfiles/Escape3D.zip