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Incline Golden Era Retrospective : M E L E E (1989)

Cleveland Mark Blakemore

Golden Era Games
Übermensch Developer
Joined
Apr 22, 2008
Messages
11,557
Location
LAND OF THE FREE & HOME OF THE BRAVE
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934535-melee-commodore-64-screenshot-making-a-charitable-donation.png
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Almost a mini-Ultima in just under 16K of Basic and assembly. The world was gigantic and the simple interface (mouse cursor driven icons) belied a deep RPG. Unlike Ultima, the entire world was contained in memory (just like Grimoire) and there were no loading scenes or delays going from one area to another. Using a custom character set and the hidden 8K beneath the ROM for the map.

One thing I regret leaving out is some kind of level advancement. You do get new magic spells with time by buying them. In some ways the coins double as "Experience" points like in real tabletop D&D.

I believe the "MELEE" title screen color-cycled the letters. I can't remember. I used to spend some time on designing cool "Attract modes" even for the smallest games on the C-64. I like grabbing the player as soon as the title screen appeared.

I think I designed a unique RLE format to crush the necessary graphics data down to a fraction of what was required by the colossal tile map so it was quite compact. I was getting to be a pretty decent PAL assembly coder just before the C64 began to die as a games machine.

I could be wrong but I think as was the style in those days, the NPCs were static but the monsters popped up around you or in front of you.

I think a demon was ruling over the city clandestinely and we had to find him, penetrate the depths of his dungeon and destroy him. I think a full playthrough took at least a couple hours.

Notice all the color coding in the text. Like ANSI or the VT-100, the C64 permitted you to embed color changes as special control characters in text.
 
Last edited:

Cleveland Mark Blakemore

Golden Era Games
Übermensch Developer
Joined
Apr 22, 2008
Messages
11,557
Location
LAND OF THE FREE & HOME OF THE BRAVE
Why is there no button to move left?
Because the only way is forward. It's a thal game.
Somebody has tampered with the code, it was fine in Loadstar and store release. I could not tell you after all this time. Since my screenshots show all four direction arrows, obviously some chronic masturbator has managed to flub the code.
 

KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
Joined
Nov 23, 2016
Messages
12,860
There are two downloads on MyAbandonware. One is 29K.

Gamebase64 no longer has a dl for any games.

Mobygames entry

You are an adventurer, who has travelled into the desert in search of excitement. There, you meet an old man who tells you about the treasure located in the nearby ruined and demon infested city of Gilgamesh. He also tells you an easy way to enter the city via the underground sewer system. Leaving will be trickier...

Melee is an icon driven top-down role playing game that was distributed as part of the C64 disc magazine Loadstar (Issue 61). Actions can be selected by moving an arrow (using the joystick) to the appropriate icon and pressing fire. There are four movement icons and three others: Magic, Scrutiny and Brawn.

Your character starts in the middle of the city armed only with a dagger. Items can be found in treasure chests whose colour indicates its contents. For instance, white chests contain one of four magic spells. Items can be picked up by pressing the Brawn icon twice (or just holding the fire button) and selecting a direction. Only one item of each type can be carried at a time. Types include keys, spells, weapons, three types of armor, and two kinds of treasure. Items can be dropped by pressing Brawn once and Scrutiny once, then he direction to drop the item. The same combination can be used to give objects.

Monsters appear at fixed locations, often guarding items. They may be attacked once by pressing Brawn a single time, and then the direction to attack. The likelihood of defense and damage during attack are influenced by your armor and weapons.

The only statistic that is tracked is hit-points, which will result in your death when they reach zero. You can be healed by giving money to a priest who lives in a ruined church. The priest also knows a way out of the city, but will only tell you if you bring him all of the treasures in the city. Once this is done, the game is won.

Loadstar Letter #61. I don’t think that is the full magazine but I have to admit this series passed me by in the 80s.

I guess for $15 you can buy a CD of 199 issues of LOADSTAR.

Dsk images

And if you have a c64 working:
Loadstar Commodore 64 and 128 5.25" Disk Issue 61 Disk 1

Loadstar Commodore 64 and 128 5.25" Disk Issue 61 Disk 2
 

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