In October 2004, I released a TI-84 Plus Zelda clone game called Zelda: Dark Link Quest, using the same graphical style as most of the Illusiat and Reign of Legends series, but I decided to also include animated cutscenes. Unfortunately, the game was released at a time of transition from Texas Instruments, who were in the middle of changing how their linking softwares deal with TI-84 plus group file content, preventing almost everyone with no access to a working install of TI-Graph Link software from being able to run the game.

In 2007, I thought I had solved the problem when I released a TI-Connect version of the game where regular pic vars from Pic0 to Pic9 had to be sent to the calculator then converted to hacked picvars on it using TI-BASIC installers, then repeating the process until the 29 KB worth of picvars was converted with different installers. Unfortunately, I just discovered, long after 16-Bit app support was phased out of Windows, that those standard picture variables are actually missing from the zip file and instead were replaced with the hacked pic vars themselves, preventing anyone with a modern computer and Windows install from being able to play the game on any calculator or emulator. No backup of the unconverted pic vars exist anywhere and my computer unfortunately lacks support for every single linking software other than TI-Connect 4.0 and TI-Connect CE (even ticalc.link's send button won't do anything).

So I'd like to ask if anyone would be interested in converting the grouped and hacked picvars into standard ones for me? While this game was by far the hardest to install on a TI-Z80 calculator and is hybrid TI-BASIC that suffered the test of time, I do not like the idea of seeing a large calculator game become lost to time with practically no way to ever play it again due to my mishap and I wanted to keep the game available for posterity. Also it is the only TI-84 Plus Zelda game ever finished outside of the ARPG Construction Kit category.

Here are the files. I do not remember how many pic vars are included (most likely over 40) because if you try ungrouping the 8xg files directly on a computer about a dozen of pictures will go missing, but here are the links if anyone would be interested in saving this calculator game:

https://djomnimaga.music-2000.com/otherfiles/PICTURE1.8XG
https://djomnimaga.music-2000.com/otherfiles/PICTURE2.8XG

Here are the installers, neither of which can be sent with TI-Connect and TI-Connect CE either, to help distinguish which picture is for what.

https://djomnimaga.music-2000.com/otherfiles/INSTALL1.8xp
https://djomnimaga.music-2000.com/otherfiles/INSTALL2.8xp

SourceCoder unfortunately doesn't like those files. I don't have time right this second to look into why, but this does seem like an interesting forensics project for me to bookmark for my "free time".

Hi DJ, that's no good!

I ran them through WE to see if it might fix something with the groups: https://tr1p1ea.net/files/downloads/ZDLQ.zip

I'll test when I get home this afternoon.

EDIT - I tried with SC3 and it doesn't like them. Seems that it can't reconcile extended PIC variables that don't have valid tokens?

I'd suggest breaking it up into 4 smaller groups with all PIC's being VALID PIC1-PIC0 and then having xLIB or other BASIC lib functions copy them into hacked slots.

Here is every image from the group files, each given the predictable, "unhacked" name Pic1.
https://logicaljoe.com/media/Zelda-Pics.zip
With PNGs of each 8xi:
https://logicaljoe.com/media/Zelda-Pics-w-pngs.zip

Thanks a lot for the help! I could send the files fine to my calculator so hopefully when I have free time I'll redo the installers. It also helps that after TI-Connect warns of duplicate names it lets me change the picvar name. This will speed things up considerably. EDIT: The fact PNG files are available will speed things up even further, I forgot to mention that. So thanks again

EDIT: Here is it!
https://www.cemetech.net/downloads/files/2165
https://tiplanet.org/forum/archives_voir.php?id=15440
(soon on ticalc.org as well). Hopefully it should now work fine with TI-Connect CE and hopefully it's packaged properly this time around.

There is no change to the original game, but you can now set the game contrast on first launch because the game used to set it to 52 by default, which was way too dark for TI-84 Plus models.

Version 2.00 has been uploaded to the Cemetech archives. It should be available at https://www.cemetech.net/downloads/files/2165/x2731 soon. Here are the changes that I've made:

-Removed several unnecessary line breaks in the game code, although some might still remain.
-Skeletons can no longer move diagonally.
-Swapped the menu opening and item usage keys. Menu opening is now DEL and item usage or switching to hookshot is 2nd.
-You can now switch between the sword and hookshot with the item usage button (2nd) if you have no other item equipped.
-You can no longer turn the calc off in the menu, as it crashed TI-84 Plus models.
-Hopefully it works with modern linking softwares this time around. It takes longer to install the picvars, though (four steps just for those alone).
-Added Doors CS 7 icon (although the game hasn't fully been tested in it yet)
-When launching the game for the first time or after deleting List CONT, the player can now set the game's contrast.

However, I was unable to locate the code for when you take damage from bosses. All code I saw referenced losing half a heart of life, even though bosses cause far more damage, so I am unsure what's up with that. The game was written almost 20 years ago and there are so many files that some stuff is buried very deep in it.

This is why, despite the game being nearly impossible to beat even with 10 heart containers and 4 fairies, I have left the difficulty as is. It was not too hard to beat when I was 18 but I guess I became slower and less reactive over time. The game is also incredibly hard to "hack", and some tampering with the save files could cause them to vanish from the list and trigger a new game instead, and at best it could prevent the final battle from triggering.