godlikemouse Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 Hi everyone, I used to program on the Atari computers when I was a kid, I used BASIC back in the day but of course found it extremely limited. Recently, I wanted to revisit the Atari and decided to learn 6502 assembler. To help learn, I decided to build a game. I'd like to share it with everyone here and see what you think. I've attached the game (dungeoneer.xex) to this post. You can find all the source code here as well if you're interested in how it was done: https://github.com/godlikemouse/atari-1200xl-asm I'd also like to give a big shout out to Ed Salisbury who put together a YouTube channel that initially helped me get started. You can learn more about that here: http://youtube.com/MissionEdPossible Thanks and enjoy! dungeoneer.xex 31 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tuf Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 So cool! I'll be checking it out when I'm done with work. Awesome that you returned to programming - I'd love to do the same myself. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlikemouse Posted May 26, 2022 Author Share Posted May 26, 2022 Thanks @tuf As you play, keep your eye out for secrets Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 I really like the wall/door/stair tiles. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlikemouse Posted May 26, 2022 Author Share Posted May 26, 2022 Thank you @zzip. Ed Salisbury actually came up with the initial wall tile (top view), I used that from his YouTube video, same with the initial player design (stationary). The rest was just trial and error until it looked somewhat decent to me 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdefabri Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 31 minutes ago, tuf said: So cool! I'll be checking it out when I'm done with work. Awesome that you returned to programming - I'd love to do the same myself. Same here - did mostly BASIC with Atari, some very minor Assembly coding. I can program C / C++ (did a Master's in Software Engineering), but I'm in Marketing. I haven't coded in at least 20 years, and I wasn't good when I was proficient. Goal was always to make games, this kind of stuff is inspirational and helps to motivate...I just need to learn more. Good luck and also congrats to OP, well done! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlikemouse Posted May 26, 2022 Author Share Posted May 26, 2022 Thanks @rdefabri, you should definitely give it a shot. I really enjoyed learning how the system works at this level. A few frustrations along the way of course, comes with making mistakes. But overall, a great experience. I hope you get the chance to build a game, I'd love to check it out 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 6 minutes ago, rdefabri said: Same here - did mostly BASIC with Atari, some very minor Assembly coding. I can program C / C++ (did a Master's in Software Engineering), but I'm in Marketing. I haven't coded in at least 20 years, and I wasn't good when I was proficient. Goal was always to make games, this kind of stuff is inspirational and helps to motivate...I just need to learn more. Good luck and also congrats to OP, well done! I used to start working on so many games back in my 8-bit days- Turbo Basic with some assembly, was redefining character sets, adding PM graphics etc. A few months ago I had the idea to give it another go-- I'm a much better programmer now. So designed a set of tiles for my 8-bit game. But when I tried to code it, nothing was working-- changing the character set was giving weird results, colors on screen are not what I set the registers to be, it would crash. I kept checking Mapping the Atari to figure out what I was doing wrong. But it seemed like I was doing it right.. I ended up putting it on the back burner. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGB1718 Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 Need to be a bit accurate against walls etc. for my old hands but seems like a nice game. One small thing, after it loads I get this sort of screen until I press Fire. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sikor Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 Nice game. Thanks for sharing. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saberman Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 Very nice game! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfzG1Vzu1Kw 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlikemouse Posted May 26, 2022 Author Share Posted May 26, 2022 @TGB1718 Interesting. I've never seen that before. I see you're running it in Altirra, are you using any kind of custom BIOS or anything? Also, what system are you emulating? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlikemouse Posted May 26, 2022 Author Share Posted May 26, 2022 @Sikor Sure thing, thank you checking it out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+videofx Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 Super cool! Thanks! I always wanted to learn how to write a game in assembly language. I will definitely learn fro your code!! Thanks! Bill 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted May 27, 2022 Share Posted May 27, 2022 That's a fun game, thank you for the work and the time.. Paul.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrshoujo Posted May 27, 2022 Share Posted May 27, 2022 Very rarely does one see near perfect game design. Simple rules and easy to pick up but sneakily challenging. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGB1718 Posted May 27, 2022 Share Posted May 27, 2022 (edited) 17 hours ago, godlikemouse said: are you using any kind of custom BIOS or anything? Also, what system are you emulating? 130XE normal BIOS, U1M, SIDE 3 although I'm not running the game from SIDE 3 just from the DOS prompt Does it with PAL or NTSC selected Edited May 27, 2022 by TGB1718 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grevle Posted May 27, 2022 Share Posted May 27, 2022 (edited) Nice Game !. Like the wall Brick tiles, The same design of tiles probably can fit a game i'm working on. Can i get permission to use the same Brick wall tiles design in my game ?. Thanks. Edited May 27, 2022 by Grevle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlikemouse Posted May 27, 2022 Author Share Posted May 27, 2022 17 hours ago, videofx said: Super cool! Thanks! I always wanted to learn how to write a game in assembly language. I will definitely learn fro your code!! Thanks! Bill Thanks, also feel free to checkout the YouTube link. That really helped me get going with this project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlikemouse Posted May 27, 2022 Author Share Posted May 27, 2022 5 hours ago, Mclaneinc said: That's a fun game, thank you for the work and the time.. Paul.. Sure thing, I'm glad you liked it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlikemouse Posted May 27, 2022 Author Share Posted May 27, 2022 3 hours ago, Mrshoujo said: Very rarely does one see near perfect game design. Simple rules and easy to pick up but sneakily challenging. Wow, thank you for the very high praise. I'm glad you liked it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlikemouse Posted May 27, 2022 Author Share Posted May 27, 2022 2 hours ago, TGB1718 said: 130XE normal BIOS, U1M, SIDE 3 although I'm not running the game from SIDE 3 just from the DOS prompt Does it with PAL or NTSC selected It was originally built for NTSC, but I would assume it would run in PAL, probably just a little slower. I would think that running the game directly would work just fine, that's odd. Would you mind trying to instead using the "Load ROM" option from the menu and see if that helps? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlikemouse Posted May 27, 2022 Author Share Posted May 27, 2022 1 hour ago, Grevle said: Nice Game !. Like the wall Brick tiles, The same design of tiles probably can fit a game i'm working on. Can i get permission to use the same Brick wall tiles design in my game ?. Thanks. Sure, please feel free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Philsan Posted May 27, 2022 Share Posted May 27, 2022 PAL hardware 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlikemouse Posted May 27, 2022 Author Share Posted May 27, 2022 That's awesome to see. Thank you very much for testing this on a PAL system Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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