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Filename
Joltima
Summary
Classic RPG
Authors
Justin Karneges
Site URL
Ticalc.org URL
Release Date
February 1998
Compatibility
All TI calculators
Language
Assembly
(Taken from Joltima about page)
Joltima is a classic role-playing game for the TI-82,83,83+,85, and 86 Graphing Calculators. It resembles Dragon Warrior and Ultima Exodus (if you remember those games). It took about six months to make, back in late 1997. It was officially finished in February of '98 for the TI-83, with ports trickling in about a month at a time afterward.
In mid-2000 it was optimized and given new enemy graphics (courtesy of Hideaki Omuro) for the TI-82. It stayed unreleased until February 2001 when we decided to port it to the TI-83+ (as well as the other calculators). It's still the same game, just fixed up.
It's quite a good game in my opinion. Funny story: Some months after I had finished making the game I wound up in high school detention. I took the opportunity to play through the whole thing (something I had not done yet). It was a great way to pass the time! Fun stuff! But don't take my word for it, just check out the reviews at ticalc.org.
By the way, if you're wondering why I ended up in detention, it was because I was late all the time. Fortunately there are no "late rules" to worry about when you are an adult. Otherwise, I would be expelled at this point for not being finished with Infinity (originally Joltima 2), my Gameboy Color project. Give us a couple more weeks ;-)
Joltima Features…
- Huge game that should take many hours to complete. (veteran RPGers should get about 5-6 hours at least)
- Over 20 weapons and armors
- 8 Dungeons contain 1 shard each. All 8 shards opens the way to the castle.
- Easy to use, Dragon Warrior-style menu system
- Compression crunches the huge game down to 23k
- Name your party.
- Unique viewing system like Ultima Exodus that blocks view if something is in your way
Product Screenshots
Significance of Product
- Why product was important to TI community
- Any controversy or interesting circumstances surrounding product
- Awards won, fond memories that people have
Documentation
- How to use the product
- Can copy the author's readme file (if available)
Development History
- September 1997 - Got TI-83, saw some assembly games, gave up on further TI-BASIC game programming.
- September 1997 - Started Joltima (called Jultima at the time). Programmed it using the HI-TECH C compiler for CPM (used an emulator).
- October 1997 - Got the scrolling overworld, party, and vision working.
- November 1997 - C program was too big. Didn't want to make an entire RPG in assembly. Gave up.
- January 1998 - Got Z80 assembly down to a science and rewrote Joltima in assembly. Added compression routines. Game was 10k (WOW!).
- February 1998 - Went full-force to finish the game. Renamed to Joltima (instead of Jultima) because it looked less obvious.
- February 1998 - Added the menusystem.
- February 1998 - Added all the maps.
- February 1998 - Added the battlesystem.
- February 1998 - Put in all the miscellaneous stuff, cleaned up other stuff.
- February 1998 - Released a demo for the TI-83. Crashed most calculators. I blamed Ashell, but it was really my error in programming.
- February 1998 - Demo ported to the TI-82 by Alex Highsmith. Ran fine. Finished Joltima for the TI-83, but it still had that crash error.
- February 1998 - Found the error, released Joltima v1.0. On the first day I found 2 errors by having my friend beta test the whole game.
- February 1998 - Released Joltima 1.1, next day I released Joltima 1.2. In the same day I released Joltima 1.3. All minor errors.
- February 1998 - Joltima 1.3 ported to the TI-82 by Alex Highsmith. He found a bug that crashed the 82 but not the 83. We fixed it on both.
- February 1998 - Joltima 1.31 released for both the 82 and 83. Finally it was perfect!
- February 1998 - Joltima gets Game of the Month for February at the TI-FILES.
- April 1998 - Hideaki Omuro (crashman) optimizes the TI-82 version. It was 500 bytes smaller.
- April 1998 - Terry Peng ports to the TI-85.
- April 1998 - Bill Nagel ports to the TI-86. The 86 has a different memory structure and so Joltima was split into 2 modules. Doesn't work on all TI-86's.
- April 1998 - Joltima85 removed from this page because of a random number bug that made you fight the same enemies in every battle!
- May 1998 - Joltima85 random number routine replaced with Hideaki Omuro's much better routine.
- June 1998 - Got email from TI-82 users saying that the boat brought them to a forest instead of the island! Rereleased the unoptimized Joltima82 that worked.