Kingdom of the Seven Stones now released on Commodore 64

Description:
Welcome to the Kingdom of the Seven Stones, where thee, the curious stranger, enters the realm to embark on a journey of epic proportions. The land is fraught with peril and danger, but thou art undaunted, for thou art a hero of great renown. Thou roam the land, seeking quests to undertake, and those in need of aid. Thou art a beacon of hope, a shining light in the darkness, and thou will make right what wrongs exist in this realm. The fate of the kingdom rests on thy shoulders, and thou must not falter in thy quest to bring peace and prosperity to the land. May God watch over thee on thy journey, and may thou emerge victorious in battles against the forces of darkness that threaten to consume the realm.

Venture forth into a world brimming with over a hundred places, each graced with its own unique depiction. Here, thou shalt encounter riddles wrapped in enigma, labyrinths that twist and turn, felled beasts of legend, and secrets that beckon the curious soul. In this land of myth and mystery, something shall surely stir thy spirit and call thee to adventure.

Technical Notes:
Kingdom of the Seven Stones is released as a cartridge for the Commodore 64. This size of game would historically require three double-sided diskettes to fit the entire game, using the Marina64 cartridge. Even with the Marina64 cartridge’s generous capacity, the game still requires extensive compression to fit all of the graphics, game logic, songs, and the extensive interactive text and scenarios into the single loadable cartridge. The game supports both PAL and NTSC display regions.

The game is published by The Future Was 8 Bit and can be found here:
Kingdom of the Seven Stones

vice-screen-2024072118301216
vice-screen-2024072118391037
vice-screen-2024072118432851
vice-screen-2024072119514797
vice-screen-2024072119542025

7 Likes

OT: the hardware cart seems interesting. More specs on it ? what is its bankswitching mechanism ?

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

1 Like

The Marina64 is a form of MagicDesk2 cartridge.

The cartridge banks at $8000-$9FFF which is controlled by the Commodore I/O register located at $DE00.

1 Like

FYI - Martin Piper did a fantastic technical breakdown of how the game works on YouTube.

1 Like

FYI - The Retro Adventurers featured the Kingdom of the Seven Stones on Episode 9 of their podcast. If you aren’t following The Retro Adventurers podcast, you should be! You are missing out on a truly well produced podcast exploring and discussing all of your favourite text adventures as well as the ones you might have missed back in the day.

3 Likes

The game is now available for purchase in digital-only format on itch.io and playable using the latest VICE emulator, or on the Kung Fu Flash cartridge.

3 Likes

Review for ZZAP!64 december issue done :wink:

3 Likes

FYI - BastichB 64K on YouTube featured the game and I did an interview as part of the review. You can watch it here.
BastichB 64K - review

4 Likes