| paleface [sys=AII; cat=Role_Playing; reg=NA] |
| | | Download added: nox_ship.gif (82352 bytes)
"On a boat"
Modern *Ultima V*-style Apple II RPG adventure game (GOG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/nox_archaist, Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1509080/Nox_Archaist/, developer 6502 Workshop: https://www.6502workshop.com/p/nox-archaist.html); I'm running it in the latest microm8 Apple II emulator: https://paleotronic.com/software/microm8 under Windows 11.
Just getting it up and running. Purchased from GOG where it and the *Lord of Storms* add-on (https://www.gog.com/en/game/nox_archaist_lord_of_storms) are on sale. Installs with its own version of the microm8 emulator, but I seemed to find that the latest version of microm8 has more options and a less blurry display. In both you can do things like increase the emulated CPU speed--200% seems pretty good, although it also speeds up and pitch-shifts the sound. ; )
The base game and the add-on install a bunch of well fluff and the important part, the 1.4 MB .HDV Apple II hard drive files; this gets confusing because for instance the included microm8 emu prints constant errors if they're both installed in the same directory...which is the default way they're installed! Finally figured out the Lord of Storms one supersedes the original; but the game also saves to the .HDV file, so I guess they didn't want to stomp that.
The .GIF shows the "Voxel" output from microm8; it's a little too bright probably, but the default "Raster" output is slightly blurry, which bothered me. Don't usually go for scanlines but kinda wish the scanline feature worked in Voxel mode, just to tone down the brightness a bit--but it doesn't. : P Oh well I suppose I could always just adjust my monitor or maybe Windows' Night Light strength.
Anyway, really love the presentation. Such lovely little colors and animations everywhere--sound and music too, of course. Pure keyboard control. I've only got through the extremely brief tutorial combat, but from what that shows, the game avoids annoying UI pitfalls of *Ultima V* like Ultima V's huge blinking box around the active character in combat. So far, the game just looks gorgeous.
Never played the Ultima games back in the day, no idea if I'll like the actual adventure (and add-on; apparently accessing the add-on content is a matter of finding a certain NPC in a certain castle and typing STORMS at them, or something like that ; ).
6502 Workshop appear to be on the path to getting a sequel going. |
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| | | Thanks for VastleCania on the selectbutton.net forum for pointing me to https://mausimus.itch.io/shaderglass , which is letting me add scanlines (or other RetroArch shaders) over microm8's Voxel output; it's a little tricky because I'm now playing the game through ShaderGlass, and it won't work if microm8 is fullscreen, so it's a sequence of:
- Run microm8 w/ Nox HDV image
- Set microm8 to 200% CPU
- Maximize microm8
- Run ShaderGlass
- Load my saved ShaderGlass profile, which sets it to the correct input window and scanline shader
- Turn off ShaderGlass's Cursor Capture option, which doesn't seem to save to profile : P
- Fullscreen ShaderGlass (Ctrl+Shift+G)
- Task-switch to microm8
== The task-switch to microm8 doesn't quite work: ShaderGlass is grabbing the screen or something, so you stay looking at the scanlined ShaderGlass display of microm8, but now have control focus in microm8, so the controls work.
I've seen someone complaining in a comment on ShaderGlass' itch page that there's input lag, but Nox is so input delayed anyway that I'm not noticing any difference. ; ) But the scanlines reduce the horrible glare of microm8's Voxel output mode, now Nox looks great and mellow! : D |
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| | | | Using integer-scaling-scanlines shader in ShaderGlass. |
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| | | | (The Cursor Capture thing appears to be a ShaderGlass bug; I've reported it as https://github.com/mausimus/ShaderGlass/issues/65 .) |
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| | | | Well ShaderGlass could get you stuck having to reboot if you accidentally full-screened Nox : P and also it ran pretty slow; also it was slightly on the dark side anyway so eh I'm just running microm8 in Color Raster mode instead of Color Voxels--raster is slightly dimmer and blurrier, kinda just takes the edge off. |
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Kept wasting my torches by accidentally hitting "I" for Ignite instead "O" for "Open." : P
Oh jeez I didn't take the cue and type NAME or JOB at that pirate on the boat. : P
I figure I'm gonna get stuck at some point 'cause like "help" to prompt the Knight Paragon, prompt words used from one person's text to prompt another are NOT capitalized, so eh you just have to hope you type the right word at them? I dunno that part just scares me.
OH I think that brown/white twitching thing next to the road north of the mill and surrounded by banditos was probably that town where the king wanted me to visit his old friend about his bow. :"P
NPCs follow daily schedules around the areas so you may have to go look for them at different spots at different times of day. |
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| | | Download added: 28_inventory.jpg (56327 bytes)
"Inventory's a pain"
The grind is real and shops/inventory are a pain. Think I'll stick to Angband.
I do like the aesthetic, but it might've ended up being slightly eye-strainey. |
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