The Legend of Banchor

Legend tells of a powerful demon from the depths of Hell named Banchor. Thousands of centuries ago he wreaked havoc upon mankind wherever he went. Many bold warriors lost their lives attempting to slay the evil creature, but to no avail. Finally a great wizard named Zehos summoned enough power to cast the demon back to the fiery depths of Hell and sealed the doorway between the mortal plane and Hell. The power to cross this doorway was put into 5 magical crystals. Without these 5 crystals, Banchor could no longer have a physical presence on the mortal plane. For many, many centuries the people lived in peace. The 5 crystals were lost and long forgotten and soon their existence became nothing but a myth, along with the mysterious story of Banchor. Now, in the Kingdom of Viridian, evil has once again shown it's presence. King Heath, once known as perhaps the kindest and most courageous of all the Kings, has become a dark and brooding man. His daughter, Sapphira, has not been seen for weeks and now wild beasts and demons are lurking everywhere around the Kingdom. Few have had the courage to stand up to King Heath's newfound iron ruling, and none that have done so have lived to tell the tale. As a result, King Heath has cut off supplies to the Village, as well as closing down the Port to stop outsiders from coming to the land. In an attempt to stop anyone from challenging his rule, the King has locked up all warriors from the village in his castle dungeons to spend the rest of their lives. You are Rex, a well known young and crafty warrior. You are locked in the castle dungeons with nothing but the rags you are wearing. After weeks of imprisonment, your chance to escape has come with one of the castle guards betraying the King and unlocking the cells. You must find out what has changed the King's manner and get back to the Village, for evil is overunning the land. There are rumours that the evil Banchor has been set loose again on the mortal plane, and that he has unleashed his most powerful minions to take over the lands! Hurry, before it's too late!

 Installation/Starting the Game

To install Banchor on your TI-86 calculator, use the TI Connect program to send all the calculator files in this zip file to your TI-86 calculator. You can try the TI-GraphLink program but it seems to have a problem with the zbmaps file due to its large size. You can then either run the game from the Homescreen or by using a Shell Program (eg. Rascall). Shell Programs can be found at ticalc.org. To run the game from the Homescreen, execute the command Asm(banchor. Be aware that the game will not run if there are any required files missing. You should have the following 5 files on your calculator: banchor (program), zbdat, zbdat2, zbmaps & zbsave (strings). If any of these files are missing, you have not copied all the files from this zip file to your calculator properly.

 Controls

The controls for the various sections of the game are as follows: Main Menu: [F1] Load Game [F5] New Game In-Game: Arrowpad Move [2nd] Attack (once you have a sword) [MORE] Inventory [ALPHA] Read/Talk/Open Chest [EXIT] Save and quit Inventory: [ENTER] Return to game Purchase Item: [F1] Yes [F5] No Talk to Person: [ENTER] Return to game

 Playing Banchor

You begin Banchor with 3 Hearts, no Items and no Gold. As you progress through the game, you will be able to purchase extra Heart Containers and also make more by collecting Heart Pieces. Each attack from an enemy will deplete a portion of your Hearts. When a Heart becomes fully emptied it will appear empty in the inventory screen. When all of your Hearts are empty, the game is over. You will be sent back to the beginning of the game with half of your Hearts full, half your Gold and all your Items. Once you reach a certain point, your restart point will become Rex's House. All around the Kingdom and the Dungeons that you explore you will find various people, signs, etc. that you can talk to and read. These will assist you in many ways along your adventure.

 Know Your Friends

Don't worry, you will find friends along your quest! They will turn up from time to time with something to offer. Chest You will find these everywhere you go. Chests can contain many things, from Gold, to Heart Pieces to Life Refills! People There are many friendly folk that you will meet that will be able to assist you in your quest. Some will have advice, others will have useful items that you can purchase. Sapphira This is the spirit of Princess Sapphira, King Heath's lost daughter. She will appear all around the Kingdom with useful tips and valuable information. Well of Life Located at various points around the Kingdom you will find these Wells of Life. Each time you throw 100 Gold into one of these Wells, it will replenish one of your Hearts.

 Items

There are various special items that you will be able to find/purchase throughout your adventure. You will need them to complete your quest! Blunt Sword This is the first weapon that you will find on your journey. Bear it well, as you will need it to survive against your enemies! Heart Piece There are plenty of these scattered around the Kingdom hidden in Chests. Every time you accumulate two of these, you form an extra Heart Container. Heart Container These are available for purchase, normally after defeating a Demon. They enable you to have an extra Heart of health. Wooden Shield Rex's trusty Wooden Shield, found in Rex's House. This allows you block bullets fired by Bees and Octopuses. Light Armor This Armor slightly reduces the damage done by your enemies. Superior Sword The Superior Sword is powerful. With it, you will defeat your enemies much faster. Ring of Might This Ring gives it wearer the strength to crush Stones with his Sword! Aqua Boots These Boots give you the ability to walk on water. They will greatly aid your travels. Iron Shield This extra strength Shield allows you to block bullets from all enemies, except Banchor's Demons. Legendary Sword The Legendary Sword has been carried in battles by many, many heroes. It's power exceeds that of any other Sword! Heavy Armor This Armor will reduce the damage from your enemies by half. Ring of Thunder More poweful than the Ring of Might, this Ring gives it wearer the strength to crush not only Stones, but also more solid Rocks! Winged Boots The Winged Boots will let you walk on land, over water, trees and rocks! Crystal The 5 crystals of Zehos hold the power to cross through the Portal to Hell. Without all 5, no-one can enter the Portal.

 Enemies

You will encounter many enemies along your journey to bring peace to Viridian. As you progress further across the lands, you will find stronger variations of different enemies - you will be able to tell the difference from their various shades of colour. Stone Knight Octopus Potato Bug Jellyfish Bat Snake Bee Frog Spider Mummy Pigmy Skeleton Troll Tree Monster Mudman Shadow Beast Death Lord Koranda Midget Demon

 Banchor's Demons

These are the minions of Banchor. Each is strong and fierce. Only by defeating them in combat will be you able to find the 5 Crystals to enter the Portal into Hell. King Heath Dezemon Wendeg Belkath Anazar Banchor

 Hints & Tips

Be wary at the beginning of the game when you are unarmed and also of enemies that shoot bullets before you have a Shield. Certain enemies give more Gold than others. This is useful to check when trying to gather Gold for those expensive much needed Items! Always consult Sapphira when you see her to see what advice she has. It's a good idea to make a rough map of the overworld as you play, as some Chests/People might be inaccessible until you have a certain item later in the game - take note and go back for them later. Pigmy Skeletons are impossible to shake off once they catch up to you - beware! Take note of where you find each Well of Life, as they are very useful. For a stronger attack, hold down the attack button and your sword will do continual damage. I am planning on eventually releasing a detailed walkthrough complete with overworld and dungeon/castle maps when I get time to put this all together. Check back at www.jvti.org for more info.

 Version History

1.00 - February 2006 TI-86 Size: 67064 bytes First public release Full version 254 maps 35 enemy variations 6 bosses 1.10 - May 2009 TI-86 Size: 67063 bytes Rebalanced damage taken from enemies and frequency of damage taken Rebalanced gold aquired from enemies vs. cost of items Made it easier to move around and fit through 1 tile gaps (player size is now determined as 6x6 with player / wall collision detection) Made 5th boss bullets easier to see In the future I may work on trying to make further optimisations or other little improvements. If you have any suggestions, please email me.

 Project History (2004-2006)

Banchor originally began back in November 2004. After my failure to finish two successive TI-86 RPG's (Golvellius, Tristar) and 2 years of inactivity on the TI scene, I decided to give it another crack. I was going to go back and attempt to finish Tristar, however I wasn't happy with how I'd set up the game, there were lots of sections of code that I wanted to rewrite, I wasn't happy with the game title/storyline, and more. Thus, I decided to start again. As with Tristar, I used a lot of inspiration from David Phillips' (ACZ) TI-86 Zelda demo. I brought this together with ideas from the original Golvellius game for Sega Master System and also drew some inspiration from Diablo (Blizzard) for plot ideas. By December '04, the majority of the game engine was complete and I had also coded a new Windows based map editor. This made things a whole heap easier. I still had to finalise the coding and stats for the enemies, as well the coding for the bosses. Then the main task would be designing maps, as I had intended to make this game over 250 maps in total! Then, due to a promotion at work and increased commitment to the band I was in, my work on Banchor came to a halt in late December '04. And so for the 3rd time in a row I had failed to complete another TI-86 RPG that I had started. Again, I pulled back from the TI scene as I didn't have the spare time to keep in touch with it. For almost 12 months I kept looking at my out-of-date web site and the thought of the uncomplete Banchor kept making it's way into my head. I wanted to get back into it and get the thing finished, but I could never seem to find the time. Eventually, I cracked and decided that I would MAKE time. In late October 2005, I dug into my hard drive and found the source code for Banchor. Still happy with the basic plot and format, I chose not to start again (I knew that if I did this I'd probably fail to finish again), and I spent time working out what I had gotten up to and what was still left to be done. It's now mid-January 2006 and as I write this the game is almost complete; finally after 5+ years (I started Golvellius in late 2000) I have done what I originally intended; written a huge RPG for the TI-86. Hopefully it will keep someone entertained during class when they should be working... Enjoy :)

 Source Code

The full source code for this game will soon be available at my site (www.jvti.org) and also at ticalc.org.

 Disclaimer

This game has been through extensive testing during it's programming, however it is programmed in assembly language and therefore there is the slight risk of it crashing your calculator. As of this release it has been tested with no known bugs, however this being said, I take no responsibility for the results of using this game on your calculator.

 Thanks to...

David Phillips for many ideas, code and sprites that are used here from his Zelda86 game. Clem Vasseur and David Phillips for the Grayscale engine and associated routines. Patrick Davidson for the handy collision detection routine. Jimmy Mardell for the Huffman compression tools. Rusty Wagner for Virtual-TI. Joe Wingbermuehle for the random number generator out of Ion v1.6. Matt Johnson for Image Studio. Jimi Malcolm for The Guide. www.flamingtext.com for the title logo to this readme. Many thanks go out to the above people whose assistance has helped make this game possible!