The Legend of Disaster is a massive CRPG in development. Current planned platforms include: 32 bit DOS, Win32, and x86 Linux. The finished product will feature:

A completely free game

A game resolution of 640x480x(8/16)

Multiple layered maps

Realtime command-run battles

Numerous magics and character-independent skillsets, as well as switching of character classes.

An extensive plotline

New screenshots available (7-30-00)

I've added more screenshots to this site as well as adding new captions describing when they were taken, what they were taken of, as well as the significance behind the image.

Disaster page moved to main site (7-29-00)

I moved the game's page to the main site. Most of the info is still yet to be reformatted to use the new graphics so I will leave it available at the old location.

Sorry, the plotline is too unstable for normal display. Updates further into the progress of the game.

This is a screenshot of one of the first designs of the game. Originally intended as a puzzle/action game, this was initially called "Alien Disaster II." The marine didn't do anything, just stood there. The lava moved and you could push the rocks into the lava to make a bridge. Nothing in the current game engine is from this example.

Here is a picture demonstrating a level I used to test the animation functions. You can see the lava (not moving) and the torches had animated fire. Once again this is from the initial period of development where the game hadn't progressed much. What you see is all there is.

An image demonstrating the effect of sprite overlay. Previously the updates had been using only updates when needed. This point represents the time when I moved to a more modern update structure. I'm not quite sure, but I think it might have been non-synced page flipping. You can also see a poorly done status bar rendered by the engine, and beginnings of RPG-like qualities.

This screenshot represents the introduction of the overlaying map layer. The overlay was placed atop the final image, this covering up parts of the alien. In a small map like this it worked efficiently, and didn't significantly slow the game down.

More and more layers began appearing. This message box was once again simply plopped on top of the whole mess, as the last thing before the page flip. Also at this time the objects that were noticable on the screen began to do something. Unfortunately the objects were represented as part of the constraining layer of the map, so it virtually eliminated placing any type of block there.

This update really was meant to signify the introduction of an item system into the game. It was actually ok to deal with, but didn't really have the right qualities I wanted to use. The stats were incredibly high on everything.

In an attempt to create a "town" environment I tried my hand at designing town graphics. The attempt proved very fatal as I really began to understand the limitations of my map engine. Notice the very distorted crate to the side of the building.

The inside of the buildings was turning out ok, but this was nearly all I could do with the engine. It was very difficult designing something like this because editing the maps was done entirely by hand in a text editor.

Intro to a new status bar and newly introduced statistics. You will notice they range in the thousands. I was being quite careless here. Of course the user will find it nice to have really really high stats.

Another screenshot with stats, but showing them drastically reduced. I placed a cap on most of them at 255. Also shows an example of a secret area that leads to one of those bad items.

Ah, finally I wrote a map editor. At the time I hadn't integrated any support for these maps into the game. I wrote the editor and designed the format completely externally. This is one of the reasons for it's success. The rendering is done by the independent parts. It scrolls. Scripts and objects can be integrated into the map as independent variables rather than as part of the structure. The previous map had used the sprite of the block or constraining layer to determine what type it was. This map has the map itself and the objects separated from each other so they don't conflict.

The game was then rewritten to use the new map format instead of the old. As you can see the graphics are still from the previous version of the game. Revisions began on them soon after.

A very recent image. This shows much better town graphics. This particular shot is of the center section of the test town. The images are slightly off, but once the game is converted to hi-color graphics it'll be much improved.

A shot of the revised dock section. The graphics here are less new but they do demonstrate some features, like the single level filtering layer. Well... Maybe not. I haven't kept this test map up to par, but it shows some progress.

Showing some preliminary inside graphics. Notice the border on the edges. That is the "Can't see" border that will be used for high walls and such that you can't see over or etc. The chairs to the table are out of proportion. It's not the table, like you may think. I need to fix the chairs so they aren't "3D". Heh.