Well, I've bit the bullet and started a new blog for "The Legend of Beryl Reichardt." 
To this point, my development progress has been spread out between my Opry99er
blog, the Atariage forum, and the TI-99/4a list servers.  What I hope to do with this blog
is centralize my efforts and help organize my thoughts; as much for myself as for those
interested in the goings on.  I suppose the best place to start is the beginning.I began
the conceptualization for "The Legend of Beryl Reichardt" after re-entering the TI-99
world 2 years ago.  Tunnels of Doom had always been my favorite game from when I
was a kid... I always loved the feel of being in my basement at 2 AM as a 5 or 6 year
old kid, hoping the roar of the PEB fan didn't wake up my parents.  I would crawl from
floor to floor in the dreaded "Tunnels of Doom" trying to find Orbs, swords, and everything
else the tunnels had to offer.  Those memories stayed with me my entire life... 20 years
later, I began to learn to code in Extended BASIC on the TI-99/4a and have been having
a blast doing it.  My first goal was to write this RPG.... But I knew that I did not have the
necessary programming skills yet. 

The first thing I tried to do was to write a custom Tunnels of Doom Game called
"The Legend of Beryl Reichardt" using John Behnke's ToD editor (Asgard software).  I
made some significant progress in doing the edit, even with the tedious and
cumbersome user interface the editor had.  Of course, that is all relative--- In 1986,
it would have been deemed a very slick piece of software, and (despite its difficulty) I
found it to be usable.  I spent a month or so designing characters, developing the plot
of the game, creating enemies and objects that were to be found inside the Tunnels. 
Unfortunately, a faulty disk drive ate my editor disk, so my progress came to a halt,
and the unfinished game is all that remains from the experience.  You can download
it from the Oprysoftware page of my website, Opry99er.com.  As I said, it is unfinished,
but partially playable.  This would only fuel my desire to move forward and
create the standalone RPG "The Legend of Beryl Reichardt" for which this blog
has been created.  My programming skills needed to be tuned, as I hadn't done
much more than simple BASIC commands as a kid, "Hello World," and such. 
So my foray into TI-99 XB programming began, and that's where I am now.

Knowing I needed a skillset I did not have, I decided to start making a few
programs in XB.  I started in with a few demos of other game ideas and
eventually wrote "Lemonade Stand" for the TI-99/4a, and then "Honeycomb
Rapture." 



 **Screenshot from "Lemonade Stand"

"Lemonade Stand" debuted at the 2009 Chicago TI Faire to great reviews and praise,
which kept me programming.  You can DL this game from the Oprysoftware
page of my website "Opry99er.com."  After Lemonade Stand, I turned my
attention back to "The Legend of Beryl Reichardt" and started thinking about the game
engine--- only to realize that I still did not have the skills required to create a game of
this scope and magnitude.  Then, a marvellous thing happened... Something that would
serve to change my programming world.  The TI-99/4a got its own subforum on
Atariage.com.  A game programming contest was started to welcome the programmers
to the forum, and my development of "Honeycomb Rapture" started.  It was a fast and
furious learning process which taught me more in 3 months than the previous year of
programming had taught me.  I completed my second full release for the TI-99/4a on
February 14th, 2010.  You can DL "Honeycomb Rapture" from the Oprysoft page of my
website "Opry99er.com".  Honeycomb was a different experience... it was an arcade style
game that stretched the boundaries of my skills.  I learned much about the limitations of
my language of choice, Extended BASIC, and also learned about many possibilities of
which I had not been previously aware. 


**Screenshot from "Honeycomb Rapture"

Once I had completed the game, my attention IMMEDIATELY returned to
"The Legend of Beryl Reichardt" and this time, to stick.  I believe that now is the
time... I have been planning for a few weeks now, and I will be posting blogs as
my game progresses.  Hopefully you will be able to follow the development from
the "concept" stage to a full-blown, polished TI-99 CRPG.  Below are a few
mockup screenshots of my game.  Please enjoy!




**SPRITE designs         

                                       

 **Mockup for "cave" screen



 
**Battle sequence in "dungeon"          


 
 **Battle sequence in "desert" world