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Walrii6510 - The walrii game on the C64

Started by DarkestEx, December 31, 2015, 04:17:57 PM

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DarkestEx

Hey everybody!

So I will be participating in the Walrii contest but on a very unusual platform that I got for christmas:
The Commodore 64!

Yes- CW will hopefully get their own retro game on an awesome machine. I have never done any 6510 assembler so I have three options:
- Program it in C; yes I can do efficient C and there is a good little C compiler for this very machine
- Learn 6510 assembler quickly (I (badly) know Z80 assembler yet and I also have designed and partially programmed my own assembly language too so learning shouldn't be *that* hard as the understanding is mostly there)
- Learn some more Basic and do it with the builtin Basic interpreter (is reasonably slower but should work in any case)
  • Calculators owned: TI-84+, Casio 101-S, RPN-Calc, Hewlett-Packard 100LX, Hewlett-Packard 95LX
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Original Commodore 64C, C64 DTV, Nintendo GameBoy Color, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2

kegwaan

Seems interesting... Good luck!  :thumbsup:
I think your best bet would be to program it in C, Basic isn't that fast really on any platform, and learning Assembly might slow you down. Also, you never said what the game is about. Deciding that might help you decide how you should program it.
  • Calculators owned: TI-84+ SE, TI-84+ CSE
"If it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid."

alexgt

I would side with kegwaan and head down the C route, I wish you luck ;)
  • Calculators owned: Ti-84+, Ti-Nspire, Hp Prime, Broken HP Prime, HP 48SX

Dream of Omnimaga

If you go the C64 route, you should try to make some old school platform puzzle game where you collect keys to unlock the door to your meal or something like that, like those old school platform games that had no scrolling. Of course I assume that ASM is faster, though, right, and could allow more elaborate games? Regardless, I am curious about what you will come up with, and I'm glad that you got your hand on a Commodore 64 :)

Good luck!
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

DarkestEx

Quote from: kegwaan on December 31, 2015, 08:06:21 PM
Seems interesting... Good luck!  :thumbsup:
I think your best bet would be to program it in C, Basic isn't that fast really on any platform, and learning Assembly might slow you down. Also, you never said what the game is about. Deciding that might help you decide how you should program it.
Yes, I never really wanted to use basic either as I am not a particular fan of it. It's slow and messy.
But as you say learning 6510 (basically 6502 but with some changes) assembler takes too much time. There is no need either and my uncle who knows a lot about this also says that assembler is dead and should not be used. Well optimized C is way more worth it.

Quote from: alexgt on December 31, 2015, 10:02:57 PM
I would side with kegwaan and head down the C route, I wish you luck ;)
Thanks; actually after working with 6510 C, I can say it really works great. Even on the 1 MHz of the C64, my first experiments run very fast.

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on December 31, 2015, 10:17:49 PM
If you go the C64 route, you should try to make some old school platform puzzle game where you collect keys to unlock the door to your meal or something like that, like those old school platform games that had no scrolling. Of course I assume that ASM is faster, though, right, and could allow more elaborate games? Regardless, I am curious about what you will come up with, and I'm glad that you got your hand on a Commodore 64 :)

Good luck!
That would be fun :)
I am not that sure about what type of game I'll make yet, but I will hopefully come up with a good idea.
Assembler is not really worth it actually. Even though the C64 runs at about 1 MHz, C is the better choice as it prevents errors and when its optimized for speed, it is almost as fast as true hand written assembler. I tested this quite a bit and my conclusion is, that I will be able to make a good game with C. Still, I need to optimize my code by hand and using the compiler whereever possible.
Having a real unit to test on is awesome. Especially the sound is so great  :love:
  • Calculators owned: TI-84+, Casio 101-S, RPN-Calc, Hewlett-Packard 100LX, Hewlett-Packard 95LX
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Original Commodore 64C, C64 DTV, Nintendo GameBoy Color, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2

Dream of Omnimaga

What about something like Androides, Lode Runner or a Mario-like game with no scrolling? That would stick to the C64 style, but introduce walruses in it. Good luck!
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

DarkestEx

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on January 04, 2016, 04:47:26 AM
What about something like Androides, Lode Runner or a Mario-like game with no scrolling? That would stick to the C64 style, but introduce walruses in it. Good luck!
Hmm, I am not yet sure. I never really programmed anything for the C64 yet so I should start small. I'll see what I manage to learn and do until the deadline.
  • Calculators owned: TI-84+, Casio 101-S, RPN-Calc, Hewlett-Packard 100LX, Hewlett-Packard 95LX
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Original Commodore 64C, C64 DTV, Nintendo GameBoy Color, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2

alexgt

I hope you can finish something since the deadline is the 19th :-/
  • Calculators owned: Ti-84+, Ti-Nspire, Hp Prime, Broken HP Prime, HP 48SX

novenary

Yeah, with only two weeks left you'll be a bit on the short side for time to do anything.

alexgt

Yeah, I have to do the AI but that will be really simple, even so it will take a while to debug <_<
  • Calculators owned: Ti-84+, Ti-Nspire, Hp Prime, Broken HP Prime, HP 48SX

DarkestEx

I did the last game in 6 hours before the deadline. This time I have more time so it should work better.
  • Calculators owned: TI-84+, Casio 101-S, RPN-Calc, Hewlett-Packard 100LX, Hewlett-Packard 95LX
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Original Commodore 64C, C64 DTV, Nintendo GameBoy Color, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2

Dream of Omnimaga

Good luck! Also will you be able to show screenshots?
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

DarkestEx

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on January 04, 2016, 05:55:45 PM
Good luck! Also will you be able to show screenshots?
Sure that does pose no problems.
  • Calculators owned: TI-84+, Casio 101-S, RPN-Calc, Hewlett-Packard 100LX, Hewlett-Packard 95LX
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Original Commodore 64C, C64 DTV, Nintendo GameBoy Color, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2

novenary

Quote from: DarkestEx on January 04, 2016, 04:51:17 PM
I did the last game in 6 hours before the deadline. This time I have more time so it should work better.
Yeah indeed, start working on it now to avoid doing the same as last time. :P We won't make an exception twice for the late submission.

DarkestEx

Quote from: Streetwalrus on January 04, 2016, 08:20:23 PM
Quote from: DarkestEx on January 04, 2016, 04:51:17 PM
I did the last game in 6 hours before the deadline. This time I have more time so it should work better.
Yeah indeed, start working on it now to avoid doing the same as last time. :P We won't make an exception twice for the late submission.
Haha, yea. I will start soon :)
I am still learning the basics of this computer and it's graphics capabilities, so I can't start with the actual game yet, but yea, I can't skip the learning.
  • Calculators owned: TI-84+, Casio 101-S, RPN-Calc, Hewlett-Packard 100LX, Hewlett-Packard 95LX
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Original Commodore 64C, C64 DTV, Nintendo GameBoy Color, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2

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