The primary purpose of this blog is to discuss using CC65 on Atari 8-bit computers - which goes from "hey this is easy!" to "omg...how do I do X?!?" pretty darn fast. My posts will naturally include source code showing how I've managed to do various things with the platform.

The vehicles I plan to use during these discussions are two programs I'm currently working on (when time permits). The first is an Ancients game in the spirit of DBA or HoTT (Hordes of the Things) - so definitely not a hardcore simulation of ancient warfare but instead a lighthearted game of lining up two opposing armies and having them go at it. This is a one player game using custom fonts and is targeted at any 48k Atari (Atari 800, 800XL, and 65/130XE). There will be nothing overly graphics intensive in this game short of an introduction screen. Who knows. I might add a DLI to make the game pop a bit better.

The second game is a bit more ambitious in that I'm workings towards a sandbox exploration game which is focused on the survival of the protagonist. Ultimately there will be a quest for the player to work against but the game is about survival, finding resources, using them smartly, etc. The player will start in the wilderness and have the opportunity to explore ruins both above and below ground. I'll be using mutl-color fonts for this game and I'm targeting the 130XE as the primary platform. The primary memory bank will be used for wilderness exploration, bank 0 for exploration of ruins, bank 1 for exploration of subsurface areas, bank 2 will store shared code which fits outside of the "core support routines", and bank 3 will store static data. The "core support routines" will consist of screen IO, sound, various proxy routines to make calls into various banks,

Earlier this year I created a horribly inefficient prototype of. The result was "I gotta use a 130 for this...." At first I just couldn't figure it out - things would lock up or implode in awesome ways. I set the project aside temporarily and focused on other things. But eventually I figured it out with help from folks on Atariage (namely danwilson), I got his example code compiling with the newest cut of CC65 (config file changes a-plenty were required) and realized that now I could start making things happen with this idea. So thanks to Dan for that.

So anyway I mostly intend for this to be a development blog on these two games with content geared towards folks who are new to CC65. There will be time when posts come fast and furious and other times when real life will ensure I'm away for an extended period.

I'm hopeful that some of the topics will be useful.