I'm writing an RPG in ASM (ION) that has random levels, and need suggestions.

Well, you can't really do this ;-)

You can have hack'n'slash games (like Rogue), or something like Diablo, with a little bit of Role Playing in the middle of a Hack'n'Slash ; or something like Ultima 1 / Aklabeth where you explore random dungeons to carry out a fixed task (collect a Crown, beat a Balrog etc.) with little bits of RPG wrapped around it.

But to have a real RPG you need a progressing story ; you could cheat a little and have a story with sections of dungeon bashing in between ; with some clever design it could end up looking like a "real" RPG.

If you hunt around the web there are quite a lot of pages on creating Roguelike games, and a newsgroup devoted to it.

Never played "Castle of the Winds" (Epic megagames, Win3.1)? It has preset towns but random dungeons. Ever played the ancient cave from Lufia 2?

Yes, I've played CotW (not Lufia though) ; it's a dungeon hack with a simple plot wrapped around it ; like Diablo. You aren't really "Role Playing" though ; the story isn't immersive.

Oh MAN! I just realized that I haven't played CotW in YEARS!

Does anyone have a copy? I'll owe them dearly if they can send me a .zip :)

--BlueCalx

Go to google.com (best search engine) and type in "Castle +of +the winds" (including quotes.)

well it does get annoying to see that all of these arpgs are being made, because the truth is, they are not good games, but dont put down the poor guy. this will help him improve.

... and you've actually played it have you ? 18k of ARPGCS code (about 13k of ARPGCS data) is a pretty sizeable piece of work.

How many morons do I have to tell this to?

You don't like a game?

DON'T DOWNLOAD IT, if you have, GET RID OF IT

This really is not hard.

Take a look at the 83plus basic programs archive. Every stupid program that can add 2 to 2 is there. THERE ARE EVEN REDUNDANT ONES!!! (Shellswitchers) I am not criticising those few good ones (Organizers, etc.). I think that people should LOOK at what has been writen before they write it. Back to KOT. See how this applies? ARPGs are good, but they are sort of redundant, so I think they should have a directory under ION devoted to them so people are not decieved (Yes, I know I am being a hypocrate, but those were all in the past.)

this is pissing me off<p>
No offense or anythign to the Authors of "RPG Construction Set" but this lazy programmers are making thses games in like 5 min. and getting all the glory of making a real program.<p>
a my 3 year old cousin could make a game in just 1 afternoon with the software. I think it is dumb and it shouws that these ghuys cant really program foir them selves and that they need software to do it for them<p>
if i were to make an ION game i'd make it the "real" way...<br>
keystroke-by-keystroke

That should probably read, "if i COULD make an ION game i'd make it the "real" way."

What, are you jealous? Are the many games that you've published being unappreciated because of upstart RPG programmers? Is your post yet another esample of hypocrisy in this thread?

I'd say so.

KnightRT

Actually, he's mostly right - this was (supposedly) created with an automated RPG creator, which would have been, by my standards, not newsworthy.

Two esteemed colleagues, in the span of two days, suggested that this program (along with GlassCars, which will probably get an item soon) should get this news item.

So I gave it one.

Please don't start a big war over this, because it's no less than ninety-six percent my fault.

Sorry :(

--BlueCalx

THANK YOU
that's what i've been tryin to say all long

... and this is precisely what it is for. However, because you can make a game in 10 minutes doesn't mean that every game only took 10 minutes to make.

I *know* that a hell of a lot of work went into "Knights of Time".

And what precisely is wrong with opening up game making to anyone who wants to do it ? Is it some kind of secret society where people keep all the answers for themselves and brag about how clever they are ?

When I first saw this article, I thought that this would finally be my chance to come to my senses by not commenting on it at all. Well, I guess it turns out that I failed on this issue. So, here I go again by trying to state my opinion:

I'm not sure if I speak for everyone (or even anyone) else, but it seems to me that the "problem" with this program is not the fact that it was made using ARPGCS, but more that its use wasn't acknowledged, either in the news item or in the game's documentation. I don't really know (nor do I want to speculate) on how much work was involved in producing this game. The point, however, is that a large portion of the work on the game was done not by Jake Olson; releasing a game made from ARPGCS is not the same as writing one's own game.

As far as the "secret society where people keep all the answers for themselves", that's really far from a completely true statement. I do know that there are some programmers (who I certainly won't name) that believe that it is good for programming to be difficult, as it keeps less intelligent people out. However, I don't agree with this; the only thing that bothers me is the misleading suggestion that someone programmed a game, when what was actually done was more like level design (again, I'm not trying to say that doing that right is a trivial task, as it isn't, but it's not the entirety of the effort).

Furthermore, I don't believe that it's even remotely true that programmers won't help others, as your final remark seems to suggest. I know that I will help anyone who wants my help (within reasonable limits, of course). It's interesting to note, however, that I didn't seem to find source code anywhere in the ARPGCS package, so I would have to say that you're the one who is practicing secrecy by not opening up your software to others; you're certainly been trying to keep all of the answers you've come up with to yourself. But, considering the large number of tutorials and even larger amount of free source code out there, this is clearly not representative of everyone.

No, you are right, but unfortunately it is not uncommon. I personally am a great fan of open source stuff.

It is odd that this is aimed at me (apparently) "you're the one who is practicing secrecy by not opening up your software to others; you're certainly been trying to keep all of the answers you've come up with to yourself." because out of six or seven TI calculator programmes and about 13 or 14 emulator projects of varying sizes, this is about the only one where the source isn't released, officially or unofficially.

I must get around to releasing it (the ARPGCS itself is fairly dull, the editor is the more interesting piece of code, albeit slung together).

I don't put source in the same package as the final executable for size reasons primarily (it is more important in the UK where access is on a cash/minute basis), [and because I don't just have one or two source files but a more organised build structure which might baffle people when unzipping].

I agree that the use of ARPGCS should have been acknowledged in the program docs ; my tutorial / docs for ARPGCS request that this is done. I cannot (obviously) enforce this.

The programs are classified under Assembly (Ion) because that's what they are ; they ideally should go under Levels (ARPGCS) or something like that.

Stung by Patrick's savage critique, I have uploaded the source tree to the ARPGCS to ticalc.org, where it will appear after the usual delay.

Jusus Christ, could you please make your posts readable. This is the dryest stuff I've come across in quite some time.

Hi again, this is Jake Olson yet again. I would like to say a few things. One, why does it matter to all the people if my game made the front page or not? If you think you are a better programmer, then make a better game that will make it on the site. I just dont understand how it could make people mad that my game made it on the news part of the page. If my game sucked sooooooo much, then why would it have 1000 downloads so far? Also, there are NOT and i repeat NOT A LOT of ARPG games out there. Thats a false statement to make, and not very kind at all to say to everyone who uses arpg. If the games made by ARPG suck, then nobody would download them, so what would it matter to all you pissed off people anyways? MY POINT IS ARPG GAMES ARE NOT CHEAP, AND THEY ARE GOOD GAMES BECAUSE PEOPLE MUST LIKE THEM TO DOWNLOAD THEM! Stop the complaining, because if you made an ARPG game and it made the news, you wouldnt be bitching now would you?

Jake

Hey, you are right man. Even though i hate those ARPG games out there, since they all look the same way and work the same way. But I still think that your game does deserve some credit, since it is a huge game and it is very enjoyable. I know it probably took sometime to make it.

Now i don't know why people are complaining about this, since it doesn't matter, so what if Knight of Time gets the news item? It won't kill you or whatever, just make your own good game and you will get it too.

=) btw, humm, i guess i should review it after I write this so i can tell the public what it is about.

creating a RPG with ARPG is NOT programming, because all you are doing is pointing and clicking

there is some thought needed, but you don't at all deal with code, so it isn't

It is irrelevant that no coding was required. Games should be weighed by the idea it was molded to. As Jake has said, there really aren't that many programs that are created by the ARPGCS, so it would be original would it not?

Congratulations Jake ; your program, partially fueled no doubt by this controversy, has reached No. 1.

Your career in popular music production now seems secure.

Excuse me Paul? May I ask why you are treating me like a jerk? FIRST OF ALL, I didnt know that the readme said you requested that I put some sort of showing that ARPG made the game, because I didnt read the ReadMe. I went ahead and started building for yourt information. I see you are not a very kind person since you go right ahead and make fun of me, a person who downloaded arpg to make games for the people, not to be famous or anything. How the hell would a calulator game make me famous, or, for that matter, a musician? Your refernce to me being a musician is rather, well, gay. If you ask me, you seem to be someone with a lot of hate os stress in your life. I am very sorry I did not know that I was supposed to put in my game or the readme that the arpg program helped me make my game. I would be willing to mkae a new version that shows that it did, but I wont until you tell me why you need to be such a creul person to me. Either e~mail me or post it up on here please. Thank you for your time.

Jake

Jake, settle down. Ultimatly, its you that made it do the front page and not them. Don't engage in these arguments to prove yourself better when you already have: you made it to the front page. How really gives a crap about what all these guys think. They are, whether they want to admit it or not, jealous. There are hundreds of programmers creating these games and after all the work they put into it, they may only get a couple hundred downloads, if that. That really can make people sour, when there are programs out there getting ten times as much fame. All these jelous programmers are simply trying to get at you and punish you because YOU ARE A BETTER PROGRAMMER, AND YOU NEED NOT PROVE THAT TO ANYONE. Your arguing with these guys will only make them feel as if what they are trying to accomplish is working. Look at the replys EVERY SINGLE TIME someone elses program make the front page, and look at how the authors always get suckered into arguing and trying to defend themselves. DON'T LET THEM WIN!!!

I personally don't blame him for being mad, but you are right!

I've already stated my general opinion on this subject before, so I won't repeat it here. However, I would like to point out that several of the claims "luke195rs" are false.

Also, in case I was misunderstood before (and to prevent misunderstanding of what I will say next) I would like to point out that I certainly do not think that using ARPGCS to make games is a bad thing, and I don't believe that this is a low-quality game, or that Jake Olson did not do a lot of high-quality work to make the game.

The first claim I'll analyze is that "Ultimatly, its you that made it do the front page and not them. Don't engage in these arguments to prove yourself better when you already have: you made it to the front page." This one isn't really compeletely false (as I will show that the next ones are), but I don't consider it completely true either. Whether or not a program gets on the front page is not dependent on an absolutely perfect measure of the quality of a program, but rather on whether the ticalc.org staff decides to put it there. Also, "luke195rs" might be well advised to read one of the previous posts by Nick Disaboto (the first reply to the first reply to the thread started by Cullan).

Next, on to the statement that "They are, whether they want to admit it or not, jealous. There are hundreds of programmers creating these games and after all the work they put into it, they may only get a couple hundred downloads, if that. That really can make people sour, when there are programs out there getting ten times as much fame." I don't really know exactly who the "hundreds of programmers" he refers to are, as I would say that the current number of serious calculator programmers in total is no more than one or two hundred.

However, if you think that people are jealous of Jake Olson because he gets the most download, this would certainly only apply to people who haven't actually looked at the archive statistics. Even though "Knights of Time" is currently the top download, Jake Olson is only the 18th most downloaded author this week, and in all-time downloads is number 1569. Of course, over time his all-time ranking will certainly improve, as many people's rankings are due to lots of past downloads of programs that are no longer downloaded frequently. But, I strongly suspect that he won't still be in the top 25 authros downloaded this week for much longer.

As far as "ten times as much fame", if you measure fame by message board controversy, there is no doubt that Jake Olson has it. But, if fame is equated with number of downloads, know that there are quite a lot of people with more than a tenth the number of downloads of Jake Olson.

Now, look at the last statement, "Your arguing with these guys will only make them feel as if what they are trying to accomplish is working. Look at the replys EVERY SINGLE TIME someone elses program make the front page, and look at how the authors always get suckered into arguing and trying to defend themselves." If you bother to actually look at the replies, as "luke195rs" suggests, you will instantly know that he is wrong.

Start with the article for "Dying Eyes 86", "GlassCars 1.0" and "GtkTiLink". It currently contains 30 replies. Although some of them mention bugs or ways the programs could be improved, none of them are directly bashing the programs. Now, let's go back to TSE 1.3, which now has 12 comments and also no bashing. The previous game new item, for Alien Breed, has 7 posts, and still no bashing. Going on to the older news tab, we next have Punchout with 63 comments, and no bashing of Punchout, though there was some mildly negative stuff in the discussion of porting the game. For Pang, with 62 comments, there was one person who expressed a general dislike of the game, but not in a particularly hostile way, and was not replied to by anyone (including the author). Now, on to the previous article, for Phoenix, which had 88 posts. Though several of them mentioned bugs, a couple of people said they didn't like the ship image, and a couple said the game was too repetitive, no direct bashing of the game, or arguments from the author to defend it (aside from a few posts mentioning the release of a fixed version, and stating that a problem would be fixed). Of course, I'm not trying to say that bashing of games, and intense defense of them by their authors, has never occured on this board, but it is not a common occurence, and certainly doesn't happen every time.

Now, I'll go to the most informative statement: "All these jelous programmers are simply trying to get at you and punish you because YOU ARE A BETTER PROGRAMMER, AND YOU NEED NOT PROVE THAT TO ANYONE." My first reply to this would have to be a reference to Jake Olson himself, who in a previous post said that "I used ARPG is because im not very good at programming". The point being that using ARPG is not the same thing as programming in any conventional programming language; this is even suggested here by Jake Olson himself.

If only the fact that ARPG was used were mentioned in the game's documentation, I think most of this argument would have been avoided.

Oh no, it seems I posted this twice. That just goes to show how foolish it is to reply to this kind of article at all. I sincerely hope that nobody is terribly offended by this horribly wasteful duplication.

Hey Patrick! Thank you for semi-siding with me. I have one thing to say though. If you read what I posted earlier, you would notice that I did NOT know that i was supposed to post in documentation that I made the game with ARPG! Now in the new version 1.6 I have in the documentation I made it with ARPG. Im greatly sorry, for I did not read the documentation that came with ARPG. It really isnt my fault, so that is why i corrected it. I also would like to say thank you to all you people who support me, and to all who oppose me. All of the feedback helps me. I am currently making the 2 sequels to KOT, called KOT2:The Sword and KOT3: The Portal. Hopefully these will be even better than KOT. I am sorry that many of you feel that I am a loser or whatever you think because I use ARPG, but all I am trying to do is make a name of myself and show people that even if I use a program, I develope the plot as best as possible. IF ANY GREAT PROGRAMMERS WOULD LIKE ME TO WRITE A SCRIPT FOR A GAME FOR THEM, I WOULD BE VERY VERY VERY GREATLY AND MAKE ONE!!! Seriously, all you awesome programmers out there, dont pass me up as a partner in making a game since i cant program to well yet. I will make the script for ya! I sure hope some great programmers like Harper Maddox ask me to help them with this, I would be so happy to do so, but until then I am going to continue making ARPG games. Thank you all for your time! Anyone that wants my help making a script or ANYTHING please e~mail me!

Jake Olson

Actually, I'm impressed you made such a good game without reading the instructions, as while ARPGCS is *reasonably* intuitive, it isn't obvious how to code with it.

I hope someone takes up Jake on his storyboarding offer ; I can code well enough, but any story I write tends to read like an unintentional parody :(

No, I'm not "terribly offended". But how in the world do you "accidently" post something twice. It just doesn't happen

The message I posted was directed to the general public, not directly at you, or other programmers who may be very successfull. Those sitting on the top, a throne, might be worried about someone rising up to steal it. I don't know were you stand in ticalc.org, and don't bother wasting my time telling me how you have a hundred-zillion downloads, I don't care. I know there are people out there who would disect every message thought offensive to them, and show every fault in it. I admit some of the claims I made were false. However, instead of disecting your message, Patrick, in which there ARE faults. I would like to say that MOST game realese notices DO get critisism, usually which is fine. All programmers that make the front page, do need to be kept in check. You, though, have gone too far, are you worried? No, of course not. But then... why would you even bother with your assults on Jake and ARPG? Your continued assult on Jake, and those who believe that his game and his style are good, or anyone liking the ARPGCS, is pointless. Unless to save face on these messages which you seem very concerned about. You seem to be the kind of person that likes back-up for things I say, so, in that case, scroll up.

Haven't noticed an assault by Patrick on Jake or anyone else. I've released 7 or 8 TI games and so far had zero negative feedback, except bug reports (which are encouraged).

Generally, if people don't like a game that much they just forget it.

Yeah

First, I'd like to say that I didn't ever believe your previous post was specifically against me (though I think it's obvious that this one is). However, your assertion that programmers in general are driven by jealousy seems to me to be an attack on all programmers. I know that most of the programmers out there have better things to do than engage in arguments with people like you (and so do I), but I felt your claims have to be counteracted by someone, and I elected myself to this unrewarding task.

Anyway, now on to the claim that other programmers fear being overtaken by Jake. Assuming that people completely stop downloading all other programs, and downloads of Knights Of Time continue at their current rate, it will slightly more than a year for Jake to enter the top 10 most downloaded list. The point being that the "threat" of Jake dominating the list is certainly not an immediate one; even if that did happen, most of it would happen after this news item had disappeared from the front page and thus these arguments wouldn't have much of an effect.

Of course, I don't actually believe that the total number of downloads is a good measure of the quality of a program or its author. The only reason I'm referring to that is because you said it was the reason we were jealous.

Also, it's interesting to note that you go on to say "I don't know were you stand in ticalc.org, and don't bother wasting my time telling me how you have a hundred-zillion downloads, I don't care." The first obvious observation about this, of course, is that if I had thought it were necessary to state such information to prove my case, I already would have done so. However, the fact is that my statements speak for themselves; they are true regardless of what my "rank" is. You'd have to make me extremely angry to get me to post that sort of evidence (hmm, I guess I've created a new goal for you here). Secondly, even though your statement that you don't care seems as if it might have only been meant as an insult, it's interesting to note that you *do* seem to care how many downloads Jake Olson gets. Thus, Jake Olson's superiority can be proven by his number of downloads, but that same measure doesn't apply to others (or maybe it's just me that it doesn't apply to).

Now for the middle of your message. This really doesn't bother me as much as the rest of it, but it almost seems like you're suggesting that a careful analysis of someone's claims (as I was trying to make) is inferior to your method of argument, which is simply to claim that your opponent is jealous using the fact of your opponent's disagreement as "proof". You admit that "some" of what you said was false, but don't seem to care. And you also claim to be able to show "faults" in my message, yet that's not important either. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some error somewhere in it. That's why a used numerous examples; to show that my statements are backed up by a variety of different evidence.

So, after only briefly looking at the middle of your post, I know reach the end which seems to be the most directly offensive to me in particular. Even though it doesn't state it directly, it actually does hint at the truth!

But first, I will respond to the part of it which is false. Namely, the claim that I have made assaults on Jake and ARPG. If you had actualyl read my posts, you would know that I never claimed using ARPG was bad, and even tried to point out specifically that I didn't make that claim lest I be misunderstand. Also, whether my posts are an attack on Jake is somewhat questionable; as I said, my only objection was that he didn't acknowledge the use of ARPG. However, he now has done that, so I currently don't have any objection at all to Knights of Time. Even Jake himself says that I am semi-siding with him, far from an outright attack.

Of course, I suppose that claiming that Jake's number of downloads aren't really the highest might be considered an attack on him. However, the point of that was only to refute your claims of jealousy.

To clarify: My attacks are only against two things: (1) the unacknowledged use of ARPG and (2) false claims by you (luke195rs). I tried to make it clear that it is not against ARPG, the programmer of ARPG, Knights of Time, Jake Olson, ARPG games in general, or ARPG users in general. If that wasn't clear, know now that it is what I meant.

Now for how one can see the real truth about these messages; the claim that my posts must be to "save face on these messages which you seem very concerned about." Actually, if I really wanted to save face, I would completely avoid posting to this board altogether; I am absolutely sure that my overall respect and reputation in the TI community has decreased as a result of my previous posts on this board, and I am equally certain that posting this will further degrade my status.

So, on to the real reason I made these posts. My first post was for 2 reasons: the first being to try to explain how I thought ARPG use should be acknowledged, and the second to (partially) disagree with Paul Robson's comment aboutprogrammers keeping answers to themselves. I will admit that my last statement towards him about his not releasing the source code was unnecessarily hostile; I also should have looked to see whether he released source code to other games first. I do regret this mistake, and I will try to avoid this in the future.

But, you really have figured out the reason for my first reply to you: I *am* very concerned about these messages. There are two reasons for this:

1) You made false claims. In general, I don't think it's good for people to receive false information on these message boards. So I try to decrease the amount of harm this causes by providing a detailed counter-argument.

Of course, I don't have the time to respond in detail to every message which I know to be false offhand, much less the time to investigate the truth of all the messages which I'm not sure about. So, I selected yours in particular for the next reason:

2) It contributes to anti-programmer feelings in general. I don't really know the extent of anti-programmer sentiment, but I have seen some evidence (in particular, on one message board from the middle of October which totaled 189 comments had a lot of bashing of programmers, both generally and specifically in it) that the amount of it is not insignificant. I certainly don't believe that trying to convince the public that current programmers have a large amount of jealousy towards new programmers is really good for anyone. It certainly doesn't do the old programmers any good, probably isn't good for the users either, and also fosters division between old and new programmers, which isn't good for the future of the TI community.

Now on to this message. Honestly, your claims have already been adequately refuted, so it should be obvious (and is certainly true) that I posted this only because I'm mad at you.

I'm sorry. Why are you so mad? I didn't mean anything by it. How 'bout I say it's all false. Every bit of it. It's all a big juicy lie. Bummer, looks like you win. What am I going to do now? Better ye what are you going to do, write a 28 page essay about how smart you are? Come on.

I'm so mad because you're publicly posting strongly anti-programmer articles.

Anyway, I don't know why you expect I'll write a 28 page essay on how smart I am, as I've never done that in the past (I barely even mentioned myself in most previous posts).

However, as this article will be gone from public view soon anyway, hopefully I will be able to do something productive after this very unfortunate episode. Hopefully the others involved will be able to do the same.

First, who else is envolved?

Secondly, I was talking about the length of your posts not how much you talk about yourself.

If any of my posts, especially my first couple have offended anyone, I am very sorry for that.

If you have anything else you need to tell me, just e-mail me. I don't like having enemies, let's just work this out. I was definatly way out of line in some of my other posts, but I also believe you could have found other ways to tell me how much you hated what I said.

Please, in the future, be more realistic about other peoples posts. No one is perfect.

Well said.

Okay.

Firstly, even if you didn't read the manual, it is generally considered appropriate to acknowledge anything you used which made a major contribution towards the program, especially if it is something like ARPGCS.

Secondly, I am baffled as to why you think the remark is being "cruel" to you. I am quite pleased that an ARPGCS program has hit the top spot (kind of reflected glory), and the music thing is what we in England call a "joke". Perhaps where you live people don't hype records up the charts, I dunno.

If you actually read my other posts on this topic you will see that I am generally supportive of your work e.g. "I know a lot of work has gone into this" etc.

Conteversy does not fuel programs. Reviews, suggestions, a catchy title, and a well known programmer fuel programs.

It matters. A LOT.

You fail to understand what getting a news item means to a lot of people: it means publicity, the fact that I (and the rest of ticalc.org for that matter) endorse it, and it usually means that it will get in at LEAST the top ten downloads that week, and almost always for the weeks afterward.

It's a popularity and a major (probably too big in some cases) ego boost to people, and it gives them heaps of publicity.

Also, after I found out that this really WAS an ARPG game, I was about to delete the news item, but that was after oh about twenty or so comments were already posted to it.

Doing so would have been a BIG [expletive]-up.

Now I have to worry about people releasing this kind of bulldink along with everything else. I - for the most part - write news items on *original* work that YOU CODED. I don't care how creative you are and how entertaining the storyline is - if, say, the engine isn't even YOUR WORK, it probably won't make the front page.

If anything, I should have posted on ARPG, not this!

--BlueCalx

That is what I was thinking, all he did was point and click. There was no coding involved, well none of his atleast. He didn't even recognize that the engine used was ARPGCS, so I really don't think that his program should be kept available, because the programmers should be honest about these things.

It really doesn't matter how he programs as long as the result is a program. I really don't understand how you see the use of ARPGCS as dishonest. It doesn't matter how he made what he did. Not in the least. Programmers should not be held to HOW they created a program, but that they did. If it's a good game, "programed" or not, it is a game, is original, and is fun to play. So, what exactly seem to be the problem with this.

Not to start another "war" or antything, because i find this arguing rediculous and humorous. But I just wanted to say that there is now proof that the ranking of games is decided by ticalc.org itself. Nick just stated that because a game is ina news item it will probably make top ten of that week. Well there you have it. Don't take this the wrong way b/c i really don't care about rank er anything...I'm just here to program.

It only gets the amount of downloads as it does because it has a news article and from the readme, it looks like he made it by himself, although he didn't. He just used someonelse's program, and took credit for it.

This is too simplistic. When you program in TI-BASIC, do you credit TI for the Basic Interpreter ?

ARPGCS is more of an interpreter than anything else ; the code is just non-linear.

excellent point! I couldnt agree more! That should shut people up...However, please dont begin to compare basic to asm.

It still isn't programming, no matter what you may think about it, and that game wasn't. If anything ARPGCS is a tool, but making games with it is in no way programming. Programmers, no matter what they program, deal with code, at one point or another, this does not.

who in the hell are you arguing with? Jesus Christ...the guy made a game...whether or not he "programmed"...who gives a rats ass. Geez. Please stop making an ass of yourself.

And who really gives a crap?

I don't use the ARPGCS and don't ever intend to, but I believe that programs should be weighed by their final outcome, not by how they got there. If someone invented a utility inwhich you could type in something like: "I want a game for the TI-83+ in ION shell that is as close to Super Mario Legend Of The Seven Stars for SNES while remaining under 12,000 bytes of memory" and the program actually did it. Well then, it should still be treated as if it was slaved over for years to create the exact same program. When the programmer that did it by hand realizes how much time he wasted, well then, he'll be finding that utility pretty quick won't he?

I STRONGLY believe that a program should be famous or infamous for the IDEA that was applied to it and not the skill required to produce it.