Sunday 24 July 2011

ZX Spectrum Platformer Project - Misson Statement

Still coming up with that... but here is an overview of what I intend to cover!!

BASIC vs Machine Code
- Show simple screen wipe in BASIC
- Show simple screen wipe in assembly
- Explain screen mem insanity
- Show ordered screen wipe
- Show function to calc location y line in HL, x byte and rotation for x coord
- Show Sprite copying routine
- Interrupts - and why they don't suck
- Tiled level drawing
- Collision between non-evil platforms and enemies & Evil Platforms
- Random discussion on horizontal scrolling (and why vertical sucks by comparison)
- Sound synth (two channel!) for 1-bit beeper shit (no, I repeat NO 128K 8912 chip)

Game
- Keyboard!
- Joystick!! (as if modern Speccy users care… um, fuck the oxymoron there)
- C# Spectrum graphic editor (by me!)
- Level designing
- Pulling it all together (for a 1-level proper mad game!!)

Future ideas:
- Scrolling shoot-em-up?
- DEFINITELY: C64 platformer, maybe ShootEmUp - because… I never did!! XD
- Atari ST - next? (for same reason as C64)

Argument:

I see this project's purpose as two-fold:

- Show people how gameplay always triumphs, even with IMMENSELY limited resources
- Give back Da Respekt to the hardware, dudes!!! You can't get any crapper than the Spectrum for this, yet it was the platform of CHOICE for gameplay in its day (even though the C64 was far superior in terms of hardware, etc.)- how was this done?

But there's also:
- Something is wrong with the games industry… (oh this could go on for a bit, but… rather than be a bore, I thought showing WHY via the game would be the best way)
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2 comments:

  1. dead1 October 2012 at 11:05

    So, um, I guess this project's dead?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. retrotechtive3 March 2020 at 21:58

      Hello from the future!

      Well, this bit "DEFINITELY: C64 platformer" is happening... ;)

      At the time, there didn't seem to be much interest in the ZX Spectrum project (in 2011) so I left it alone. Since then, a fair number of visitors have come here, though mainly for the Spectrum screen memory explanation.

      If there's *really* interest in the ZX Spectrum tutorials still, I could revisit this. But for now, I'm learning to probe the C64, a machine I never had at the time, and which has much more to investigate that interests me.

      Perhaps I could do a poll sometime soon, to see if there is more interest out there...?

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