I have an ultimate64, king fu flash 2 with the game installed on that. I tried saving a game by typing save, the game instructed me to use a name for the saved game so I called it save1. I then heard the ultimate64 making disk drive noises implying it was saving but when I come to try and load the game back it doesn’t work. I’ve looked in various directories on my usb memory stick which is plugged into the ultimate64 and can’t seem to locate the save1 file.
I don't have an Ultimate64 but I can give some insight. Did you mount a blank .D64 image to the ultimate64? If so it would be saved inside the D64 disk image. If the Ultimate64 saves directly to the file system then it might not be named "save1". Reason being that KotSS saves in screen code names not PETSCII. This is the chart for screen codes: https://www.pagetable.com/c64ref/charset/ - in other words your file name would end up being unreadable ASCII control characters if you directly saved it to the USB file system if you didn't use a .D64 for saves, and the file system might not like that. Try saving as just numbers only because those are compatible with the USB file systems, and see if that works.
How about an EasyFlash version ? Also 1mb too (16kb banks instead of 8kb) This will cover users of MiST, MiSTer, TheC64, TheC64 mini, TC64, U64 & U1541II as well as real EasyFlash hardware. Ping me if you need assistance doing this. Find me on discord or https://csdb.dk/scener/?id=10113
I could likely make that work (thanks for the suggestion). FYI - I tried to join CSDB many times in the past, always rejected, so I gave up. Never told why. Can you send a ping in email in case I have some questions?
I am happy to report the EasyFlash version of the game has been released which (should) support all of those targets! Many thanks for your help on this conversion.
First of all, thank you for making this game. Question, I used HELP to get a list of available actions, is there a command that will list obvious directions you can go or is the intent to try all directions if information is not provided in the area description? It's been a while since I have played a word parser so just wondering.
Welcome! Unfortunately, there's no command to give directions. I have included a downloadable map PDF, and someone on the CASA website made their own map (much more detailed than my included map) [search "CASA Kingdom of the Seven Stones" and likely it will come up]. That's fairly common of the era to hunt and try, not that it can't be frustrating at time, but thankfully maps are available. It was one of the sacrifices that had to be made to not include that feature due to the system size constraints.
Just got the digital download, but I am unable to get the game to run. I have tried both with a real C64 using the Ultimate II+ cartridge and also theC64 Mini console, but it won't load up. Any ideas how to get it to work?
It’s not supported on the U2+ currently. We encountered this during the review for the latest issue of Zzap. You will need something such as a Kung Fu Flash currently.
I wish it could support it. I suspect there's two reasons. I looked over the U2+ specs and under "C64 cartridge emulation, with support for many CRT files" it lists "Custom Ocean / System3 carts (up to 512K)". This makes me wonder if there's not sufficient onboard RAM/flash to support larger cartridges (as this one is > 512K). The other issue concern is that this cartridge format is a Magic Desk 2 cartridge format, configured at 8Mb (1MB), and I do not explicitly see this in the list. It might be this particular data file format is not supported (yet).
The same issue will present itself with any device that attempts to emulate cartridges, for example the Mini or the Maxi. They need to have sufficient space available to load the cartridge and bank in/out data "on-demand" and support the particular .crt file format for Magic Desk 2 at this capacity. Newer VICE versions supports this format, but it's not universal (yet + unfortunately).
For those wanting to understand the low level details, technically the game is a compiled 1MB binary (.bin) file with all the code, graphics, text and sound inside. I use the VICE cartridge converter to convert that binary file into a magic desk 2 .crt file. There's nothing special at all about this binary file otherwise. The binary file is 128 x 8K binary chunks merged (in-order) together into a single file then converted into a .crt files where meta data describing the contents of the cartridge format is added.
For the Magic Desk 2 format, a cartridge emulator (e.g. U2+, Maxi/Mini) needs to respond to requests when the game code sets a bank value at $DE00. The game code effectively does an LDA #bank STA $DE00 (or to translate to BASIC, a POKE 56832, <bank>). Then the cartridge emulator responds by presenting one of the 8K bank out of the 128 available as ROM memory at location $8000 for the C64 CPU. So the U2+ and Maxi/Mini need to add this tiny bit of logic and have the space in RAM/flash to be able to load this cartridge. Cartridge emulators already do this type of logic for other cartridges, so it would be very easy to support Magic Desk 2 if they have the RAM/flash space available to hold this size cartridge.
It’s not the size of the cart, the U2+ can play both Briley Witch games and they are both over 512k in size. It’s almost certainly going to be the device doesn’t yet support the MD2 bank switching configuration.
Interesting. I looked at the firmware code, and I see that the the max rom capacity for the U2+ is 1MB, and they do support Magic Desk but the comment says that it supports a max of 16 x 16K chunks, which means 256K total. So they do support some banking but not the full range. Probably a very easy fix.
I don't work for TFW8Bit, but I do know international shipping is a bit of a nightmare. When packages are shipped to certain countries, the packages can be hit with not only tariffs and taxes but flat (+expensive) fees that are tacked on by the carrier and the receiving government. Those fees by the shipping company are to cover the crazy paperwork of local governments. DHL is one of the friendlier shipping companies in the sense their fees are more reasonable. When I say reasonable, I don't mean cheap, but DHL tends to deliver the package on time (important) and doesn't charge extra fees that makes a buyer think they are just using their "fees "to pay for their executives' next lavish vacations.
When sellers ship to countries that are not international friendly, the charges/fees can be so extreme by the local government that buyers will refuse the package and demand a refund. That leaves sellers in the position where they not only don't make a sale, but they eat the shipping costs of the package and the return too. Bottom line, sellers need to selectively pick to ship to specific countries, or they get royally fleeced (which will make sellers regret making a sale).
The other issues is that buyers often don't expect those fees (or think they are too high), so they might just think sellers are trying to make even more money, and refuse the package delivery. Depending on which country, buyers are often more or less aware of these fees, so banning some countries outright (sadly) is often done to prevent massive losses.
I can't speak to your specific country, nor do I know TFW8Bit specific policies, but I hope this helps explain the problem... I wish it were different...
Raymond, thank you for reaching out and for explaining. I know all about what you said. I am a great retro computer lover, especially the C64 which is and will bi my first love. I am practically ordering on monthly basis stuff from the UK. And yes there are taxes and import fees to pay after the Brexit in our country, but so it is from the US etc. I will gladly pay all of the fees to have a physical copy of this fabulous and great adventure. But fortunately I own a Kung Fu cartridge and I can play the game on real hardware if I want.
Please see my collection, so you can see some fee is not an issue for me.
Congratulations for your work and keep up with it.
Nice collection! I love how shinny the boxes look making everything appear new still. Mine have dulled with age. Yes, fortunately the Kung Fu flash works well. I wasn't speaking on behalf of the TFW8Bit (since I'm not affiliated), but you could always reach out to them and ask if ever you wanted to order something. I can't say if they'd can make special cases or not but it doesn't hurt to ask... Nice to see the spectrum joined the group :-)
Great text adventure game with good graphics. I also included it in my new "Gameplay of New C64 Games from October 2024" video, in addition to the other C64 games released in October. Hope you like it.
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I have an ultimate64, king fu flash 2 with the game installed on that. I tried saving a game by typing save, the game instructed me to use a name for the saved game so I called it save1. I then heard the ultimate64 making disk drive noises implying it was saving but when I come to try and load the game back it doesn’t work. I’ve looked in various directories on my usb memory stick which is plugged into the ultimate64 and can’t seem to locate the save1 file.
Any ideas will be much appreciated
I don't have an Ultimate64 but I can give some insight. Did you mount a blank .D64 image to the ultimate64? If so it would be saved inside the D64 disk image. If the Ultimate64 saves directly to the file system then it might not be named "save1". Reason being that KotSS saves in screen code names not PETSCII. This is the chart for screen codes: https://www.pagetable.com/c64ref/charset/ - in other words your file name would end up being unreadable ASCII control characters if you directly saved it to the USB file system if you didn't use a .D64 for saves, and the file system might not like that. Try saving as just numbers only because those are compatible with the USB file systems, and see if that works.
Your advice of creating a blank D64 file worked so thank you very much
How about an EasyFlash version ? Also 1mb too (16kb banks instead of 8kb) This will cover users of MiST, MiSTer, TheC64, TheC64 mini, TC64, U64 & U1541II as well as real EasyFlash hardware. Ping me if you need assistance doing this. Find me on discord or https://csdb.dk/scener/?id=10113
I could likely make that work (thanks for the suggestion). FYI - I tried to join CSDB many times in the past, always rejected, so I gave up. Never told why. Can you send a ping in email in case I have some questions?
I am happy to report the EasyFlash version of the game has been released which (should) support all of those targets! Many thanks for your help on this conversion.
First of all, thank you for making this game. Question, I used HELP to get a list of available actions, is there a command that will list obvious directions you can go or is the intent to try all directions if information is not provided in the area description? It's been a while since I have played a word parser so just wondering.
Welcome! Unfortunately, there's no command to give directions. I have included a downloadable map PDF, and someone on the CASA website made their own map (much more detailed than my included map) [search "CASA Kingdom of the Seven Stones" and likely it will come up]. That's fairly common of the era to hunt and try, not that it can't be frustrating at time, but thankfully maps are available. It was one of the sacrifices that had to be made to not include that feature due to the system size constraints.
Just got the digital download, but I am unable to get the game to run. I have tried both with a real C64 using the Ultimate II+ cartridge and also theC64 Mini console, but it won't load up. Any ideas how to get it to work?
It’s not supported on the U2+ currently. We encountered this during the review for the latest issue of Zzap. You will need something such as a Kung Fu Flash currently.
This is the first time I hear that a game is not running on the U2+
Could you explain the technical reason for that? just interested to understand. No critism!
The game is great!
Hi Gregor,
Thank you and thanks for asking!
I wish it could support it. I suspect there's two reasons. I looked over the U2+ specs and under "C64 cartridge emulation, with support for many CRT files" it lists "Custom Ocean / System3 carts (up to 512K)". This makes me wonder if there's not sufficient onboard RAM/flash to support larger cartridges (as this one is > 512K). The other issue concern is that this cartridge format is a Magic Desk 2 cartridge format, configured at 8Mb (1MB), and I do not explicitly see this in the list. It might be this particular data file format is not supported (yet).
The same issue will present itself with any device that attempts to emulate cartridges, for example the Mini or the Maxi. They need to have sufficient space available to load the cartridge and bank in/out data "on-demand" and support the particular .crt file format for Magic Desk 2 at this capacity. Newer VICE versions supports this format, but it's not universal (yet + unfortunately).
For those wanting to understand the low level details, technically the game is a compiled 1MB binary (.bin) file with all the code, graphics, text and sound inside. I use the VICE cartridge converter to convert that binary file into a magic desk 2 .crt file. There's nothing special at all about this binary file otherwise. The binary file is 128 x 8K binary chunks merged (in-order) together into a single file then converted into a .crt files where meta data describing the contents of the cartridge format is added.
For the Magic Desk 2 format, a cartridge emulator (e.g. U2+, Maxi/Mini) needs to respond to requests when the game code sets a bank value at $DE00. The game code effectively does an LDA #bank STA $DE00 (or to translate to BASIC, a POKE 56832, <bank>). Then the cartridge emulator responds by presenting one of the 8K bank out of the 128 available as ROM memory at location $8000 for the C64 CPU. So the U2+ and Maxi/Mini need to add this tiny bit of logic and have the space in RAM/flash to be able to load this cartridge. Cartridge emulators already do this type of logic for other cartridges, so it would be very easy to support Magic Desk 2 if they have the RAM/flash space available to hold this size cartridge.
I hope this helps explain!
It’s not the size of the cart, the U2+ can play both Briley Witch games and they are both over 512k in size. It’s almost certainly going to be the device doesn’t yet support the MD2 bank switching configuration.
Interesting. I looked at the firmware code, and I see that the the max rom capacity for the U2+ is 1MB, and they do support Magic Desk but the comment says that it supports a max of 16 x 16K chunks, which means 256K total. So they do support some banking but not the full range. Probably a very easy fix.
I will be truly glad to buy the physical version but TWF8bit sadly doesn't ship to Slovenia (EU).
I don't work for TFW8Bit, but I do know international shipping is a bit of a nightmare. When packages are shipped to certain countries, the packages can be hit with not only tariffs and taxes but flat (+expensive) fees that are tacked on by the carrier and the receiving government. Those fees by the shipping company are to cover the crazy paperwork of local governments. DHL is one of the friendlier shipping companies in the sense their fees are more reasonable. When I say reasonable, I don't mean cheap, but DHL tends to deliver the package on time (important) and doesn't charge extra fees that makes a buyer think they are just using their "fees "to pay for their executives' next lavish vacations.
When sellers ship to countries that are not international friendly, the charges/fees can be so extreme by the local government that buyers will refuse the package and demand a refund. That leaves sellers in the position where they not only don't make a sale, but they eat the shipping costs of the package and the return too. Bottom line, sellers need to selectively pick to ship to specific countries, or they get royally fleeced (which will make sellers regret making a sale).
The other issues is that buyers often don't expect those fees (or think they are too high), so they might just think sellers are trying to make even more money, and refuse the package delivery. Depending on which country, buyers are often more or less aware of these fees, so banning some countries outright (sadly) is often done to prevent massive losses.
I can't speak to your specific country, nor do I know TFW8Bit specific policies, but I hope this helps explain the problem... I wish it were different...
Raymond, thank you for reaching out and for explaining. I know all about what you said. I am a great retro computer lover, especially the C64 which is and will bi my first love. I am practically ordering on monthly basis stuff from the UK. And yes there are taxes and import fees to pay after the Brexit in our country, but so it is from the US etc. I will gladly pay all of the fees to have a physical copy of this fabulous and great adventure. But fortunately I own a Kung Fu cartridge and I can play the game on real hardware if I want.
Please see my collection, so you can see some fee is not an issue for me.
Congratulations for your work and keep up with it.
Very best regards, Sincerely, Martin
Nice collection! I love how shinny the boxes look making everything appear new still. Mine have dulled with age. Yes, fortunately the Kung Fu flash works well. I wasn't speaking on behalf of the TFW8Bit (since I'm not affiliated), but you could always reach out to them and ask if ever you wanted to order something. I can't say if they'd can make special cases or not but it doesn't hurt to ask... Nice to see the spectrum joined the group :-)
Great text adventure game with good graphics. I also included it in my new "Gameplay of New C64 Games from October 2024" video, in addition to the other C64 games released in October. Hope you like it.
I did very much like it. Thank you! (sorry thought I had replied to this earlier)