TADA

(work in progress)

"Totally Awesome Dungeon Adventure" (TADA) is a re-implementation of the Apple BBS game "The Land of Spur" (TLoS). Instead of being a single-player, one-at-a-time, multi-user-dungeon as it was in the dial-up BBS days, TADA has a real Python game server (server/) that multiple players connect to at once, from either a real Commodore 64 client or an ANSI terminal client.

TLoS was written in a scripting language called Advanced Communications Operating System (ACOS). It had limitations and quirks, as any programming language does. One such quirk is that by default, it can only handle two-byte signed integers between -32768 and +32767. Naturally, this is a bit restrictive when dealing with adventure game statistics such as the amount of gold carried upon your person, or similar things. (There is a cumbersome, repeated workaround in the code for this: splitting large values into two bytes/variables of most- and least-significant multiples of 1000.) The server-side rewrite addresses this with ordinary Python integers, and the original C64 client work (see text-listings/ below) addressed it with 24-bit values of 1-16,777,216--a much more comfortable range--using routines written by FuzzyFox of "AutoGraph," a graphics converter for the C64, fame.

Server architecture

server/ is an asyncio-based Python game server and its clients, replacing TLoS's single-player GBBS BASIC model with real multiplayer:

• net_server.py runs the async server (connection handling, invite/login handshake); net_client.py/net_common.py define the shared wire protocol (JSON-serialized messages).
• Player commands live in commands/ (dozens of modules--movement, combat, loot, prayer, admin, preferences, etc.) dispatched through a central command processor.
• Gameplay systems are split into their own packages: combat/ (the fight engine), ally_events/ (ally gold-finding, hunger, death-saves, farewells--ported line-by-line from named SPUR BASIC routines), encounters/, logon_events/, quests/, guild_hq/, shoppe/, bar/, street/, plus board.py, mail.py, and news.py for BBS-style social features.
• characters.py, player.py, and base_classes.py define the character/stat model (races, classes, alignment, size); room and item data live as level_*.json/objects.json/monsters.json, converted from SPUR's original compressed GBBS message-database files.
• terminal.py translates the same game output per client type--PETSCII, ANSI, or plain text--so one server serves every client below.
• Newer subsystems: sid_engine/ (streams SID music to the C64 client) and petscii_editor/ (in-game PETSCII banner/screen editor).

Commodore 64 client

A custom 6502 client (assembly-language/client/) talks to the server over a SwiftLink cartridge, with an NMI-driven receive buffer and IRQ-driven SID playback and task dispatch (see assembly-language/client/CLIENT_MECHANICS.md). Notable features:

• Native PETSCII display, including an in-game visual banner/screen editor (server-side in server/petscii_editor/, with a matching client-side overlay) for authoring 40x25 PETSCII art.
• Streaming SID music playback: the server encodes SID register writes as frames (server/sid_engine/) which the client plays back through an IRQ-driven routine.
• Loadable overlay modules rather than a monolithic client--individual features load as separate .prg overlays through a jump table, keeping any one load small.

ANSI client

For players without a real (or emulated) Commodore 64, server/tada_client.py is a prompt_toolkit-based terminal client with a scrollable output pane, status bar, and dedicated input line, rendering the server's ANSI escape sequences and color. server/simple_client.py is a lighter alternative using colorama for ANSI color. Both talk to the same server as the C64 client--terminal.py's ANSI translation path is just another output mode alongside PETSCII.

Directory structure:

SPUR-code/: Modules for TLoS.

SPUR-data/: Data files for study, part of TLoS.

assembly-language/: C64 6510 assembly projects, including the TADA C64 client: $c500 code, parser, works in progress, or code testing.

programming-notes/: Notes on both TLoS and TADA.

scripts/: Build, automation, and test scripts for both M$-DO$ and Linux.

server/: Python client and server, a work in progress. Help wanted.

text-listings/: The original C64/modBASIC TADA modules, from before the Python server rewrite--kept for reference and as source material for porting flavor text and game logic. See text-listings/README.md for a breakdown of its subdirectories and the C64 assembly language routines behind it.

text/: Text captures from TLoS, miscellaneous notes.

Want to play the original game?

It's telnettable: telnet://dura-bbs.net:6359

Screenshots of the game are available on MobyGames.