Edit March 2021 - version 2.0.0 in full colour is now available for download here.


Back in 2006 I released Banchor, which was a Zelda-like grayscale RPG for the TI-86, using a modified version of an engine written by David Phillips of Assembly Coders Zenith. By the time I released it, the TI-86 was long since discontinued.

I decided to do a quick port over to the TI-84+CE, with minimal changes to the original game. Even though there are probably numerous things that could be done to improve the game, I wanted to leave it mostly untouched. And it was simply a fun exercise in porting the grayscale engine, as well as giving Banchor a little more life, because all those years ago I had plans to turn it into a trilogy, with each game having different a different play style.. plans that never really went away... Zargul was secretly going to be a sequel or prequel to Banchor, using the first-person D&D style of Eye of the Beholder (thus, Zargul will become Banchor 2 if/when I get back to working on it).

Anywho.. the port is complete. The TI-86 128x64 resolution is scaled up to 256*128 in the original 4-level grayscale. Here are a couple of screenshots.




One final note - along with Zelda, Banchor was heavily inspired by Golvellius. Nevertheless, I'm still planning on continuing my 84+CE version of this at some stage, given that Golvellius will be in full colour, and Banchor is only in grayscale..

Nice! I like it! Although this is a little difficult, it's still fun to play! I'm surprised how well I like it in greyscale.
Will you eventually scale this all the way to fit the entire screen?

good job!

It's been a day, so I'll double post.
I've been playing this quite a bit and although this is pretty difficult, I've been having a lot of fun! I have a question though.
In the change log (history.txt) you said that there was a map overview button, but the ReadMe never shows which button that is. What button is it?

That's cool, glad you're enjoying it! It is a little difficult.. I did consider maybe adding an easier difficulty option. Do you think I should?

I probably should have explained that better in the History file. In the Readme it explains it better, there's an Overworld map included in the zip file (as a PNG file), but not in-game..

Wow this looks awesome!

It runs so fast and smooth too! How long did it take to port?

Have you released more games on the CE now than any other platform?

Thanks! I worked on it in small blocks of free time over 3-4 weeks. All up, somewhere around 8-12 hours at a guess.

Not really, there are a lot of programs I released back in the ticalc.org / TI-Files / Dimension-TI heyday that were all primarily TI-83/TI-83+, although the quality was questionable

Wow this is amazing. I would be playing right now but I have Calculus homework

This is amazing! it is quite a chalenge though, i would add a 'sandbox' mode, where you can just explore, no enemies.

Impressive work JamesV! I love the classic look Do you think you might do this same method for other programs?


Psh clearly the solution is just to play a few (*ahm* hundreds) more hours

But it would be fun to explore and look at all the cool stuff.

I found a teleporting bug:
I had just defeated the boss of the 'Pyramid of snakes' and I was trying to find my way back to the start. When I entered a stairway, it teleported me inside a wall right next to the exit stairway.
I'm stuck now and can't move, I can't die since the enemies can't reach me, is there a suicide button? Or someway I can escape?
Here's a picture: https://1drv.ms/i/s!Al_ZukYl7XyyiWCCmfPfgVd8d_Qv

This looks amazing! There are so many incredible games for the TI-86 that are never used. IMO, probably the best calculator games that exist, at least rpgs, are for that calculator. I'm sad mine broke..

Can you try to port BBTD (blinded by the darkness) as well?

I'll get that fix that I PM'd you about sorted ASAP If anyone else comes across this issue, let me know and I'll send you the fix as well (and of course, fix the actual bug so it doesn't keep happening!)

Quite possibly. I was having some fun playing Penguins the other day, and thought that would be cool to port over.

When you finish the game, you're able to keep exploring around to find any items, etc. that you may have missed. The enemies are still there, but much quicker to kill once you have the strongest sword. And with the final boots you can walk over a lot of the terrain quickly as well

Oh BBTD! That game was so cool! I could have a look at it. It doesn't like the source code was included with it, but I imagine it would disassemble fairly cleanly.
EDIT - nvm, I just found the source in a separate zip file

Same here too. JamesV

ok, thanks! i cannot get past the maze in the pirimid, great game!

I got pass the pyramid and now onto the Winter Castle, it is so hard. Currently have 8 heart containers and have died like 10 times trying to beat him. Oh and you should lower the price for Superior Sword, it cost 15,000 gold which is a lot considering you lose half every time you die. (Best Method to get gold: Farm Potato Bugs LOL)

Thanks for all the feedback!

The Pyramid maze is a bit frustrating, it took me a bit of trial and error during testing to find the right path after not having played the game for years. If it proves to be too hard to find the right way through, let me know and I can send you a map showing the right warps / stairways to take.

Yeah I might need to lower the cost of a few items. I did increase the Gold drop in this release to try to reduce grinding. Or maybe I reduce the Gold penalty upon death to a quarter. I might update the Wells to fully heal you instead of only healing one heart each time as well, so that it's less time consuming / button-mashing to recharge your health.

I kind of like the game to be a challenge, but not so much that it's annoying

First of all, thanks for fixing my map!

Here are a few suggestions:
1. When you die, instead of being teleported all the way back to your house, why not re-spawn at the nearest wishing-well? It'd save quite a bit of time and walking.
2. Instead of reducing the amount of money you lose when you die. Could there be something like a bank at your house for you to store your excess money? That way you can have a safer way of saving up to buy the big things in the game. EDIT: ok, after my third try to try and reach 22000 gold, I'm thinking that you should lower the amount lost when you die
3. Instead of using [Enter] to continue when you're talking to someone or going through your inventory. Could you use [2nd] instead? This suggested mostly because I'm to lazy to reach all the way down to [Enter]

Great game!

I'm working on a minor revision 1.2.1 that I'll upload in the next couple of days, which will include the following:

- Pyramid map fix so that that specific warp doesn't lock you in a wall (available here if anyone needs it sooner)
- Wells to heal player fully instead of one heart at a time (albeit cost to increase to 150 Gold up from 100 Gold, but as long as you're healing 2 hearts or more, that's still more coin in your pocket )
- Death penalty to be revised to one of the following:
a) Only lose 1/4 of your Gold instead of 1/2, and you revive at the closest Well.
b) Lose no Gold, but still revive at the village.
- Add [2nd] key to continue when talking to people, looking at inventory, etc. ([ENTER] will still be available as well, although I'm not sure why I didn't make it [2nd] in the first place).

I vote option B for when you die