Phantasie series

[KeighnMcDeath]

Ubi owns ssi?

 

[Francois424]

As long as your "fan recreation" is not for sale, nobody can say anything.
If you want to sell it, it would be easy to change the battle mechanics, update items (we have more screen pixels now, so we can have better names), change some of the spell names, and stuff. Then it would become a "inspired by" rather than a 1:1 remake. B ut then it's not the classic Phantasie for say, AtariST anymore.
Ppl have been making fan patches and reprogramming for Ultima 3-4-5 for decades now and nobody got dragged in court... That said I am no lawyer. Pretty sure nobody would care.

Heck if I was to rebuild Phantasie I, I would rebuild it in a more complete Phantasie3 engine (tho I would rip most of those graphics, won't lie, unless an artist would be willing to work for free to remake/enhance them), and add missing weapons/armors/tiles from P1 into P3...
It would be a ton of work tho. I've been making an RPG maker version of Ultima3 for like 5 months now and even tho I made tons of progress, it's far from done.

As much as I would like a rebuilt P1/P2 game that works with 3440x1440 resolution without stretching and proper upgrade to the art and mechanics of Phantasie 3, I get the feeling I'm never getting it.
They blew their chances at remaking it with that dysmal Phantasie collection last xmas as well... well beside maybe getting more ppl interested in the franchise that is.
If anyone does rebuild it tho, let us know. I would love to check it out, beta test it, and maybe support it some if I can.

 

[Francois424]

Merry Christmas and happy new year folk !

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Is there a GOD SWORD in one of those presents?

 

[Francois424]

Is there a GOD SWORD in one of those presents?

Maybe... Some of them could be mimics tho, best be careful in handling them

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I'm trying to recall if a mimic is a creature even encountered in Phantasie.

 

[Francois424]

I do not think they are, to be honest. Was just having fun

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

A mimic present would be so mean. Kinda like Nog-ooze or decorated Christmas Ent.

 

[elky68]

Well, its nice to see that people still talk about the good old 80s games, even in 2024!

The phantasie series was one of the best games on my c64 back then and I recently enjoyed playing it on the VICE emulator again as the DOS-graphics are really a pity.
The good old nostalgic feeling kicked in again until I started playing Phantasie III. Im sure I would manage to keep my arms and legs together, saving with emulator all the time but somehow this version is already so different from I,II that I lost interest in playing. Not sure I want to try some IVth version with asian language...

So I thought how about we stick with the game mechanics of I,II and work on some construction set for playing some phantasie on the web? Phantasie Online?...

The first version will alow to create and play only one character, you fight in some arena. Many things are obvious (you can grab some monster data from the d64 files, choose what items we want to be using from the old manuals...

We will definitely not copy one of the game worlds or dungeons, just the basic aspects. Some things have to be different (the thief would be inferior in straight battle so he gets an option to steal).

I was able to identify many more more columns in the monster data than supplied by A Schultz, for example monster cth and armor, resistances. A few columns stay unknown to me
Maybe someone else has an idea

ID​

name​

c1​

dam_max​

dam_min​

exp​

c5​

c6​

c7​

c8​

hp​

armor​

res_mind​

res_fire​

size​

c-11​

c-10​

c-9​

evade​

gold​

max​

c-5​

drop1​

drop2​

cth​

c-1​

1​

Skeleton​

2​

7​

1​

77​

0​

0​

0​

0​

3​

1​

0​

0​

0​

20​

-10​

90​

-75​

20​

6​

58​

0​

0​

50​

0​

2​

Bantir​

1​

8​

2​

147​

0​

0​

0​

0​

10​

9​

1​

1​

1​

20​

0​

30​

-15​

35​

5​

35​

0​

0​

40​

0​

3​

Drip Slime​

1​

6​

1​

71​

0​

0​

0​

0​

3​

5​

4​

4​

1​

20​

-5​

100​

-40​

0​

6​

35​

0​

0​

40​

0​

4​

Viper​

3​

14​

3​

732​

0​

0​

0​

0​

20​

12​

1​

1​

2​

47​

0​

0​

-10​

0​

1​

62​

0​

0​

80​

0​

5​

Coyote​

1​

8​

2​

167​

0​

0​

0​

0​

11​

5​

7​

7​

1​

47​

-2​

70​

-21​

0​

3​

62​

0​

0​

50​

0​

I have 71 monster rows, if more data makes it easier. Sadly some data looks messed up in the d64 when I use a Windows hex editor. But let's not be perfectionist, its good enough for a start.

In my first (playable) prototype, things can look like this: http://strats.shilla.club/images/screenshots/Untitled.png

What I had no clue about was how damage is actually calculated - player and monster. Seeing 1 damage appear so often in the actual game my guess was we subtract rand(1, pts) - monster_defense and make it 1 it falls < 1.
Or what to use for CTH of player...monster->evade should mostly kick in. also player level? dexterity? luck? who knows?

There would be a lot of things to go into detail and I am not yet sure what the goal of such a project would be but maybe some people get interested in testing this little phantasie-web-solo after I install it somewhere or let you temporarily play on my Server over here.

I decided to use PHP and Mysql as this seems the fastest way still.

 

[Francois424]

Seeing 1 damage appear so often in the actual game

There was a bug in the AtariST version of the first 2 games (Phantasie1/2) where enemies only did one damage.
To tell the truth, the game was brutal even with that, and you can fell just how much harder it should have been by playing the C64 version (which is obnoxious to play as you have to cas spell by numbers from a keyboard) or the 3rd title on the Amiga/AtariST.
Of course this bug should be fixed in a remake, but then encountering 18 drip slimes with their 1d6 damage per hit and near 100% accuracy would be an impossible fight until VERY high level (well without armor anyways, but if I remember you do not get good armor loot until the 3rd map... elftown or is it pinewood? (Something like that, been too long since I last played P1)

Very nice spreadsheet you have there.
If you have something that's playable at some point, let us know !

 

[mediocrepoet]

Seeing 1 damage appear so often in the actual game

There was a bug in the AtariST version of the first 2 games (Phantasie1/2) where enemies only did one damage.
To tell the truth, the game was brutal even with that, and you can fell just how much harder it should have been by playing the C64 version (which is obnoxious to play as you have to cas spell by numbers from a keyboard) or the 3rd title on the Amiga/AtariST.
Of course this bug should be fixed in a remake, but then encountering 18 drip slimes with their 1d6 damage per hit and near 100% accuracy would be an impossible fight until VERY high level (well without armor anyways, but if I remember you do not get good armor loot until the 3rd map... elftown or is it pinewood? (Something like that, been too long since I last played P1)

Very nice spreadsheet you have there.
If you have something that's playable at some point, let us know !

C64 as I recall (it's been a LONG time since I played it) you put a premium on things like offensive group spells, etc. to try and clear the board as much as possible. There were also defensive enchantments and such but I don't recall those being all that great (it's been like 40 years though). Played with the manual beside you so you could see the list of spell and items.

Definitely a different era.

 

[Francois424]

Definitely a different era.

Oh absolutely... In fact having watched a C64 playthru of P1/P2, I find the balance in these games much better than Amiga/AtariST version.
We just need the ST/Amiga graphics/sounds with the C64 balance. Man that would rock !

 

[elky68]

Well, for me the combat has priority now. And the version im working on is difficult by itself as you play one character against one monster, ins some kind of erana or on a journey. All classes that can obtain the spell FireFlash IV (8) can get to level 15 fairly well. But that is the stage where you (I did it at least) exchange all fighters / rangers by classes that have "8". Of course, in this version, spells like sleep, resurrect can not work like when you have a party.

For the interface I implemented a stupid select list for choosing characters, and items from shop. but for things like action menus I like HTML buttons with keyboard shortcuts better. So im not trying to 100% remake one version or another, just trying to pick the best method for situations.

And for graphics...I hated the DOS version, I kinda fell in love with the cute C64 8-bit character pics (sprites?). But this is where I would need some help because we are not going to steal any. Most important are the character races/classes, and monsters (by now I managed to set up all that came with the d64 but we will also want to add different ones for that fit to our story). In addition images for the town buildings, a logo.

And once we extend the version to parties, I would like to make a dungeon toolkit, and need ideas for a story (the original story was made up right after reading Tolkien? I find it funny that Tolkien is an evil monster here).

I wouldnt mind if the first version's story leans very much on the original until we notice what is easy to achieve / makes most sense.
In an online version it would not be a problem to have all 3 worlds (I,II,III) and more as options to play but we might have to do some things differently just for certain reasons.

Im currently testing the "Journey" part which is a linear one from town to town with random encounters, one coordinate representing the location. Fountains instead of Inns atm. Trying to fix some details of surprise encounters etc. and getting the output aligned.

For all battle output, the C64 had a single display area on top which stayed for like 2 seconds. This could be a bit too slow but on the other hand, an emulator would make it so fast that you miss some actions. In this case, I really wanted the messages to display one after the other, not all battle events line by one in one go, so I stuck close to c64 with this (which was quite some work lol).

For now I just want to make it an enjoyable little web game that can call some memories back - as easy as possible.
I find the combats against larger monsters like high devil really challenging. Minor Deity with just 1 char is almost impossible but I had a lucky streak of spells with my Priest once

 

[elky68]

For maps, I think I make a tool that can READ the Ascii representations found in the solutions...

 

[octavius]

I find it funny that Tolkien is an evil monster here

I guess Wood couldn't resist the pun "Trolkien" for the evil lords of trolls.

BTW, I decided that in P3 the only real incentive to exploring the overland maps is for grinding purposes since there's absolutely nothing interesting to find. You can just use the Transportation (I think it was called) spell to travel between towns, and dungeons are usually only a few squares away.
So that's something that might need "fixing" in a remake.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I find it funny that Tolkien is an evil monster here

I guess Wood couldn't resist the pun "Trolkien" for the evil lords of trolls.

BTW, I decided that in P3 the only real incentive to exploring the overland maps is for grinding purposes since there's absolutely nothing interesting to find. You can just use the Transportation (I think it was called) spell to travel between towns, and dungeons are usually only a few squares away.
So that's something that might need "fixing" in a remake.

JR Trolkin.

 

[elky68]

In an online game, we cannot have the save states be like in the c64 vwersion where you could only save the game in town (to make the game playable at all as saving took a lot of time?)
My idea was that you could see other parties on the map later, possibly interact.

But I think some harder parts of the game were only doable if you had several attempts where you just resetted the device when you could not flee from some black knight and all the party was killed. And I think it was part of the game design - not just a cheat - to have more than 1 attempt for difficult tasks.

In an interactive app however, we would want to save any step on the map, each battle round. It would have to be possible to log out at any time and resume right there later. But then the consequences of disasters cannot be the same then. But this is a completely different game.

My current 1-character-mode could be used to train individual characters in town arenas (and also to test battles and fix bugs).
The party mode could follolw the original: Save game state only when you leave town.

For me, a true remake with all original items,graphics doesnt really make sense. I think the plan should be to go a bit further, but still offer the Phantasie I-III worlds as part.

What do you guys think about the save-state-dilemma?

 

[elky68]

Wasnt there some cheat where you could duplicate items by selling a characters stuff to shop, then load a saved party status and have the items again?

 

[Francois424]

Wasnt there some cheat where you could duplicate items by selling a characters stuff to shop, then load a saved party status and have the items again?

I think so... It had something to do with the disk version of the game, some port had a disk for towns or something.
Not sure about what I will tell you, so feel free to double-check. But you would sell items to the shop, and NOT save your game. But the shop was saved automatically.
So when you reloaded your game, the shop was still saved with the stuff you sold, and your characters still had theirs too.

I do not remember where I read that... Probably some archived guides lying around on the internet.
I did not commit the cheats to memory as the game was easy enough as it was (especially Phantasie 1, where you can get 6 god shield by redoing a dungeon 6 times pretty early in the game).

Good luck !

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I did that a few times on my c64 version and it eventually ruined my disk. I never could get a clean good copy of the master and it eventually was screwed too for some reason. Some old SSI disks needed a decent copy program so I guess the ones I used were shit.

 

[elky68]

I ran to the map (2,2) pf Phantasie 1 today, and either it was already ruined from the .d64 disk or visiting it ruined it.
The map looked ratehr weird and it had some town - unlike the map in the walkthrough.

The development of my version is going nicely. With above experience, im glad that the web app will save character states all the time.
Two days ago I started working on the dungeons. The original versions all had the option to Save the dungeon map? or only some of them?
Well, I let it save data together with user_id now (could do it per party instead but I decided that 1 party per user would do (can make more than 1 user if necessary).
Then we can offer an option to reset dungeons - either when entering, or on exit, or as seperate function. I think we should extend those features that were limited in the orignials due to technical limitations in general - if we think it improves the fun.

I can see that moving all the data from the dungeon walkthroughs to the database will be a lot of work, so it would be nice to have people who can help with that later.
Also, I had to make up a lot of the game mechanics that are not obvious, like Chance to Flee from certain battles, Chance that spells work etc etc. During the first development stage I was not spending hours to figure this out but in the end it should provide the same feelign as in the original.

After we get the phantasie 1 world work 100%, we can think about making more worlds on our own. As the Phantasie II world did not offer too many new features, we definitely want to do it differently. For example we could have more spell caster classes, like one who uses cold spells, and this we could also work on more spells, new dungeon interactions, whatever comes to our mind.

So I think after I can get the first dungeon to work 100%, we can start testing publicly. In the meantime im thinking bout an easy dungeon editor...

 

[octavius]

I ran to the map (2,2) pf Phantasie 1 today, and either it was already ruined from the .d64 disk or visiting it ruined it.
The map looked ratehr weird and it had some town - unlike the map in the walkthrough.

The development of my version is going nicely. With above experience, im glad that the web app will save character states all the time.
Two days ago I started working on the dungeons. The original versions all had the option to Save the dungeon map? or only some of them?

Only the last one you exited.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I should have never tried duping tbh since every dungeon can be reset. I bet what I was trying to do was reset the main map. That makes more sense. I don't recall any Phantasie walkthrough book like later SSI products (aka the entire Goldbox series). I think Quest for Clues and magazines probably had hints. Of course online content changed that like GameFaq. These I do recall checking to see if I tagged every monster & item I had recorded. A proper bestiary would have recorded specials & spells. Easier to do if you can just read code I suppose instead of playing and letting mobs do their worse (again emulators make this easier I suppose). And of course different computers and mobs acted differently. Were their stats similar though? I never converted Phantasie/Wizard's Crown/shard of spring etc to tabletop. Lord knows I'd prolly try now if my living situation was better.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Blah blah forgot what I typed. Anyway, the links I've probably already posted but maybe they're helpful as some have maps:

Phantasie Again
KROAH Phantasie
Japanese Computer maps etc
Amiga Solution & Hints
GAMEFAQS C64 & some DOS
Lemon64 BLEEBS!
Cheatbook
MogelPower
Phantasie Revisited
NeoSeeker
Amiga Hall of Light P1

I couldn't find any complete screenshotted appleii, DOS, or c64 maps. Someone needs to do that.

 

[elky68]

As far as I can tell, most games were written in assembly code, and could not be disassembled. You can use monitors to inspect memory changes etc. This would not be my business.
I did manage to find all the monster data from the d64 file though for Phantasie I,II. Phantasie III uses a different scheme and im not interested in P3 so much anyway.
The rest of data we would need to rebuild Phantasie would mostly be the maps - and there we are very lucky someone wrote such a good walkthrough!

The other aspect is the functional one - and im afraid we have to work on that by testing and comparing.

Some things will be very different on a web platform. I will focus on keyboard control but the mouse can also be used to access all controls.
It would have been so much easier to just use html native select boxes, for example for character selection. And for the user, this would also be easier nowadays.
When I started coding the SOLO-parts first, I was unhappy with how that felt so the first thing I did was writing some javascript class called SelectList that lets me set up such select lists for many things.
I also found it important that the outdoor and dungeon views are almost identical and I think this will all be fine.

The difficult part is the details of battle: What determines the order of attacking exactly (spell casters seem to be last usually)
I think the first Byte of the d64 monster data has some initiative value. It ranged from 1-4 for most monsters but our top mobs (dieties) has soemthing like 20 there to make sure they go first.
I solved this by running through all characters and monsters first, assigning an initiative value. Random (1-Luck) for characters, and fixed first byte for monsters.
But there are many other instances where I have to sorta guess.

I played my version in the first dungeon yesterday and was quite satisfied, so let me finish implement dungeons...
We import the ASCII map first which is the main resource for the display.
In addition we have to supply data to out object table in the db. It will hold coordinates, object type (corresponding to the symbols in the ASCII, and then something like {"picklock":50} which will trigger a run of a method of the party class to roll the test. Forced encouners (!) would be denoted with {"encounter": 31} where 31 is the monster ID in this example.
I think with this kind of notation, also none-coders will be able to create own dungeons later.

I do have some expereince in reverse engeneering games. Sometimes I also had to get information from former players telling me how things worked.
And im not asking myself any more why im trying to make something that looks OLD when there is all the new games around.
I think in the case of Phantasie, it is the very details within the game that makes me want to play just that - nothing else - sometimes.
I hope that implementing this myself does not mean I lose the mythos for it, dont know the right words for this...

Oh, thanks for your list of links, appreciate it very much. Out main resource might be the SPRITES. But maybe we get lucky and someone remakes them for reasons of copyright.(were those from the dos version?)