Atari Game Design Books

[elviticus]

A couple months back I bought an Atari 800 and disk drive so I could get back to programming games which I used to do in the early 80s and really enjoyed. Anyway, I've been having a lot of fun getting re-acquainted with Atari BASIC and am planning to move on to machine language in a while.

 

So... I've been buying a lot of books (and reading on line) but, most of my books are not specifically geared to game programming. What are some good ones I should look for? I read Player Missile Graphics in basic off atariarchives and it was great - it really helped that it was all leading up to a finished game. What other books would be good and where should I look?

[Gunstar]

I know this isn't an answer to your question, except that there are plenty of those types of books out there, but, since you speak of using Atari basic, may I suggest trying Turbo Basic XL which is PD I think, or at least freeware/shareware, and has become a standard basic for the 8-bits, runs about 10 times as fast as atari basic and is 100% compatible, but adding in many new commands, especially for control of the P/M graphics. It has compilers and run-time packages so the enduser doesn't even need the widely available TB to run the games.

http://www.page6.org/pd_lib/special/pd_ds006.htm\

 

http://www.page6.org/pd_lib/pd_lib.htm

 

I believe some of tha Atari dealers listed under "dealers" in the AtariAge links section, have semi-complete listings of Atari books that they sell, even if you don't intend to buy from them, it will remind you of some of the books available. Try B&C Computervisions and Best Electronics for starters.

[Wrathchild]

Hi,

 

Certainly check out the Compute's First & Second Book of Atari Graphics

(The 1st one is on http://www.atariarchives.org/c1bag/ )

 

Although not heavily game orientated, they do give the groundings.

 

Good luck,

Mark

[danwinslow]

is page6.org down?