Kingdom of the Seven Stones

Overview:

Welcome to the Kingdom of the Seven Stones, where thee, the curious stranger, enters the realm to embark on a journey of epic proportions. The land is fraught with peril and danger, but thou art undaunted, for thou art a hero of great renown. Thou roam the land, seeking quests to undertake, and those in need of aid. Thou art a beacon of hope, a shining light in the darkness, and thou will make right what wrongs exist in this realm. The fate of the kingdom rests on thy shoulders, and thou must not falter in thy quest to bring peace and prosperity to the land. May God watch over thee on thy journey, and may thou emerge victorious in battles against the forces of darkness that threaten to consume the realm.

Venture forth into a world brimming with over a hundred places, each graced with its own unique depiction. Here, thou shalt encounter riddles wrapped in enigma, labyrinths that twist and turn, felled beasts of legend, and secrets that beckon the curious soul. In this land of myth and mystery, something shall surely stir thy spirit and call thee to adventure.

Purchasing information:

Purchasing is required to play. For those whom are able, please consider purchasing this game in physical format from The Future Was 8 Bit. Buying from them encourages the  development of new physical products for our old systems! Downloadable digital emulator cartridge format is provided as an alternative method to play the game as opposed to buying a cartridge for those that do not have access to physical Commodore 64 hardware but still want to own the game. Those who already purchased a physical cartridge and want a digital copy as well, please contact the author for a "no additional payment required" download key (i.e. author's first name -at- myjoe.com). Newer versions of VICE Commodore emulator with 1MB MagicDesk2 cartridge support are capable of playing this game, as is the Kung Fu Flash cartridge.

Technical Notes:

Kingdom of the Seven Stones is released in physical cartridge format using the full capacity of a Marina64 cartridge to squeeze the game into a single cartridge. This size of game would historically require three double-sided diskettes to fit the entire game. Even with the Marina64 cartridge’s generous capacity, the game still requires extensive compression to fit all of the graphics, game logic, songs, and the extensive interactive text and scenarios into the single loadable cartridge. The game supports both PAL and NTSC display regions.

Revision History:

Rev A

• Initial official release of the game after feedback from The Future Was 8 Bit (TFW8Bit).

Rev B

• Fix proposed by Martin Piper's technical analysis YouTube video suggesting to use an illegal screen mode to hide FLI graphics to text transition glitch.
• Game play fix based on TFW8Bit using "hello" or "hi" as an alias to "talk".

Rev C

• Removal of mention of the "north" from the fork location, as this path was removed due to cartridge space limitations.