king's quest – Slattstudio

April 2026 Betrayed Alliance Update

April 13, 2026Ryan J SlatteryLeave a comment

What’s new in the last 2 months? Last update I showed off some work on new areas and battles. The last couple of months have seen a lot of work on systems and implementation of puzzles.

And as always new artwork, animations, etc. If I didn’t have any artwork, it would be hard to share anything at all! So let’s start with that.

New Artwork

Programming

Flags

I’ve not hidden the fact that I am quite an amateur when it comes to programming and get by on this project by the skin of my teeth. I spent the better part of a day on Spring break updating many of the global variables in the game into binary flags. This is something no one will ever notice, but it is more efficient and is something I really should have learned earlier, but somehow couldn’t wrap my head around. Despite my dumb-brain, I’ve finally took some time to learn about flags and have properly integrated them into the game. I’m hopeful this will save me parts of a kilobyte of memory. But as the saying goes (and is especially true in SCI0), every bit helps!

“Out of Heap Space”

Flags weren’t the only “under the hood” work I spent too much time on. I also discovered why the demo sometimes has the “out of heap space” error/bug. This has been something lurking in the back of my mind for some time, and I knew the day would come when I’d have to figure it out – and that day came when I couldn’t even walk around the game for more than 5 or so screens before it would crash. Somewhere, somehow, I had memory fragmentation and it had gotten critical!

After hours of searching on my own as well as puzzling it out with AI’s surprisingly bad rabbit trails, I discovered an anomaly that indicated what was wrong. Long story short, I had an in-room script running in many rooms that was only conditionally being set with the setScript: command. Apparently, without this, the script doesn’t get properly unloaded, causing subsequent memory fragmentation. With this discovery, a HUGE anxiety about memory management in the game has been lifted.

Speaking of programming, I learned a new trick while working on this room. I wanted the player to be able to interact with the weapons in the ground, but there are so many that I worried programming it would be a chore. Then I learned about the kernal call (GetDistance), which measures the distance between two points. Somehow I had never used this before?!

All I had to do in the end was set up a basic “for” loop, calculate the distance between ego and all the swords, keeping the nearest one and boom, no fuss, no multiple control colors, or ridiculous nested “ifs” or switch statements. So this update, I’m happy to announce I’m slowly becoming a slightly better programmer, despite the learning curve looking more like midwestern plain than the Colorado Rockies.

Krug

A bit more about the statue with the swords all around it. That is a statue of Krug, one of the three great apprentices. There is an item associated with him, and when designing it, I recalled a Magic The Gathering card from when I was younger called “Amulet of Kroog.” Since Krug is so similar to Kroog, I thought it would be a fun hommage to the card art by Margaret Organ-Kean to design the item after the artwork on the card.

Other small upgrades

If you’ve played the demo of Book 2, you know there is a place where the characters can pass items to each other. In that build, if you needed to give 4 items, you’d have to type each one individually. One change I’ve made is to reuse the inventory system (which its clickable items for descriptions) but instead of viewing the item, pass it to the other character. This way, it will be a bit less cumbersome if you have to pass a large handful of items at once!

As always, there’s always a lot more that is getting done under the hood, and many things I just don’t want to share because they are puzzles/spoilers. I always feel a tension in sharing too much or not enough, but the past few months were really quite productive and Spring break saw a LOT of time for development.

The last week of April will see a lull as I’ll be on a weeklong class trip, which is also why this update is a little earlier than usual. But after the trip comes exams, then we’ll be in summer, where I am ready to blast off on development like the Artemis II.

See you soon!

Betrayed Update – July 2025

July 20, 2025Ryan J SlatteryLeave a comment

Background Banaza!

This July I had the pleasure of having Karl Dupéré-Richer spend a bit of time working on some artwork for the project. I gave him a handful of unfinished backgrounds and he set himself to working on some sketches based on the scratch pre-alpha “art” I had in the game.

Karl took these images with a small dose of direction and very quickly put together some sketches.

From these images I set myself to transposing them into EGA Vector graphics using SCI Companion.

Here are a few other backgrounds that were completed thanks to Karl’s help on the project. These 4 are parts of a log cabin area.

Karl is also responsible for about 2/3 of the updated Artwork in Book 1, so his work on Betrayed Alliance has been (and continues to be) inestimable! I’d recommend following his work and supporting him by checking out Amazing Fix, a game featuring his artwork.

Altogether, Karl has sketched out 11 backgrounds this July, and I’ve done my best to do them justice in the conversion process into vector EGA backgrounds.

After this most recent run of completing backgrounds, the total of completed backgrounds to use in the game is now around 130 or so. I estimate about 20 or so more backgrounds will be needed. To give a bit of scale, Book 1 has about 56 backgrounds.

What else is new?

You might recognize the following image from last update, where I was working on this puzzle:

The puzzle is now complete and the background has been redone.

I’ve also done some further work with a conversation between Leah and Jurgen, a character you run into in the demo who is on his own quest in Book 2. Here is the sketch and then the in-game conversion.

Bad News

Despite things getting done, not everything is going perfectly. This past month the Slattstudio discord server was deleted by its previous owner. I’ve put together a new one which you can join here. I am now the owner of the server, so that will not be happening again. I apologize for the inconvenience!

Also, the goal of this year was to get the game to alpha by year’s end. While this has been among the most productive years so far, each month’s goal is still falling behind schedule. That said, things are really starting to come together and it’s beginning to hit that transition point between feeling like a project and feeling like a game.

Until next update, thank you all for your support and patience, especially those who have continued supporting me on patreon. You make it possible for me to work on this game!

Betrayed Update June 2025

June 20, 2025June 20, 2025Ryan J SlatteryLeave a comment

What’s new in the Verlorn forest since the March? Let’s find out!

First (and please forgive the simplistic nature of the artwork – it’s not in final form) is a puzzle room that Leah finds herself in. This puzzle, like the cosmic maze area shown last update, takes place in a “space” a bit outside of the forest. More to share on this as it progresses. Right now it’s kind of like looking at scaffolding as opposed to seeing the complete building.

Speaking of things not in their final form, I’ve also been putting together a few basic blueprints for a handful of locations that have not been made yet. All in all, I’d say there are about 30 or so backgrounds that still need to be made (That’s on top of the around 120 unique backgrounds already completed!). Here is a cabin area which will house a few rooms:

In this cabin, you will meet an important character for Book 2’s story, Leonard, one of the few other characters capable of living in the cursed forest:

You will also see him featured in the new artwork I’ve just recently put together for the Betrayed Alliance: Book 2 Player’s Guide and Game Manual. Here’s a quick side by side with the Book 1 artwork and the new Book 2 artwork – you can see I wanted to go with a consistent theme (As anyone who collects items in the same collection will tell you, it’s nice when they fit together!)

Here’s a look at the process I used for creating the image:

Step 1 – I sketched out the artwork concept.
Step 2 – I inked the sketch and erased the pencil. I then took a picture and inputted it into photoshop. (A lot of artists sketch and ink in photoshop itself, but I still prefer the tactile nature of paper.)
Step 3 – I use a comic book style approach to coloring called “flatting” where you put down a base color for each part. This allows you to use the magic wand tool to select one area at a time to color.

Back to the game

But artwork isn’t everything I’ve been busy with. There are a number of areas I’ve been programming that aren’t easy to show without revealing puzzle spoilers and such, but two areas I’ve been busy with lately are:

I don’t want to show too much about these, however, I will say the frozen river here, for example will not always remain frozen. As the game progresses, you help effect certain changes.

Final Thoughts

So how’s the goal of reaching alpha by end of year? I must be honest here, it’s not looking too great, unfortunately. My life has just become so busy with three children (ranging from 5-12 y/o). I’m not trying to assign blame or anything, just observing that hobbies like game creation take backseat to real life. That being said, this is a marathon and I’m feeling like we’re in the last few miles. Yes, I’m tired and running low on gas, but just one step at a time and before you know it, it’ll be in alpha, then beta, then tested and released. So thanks for hanging in there with me.

For those of you interested, I’ve also put out a new shirt on my fourthwall page – this one features the cartoon version of adventurer Graham that I use in my comic series on my patreon. I really liked how he looks in this style and I wanted him on a shirt for myself. Pick one up if you like it too!

Betrayed Alliance: Book 1 Release-week Roundup

May 9, 2024May 9, 2024Ryan J SlatteryLeave a comment

It’s been a week since Betrayed Alliance: Book 1 was released, open-source and for free. So how’s it going? Let’s find out!

Downloads:

A week into release and we’ve had just over 800 downloads! That’s a lot of people playing Betrayed Alliance, for which I am very thankful!

If you haven’t gotten your FREE download of the game yet, get it here!

Reception:

While we don’t have any proper reviews (yet!), I have had people reaching out and saying things like,

Just finished playing it. Very very fun. Took me back to the EGA days of QFG1, which is still my favorite of that series. I cannot wait to play the next chapter.

Another person mentioned on the Sierra Gaming World Facebook group:

I know someone in this group was involved with the making of Betrayed Alliance and I just want to say thank you. I started playing it yesterday and really love it so far.

If you have any feedback for us (or bugs to report), join us on the Slattstudio Discord page

Speaking of reviews, if you purchased the physical game manual, please leave a short review! It only has ONE review so far, and those are rookie numbers!

Hint Guide & Walkthrough:

Yes, just like the old days, there is a physical game manual, but this one includes a hint guide and walkthrough in addition to a short story introduction to the game, some instructions about features, and artwork.

In case the PDF hint guide and walkthrough (included with the game files) isn’t quite enough for your needs, there is a video walkthrough you can watch courtesy of Streamer and YouTube guy, Jimni P:

Support:

Love what we’re doing and want to support? You have options!

Slattstudio is on Patreon which is a truly significant help in keeping a time-intensive hobby such as this sustainable. A huge and heartfelt “Thank You!!” to the wonderful and generous people who support me there!

You can also get some really cool items like the Game Night shirt and hoodie, a Slattstudio cap, or some stickers, all of which can be found at the Slattstudio Fourth Wall Page.

Finally, the Betrayed Alliance: Book 1 Player’s Guide and Game Manual from Amazon. (This is the link for North America. For other marketplaces, you might have to search “Betrayed Alliance” on Amazon.)

What’s Next?

We’re currently collecting bugs and fixing them for a patch we anticipate putting out sometime in June. If you encounter any bugs in the game, feel free to join the discord where you will find a “Betrayed Alliance Book 1 Bugs” channel you can post them to (and we’ll get around to squashing them).

With the update to Book 1 completed, it’s time to turn our attention back to Book 2. There is a playable demo for Book 2 currently available, but lots of work to be done for the final product. The timeline for completion for Book 2 isn’t near enough to prognosticate with any reliability.

Thank you for playing, supporting, and enjoying our work!

Betrayed Alliance Post-Mortem (Puzzle Design – The Squirrel Puzzle)

May 13, 2021Ryan J SlatteryLeave a comment

I heaped myself a bunch of praise when I looked at the Overworld Structure for BA: Book 1. As much as I enjoy patting my own back, today I’ll be moving my hand to my forehead as we look at some puzzle choices.

The Squirrel Puzzle

This puzzle has three steps:

1. Activate the puzzle by giving the squirrel the acorn
2. Say “copy cat” to the squirrel and it will position itself to mirror your actions
3. Make the correct sequence of steps.

As a puzzle, it’s fine. Not earth-shatteringly good, not rip-out-your-hair-bad. The signposting to say “copy cat” is clear once you’ve heard the dialog from the soldiers watching the Whispering Caverns. The signposting for the correct sequence of steps is carved into the puzzle structure itself, which is also told to the player if they happen to “look at” the puzzle board itself.

What’s wrong with it?

The design feels arbitrary. Simply put, why is it there, other than just another obstacle for the player? And what reason is there for a squirrel?

It breaks the immersion when it’s just some random puzzle.

What’s worse is that it was designed with a story purpose, but very little made it into the game.

The puzzle leads to a hidden grove, meant to be a “special place” for the main villain (Gyre) and his wife, who had died before the events of the game. The spirit of the wife “haunts” the place playing music, which has led to the spread of the legend of the “Muse of the Mountain.”

The puzzle needing two participants was originally set up for Gyre and his wife to gain access to their secluded sanctuary. With her passing, Gyre had trained an animal to replicate the pattern so he could still gain access. I never devised a way to get this information into the game, sadly. About all that made it into the game were the rumors about the “Muse of the Mountain” which you find in an optional library book.

Why do the tiles make sounds?

From its inception it was designed to be a music-puzzle, where the player (along with the squirrel) would repeat the four chords of a song that could be heard playing if one listened near the entrance.

The woman/spirit the player finds is seen to play music and sings all of her dialog. The lore is that people can hear her singing, but Gyre cannot due to his heart being clouded with thoughts of revenge.

So what happened? I hadn’t considered the limitations of sound in SCI, particularly the ability to only play back one sound at a time. The idea was each block played a tone, but when the player and squirrel would step on two different blocks, it would play two sounds making a small chord. That didn’t work at all because it couldn’t!

A concession was made to add arrows onto the puzzle board itself and remove any correspondence to the notes and the solution. The puzzle became more of a dexterity challenge than a music puzzle in the end.

I have regrets…

While the puzzle is generally fine in a vacuum, I do regret how I poorly I translated the puzzle from design to execution. I feel it lost almost all of its story meaning, and most of its original puzzle design as well.

It wasn’t until about the last month or two before release I had (for other reasons) decided to use “SCI Audio” which would open a parallel program that plays music separately from the game program. This program did allow for multiple tones at once, but at that point, the puzzle was already in place and the release was coming too soon to go back and change things.

Redeeming features

Yes, I have regrets, but this puzzle still has some things going for it.

It adheres to the “find the lock before the key” rule, while also allowing you to play around a bit with it (if you give the Squirrel the acorn).
While the notes no longer matter, it is generally fun to play with them.
The player will typically go through a series of trial and error efforts like “pressing down all the tiles” before leaving the puzzle or solving it. It’s generally good if the puzzle’s not so easy the player gets it straight away.