Recently I released #Barbarians for #msdos, a simple strategy game about repelling a barbarian invasion in ancient times.

Recently I released #Barbarians for #msdos, a simple strategy game about repelling a barbarian invasion in ancient times. This release was for the #DOSember Game Jam, a 3-month game jam for MS-DOS preceding the month-long DOSember streaming event for 2025. The rules stated that picking up "abandoned projects" was allowed, and Barbarians for MS-DOS was a project I'd put aside at the end of 2024; the jam was the perfect time to pick it up again. https://cyningstan.itch.io/barbarians-dos #gamedev

But the development history of #Barbarians is much longer than that. #msdos is the third platform for which I've released the game. The original version goes right back to 2010, when the game was developed for the once-popular range of pocket computers from #Psion, computers which are often sold short by being referred to as "PDAs." http://damian.cyningstan.org.uk/downloads/215/barbarians #gamedev

The #Psion pocket computer for which the game was designed was the Psion #OrganiserII. This computer with an 8-bit HD6303X processor came in several models, from the CM with its 8k RAM and 16x2 character display, to the LZ64 with 64k RAM and a 20x4 character display. http://damian.cyningstan.org.uk/downloads/215/barbarians #gamedev

The game's design, even the latest #msdos version, is based around the limitations of the Psion Organiser II. These machines had a text-based display, but eight of the characters could be redefined. This gave rise to the main visual elements of the game: plains, forests, mountains, sea, cities, ruins, armies and barbarians. http://damian.cyningstan.org.uk/downloads/215/barbarians #barbarians #gamedev

The map was confined to 240 squares to fit in with two limits: the 255 character maximum string length of the #Psion built-in programming language OPL, and the width of the display; the map was 16x15 squares on the 16-character models, and 20x12 on the 20-character models. http://damian.cyningstan.org.uk/downloads/215/barbarians #barbarians #gamedev

OPL on the #Psion #OrganiserII had another limitation: there was no facility to write binary data files, so the game data had to be compatible with the Organiser II's database file format. That meant that strings couldn't use all 256 byte values, because some of those values were special characters in the database format. So many values were limited to 240 so that special characters could be avoided. http://damian.cyningstan.org.uk/downloads/215/barbarians #barbarians #gamedev

A final limitation was partly down to the speed of the #OrganiserII, and partly down to my own skill limitations. Despite #Barbarians being one player against the computer, there was no AI as such. The computer moves at random, and the game was designed such that these random computer decisions were still a challenge. http://damian.cyningstan.org.uk/downloads/215/barbarians #barbarians #gamedev

When #Barbarians was finished on the #OrganiserII, I moved on to the 16-bit range of #Psion computers, the #Series3 and its related models (3a/c/mx, Siena and workAbout), updating the user interface and graphics to suit the new machines, but leaving the game play intact. These machines featured more memory, from 128k to 2 megabytes, and had graphics resolutions from 240x80 to 480x160. http://damian.cyningstan.org.uk/downloads/215/barbarians #gamedev

Finally I ported the #Barbarians again to the 32-bit #Psion range, the #Series5, #Series7, #Revo, and third-party licensed versions like the Ericsson MC218, the Geofox One and the Oregon Scientific Osaris. For these machines I added connected textures to the map, a battle animation, and stylus control. http://damian.cyningstan.org.uk/downloads/215/barbarians #gamedev

All #Psion #gamedev of #Barbarians was during the year 2010. Psion had stopped making and supporting consumer pocket computers many years before, so attention for the game was modest. A couple of years later it felt like I was the only person interested in Psions, so I stopped developing games for the Psion range altogether. http://damian.cyningstan.org.uk/downloads/215/barbarians

At the end of 2012 I started developing games in assembly language for the #Sinclair #ZXSpectrum instead. I'd learned Z80 assembly language in my teens, decades before, but teenage me lacked the patience to develop anything serious in assembly language. Adult me would have lacked the patience to develop on the cassette-based Spectrum too, but by 2012 there were PC-based tools that made the process much smoother. https://cyningstan.itch.io/barbarians #gamedev #Barbarians

I limited myself to the basic 16k #ZXSpectrum, to prevent feature creep, and decided that a good first #gamedev project would be a port of my Psion game #Barbarians. Being out of work at the time, this took me only a month to complete, and was based on the look of the 16-bit Psion versions. The gameplay remained the same, although the game now realises you've lost if the number of barbarians gets unmanageable. https://cyningstan.itch.io/barbarians

Despite a lull in the Spectrum's popularity when the machine became obsolete, it had such affection among its former owners that its revival as a retro platform in the 2000s has allowed the #ZXSpectrum to maintain its popularity to the present day. So in 2012 when I released #Barbarians, the game attracted much more attention than the original Psion version ever did. It got some video playthroughs, and even a review in the Crash magazine annual! https://cyningstan.itch.io/barbarians #gamedev

Fast forward to 2024 and I decided the time was right to prepare the groundwork for an #msdos version of #Barbarians. I've been doing MS-DOS #gamedev aimed at early #cga #ibmpc machines since about 2020, and had already ported my third ZX Spectrum game Ossuary. I have more advanced ideas for ancient warfare than Barbarians, so I decided to start work on an MS-DOS port before the idea gets eclipsed by a more complex game on the same subject. https://cyningstan.itch.io/barbarians-dos