Making Your Own Games?

More for curiosity's sake - I like to tinker about with these sort of things.

Is it possible to create your own games for the Amiga? I use games in the loosest sense as I'll only basically be faffing about to see what can be done.

If it is possible, what software is available to me today that could allow to me to do this and how would I compile the completed 'game' into an Amiga disk?

I've searched the interweb/this forum/every other forum high and wide and there seems to be nothing at all. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places?

Any help appreciated!!

[ant512]

The Amiga was *the* computer to write games for back in the late 80s/early 90s. If a game wasn't written for the Amiga, the chances are the Amiga was involved at some point during its creation, be it the game's music (SoundTracker), graphics (DPaint) or cross-assembled code.

There are loads of ways to write Amiga games. First thing you need to do is get WinUAE set up on your PC with a hard disk file (a virtual hard disk) and an installation of Workbench (the Amiga GUI).

Next - what type of game do you want to write, and how capable are you at coding? This makes a big difference to the programs you'll need. At the most simplistic, there are point-and-click creation systems like SEUCK (shoot-em-ups), 3D Construction Kit (Castlemaster-esque games) and GRAC (graphic adventures). They're designed to produce one type of game.

Next up there are "real" programming languages designed for games. The two most popular are AMOS Pro and Blitz BASIC (or AmiBlitz as it is now known). They're not as fast as lower-level languages (though Blitz has an in-line assembler, which makes a huge difference), but they'll let you put a game together quickly.

After that, you'll need to start digging around for a C compiler or a 68000 assember and an awful lot of documentation.

Compiling a disk is fairly easy. Assume for a moment that you've written your game in Blitz, and it comes to around 500Kb in size. You would:

- Create a blank disk image in WinUAE (or get a blank disk if you've got a real Amiga);
- Format the disk;
- Open a CLI and type "install df0:"
- Create an "S" directory on the disk;
- Create a new text file in the S directory and call it "startup-sequence";
- In the new text file, put the text "MyGame" (where "MyGame" is the name of your game);
- Copy your game to the disk;
- Reboot.

The Amiga will automatically boot your disk and load the game. Simple! It gets more complicated if you use things like external fonts, libraries, or want to support AGA, but not much more - you just have to copy a few files across from the Workbench disks and add a few more commands to the startup script.

That is PERFECT! I'm not really very good at coding at the moment, but it's something I've fiddled around before and pick up fairly well. However, I'll try to lower level stuff first - just to get used to the whole prosess.

Well, hats off to you and a great big thank you. Can't believe I couldn't find this info anywhere else!

[captainxod]

bah. the archimedes was the computer to write for. Why do you think Braben wrote Zarch (aka Virus) for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!

[Zetr0]

@captinxod,

probly because he took to long learning 68k ASM


I will never know how the hell he / they managed to get frontier in a 500k (or there abouts) size file! truely amazing.

[Graham Humphrey]

I personally use Blitz Basic. I remember buying a boxed, complete copy of v2.1 off Ebay almost 6 years ago now for about £3.50 (bargain). However the manual is about as useful as a solar-powered torch so you'll basically (pun most definitely intended) have to teach yourself.

How I learned most of it was to look at the example code, download source code for games and utilities off places like Aminet, and just experimented with it. It's one thing reading the code, it's another thing actually putting it into practice. Just by messing about with different commands and adapting routines for your own code, you learn a lot more by trying things out than you do by merely reading and running example code "as is". At least that's what I find anyway.

Originally Posted by Graham Humphrey

How I learned most of it was to look at the example code, download source code for games and utilities off places like Aminet, and just experimented with it.

I think the reason thats the best way to learn is because its also the most fun. Nothing better than fiddling around with numbers having no idea what they mean, then putting it to the test and seeing what you've messed up!

[Graham Humphrey]

Originally Posted by Bishmanrock

I think the reason thats the best way to learn is because its also the most fun. Nothing better than fiddling around with numbers having no idea what they mean, then putting it to the test and seeing what you've messed up!

Heh, I think you're right. Also it's immensely rewarding when you do figure something out and you see it working. It is a lot of work, and it can be frustrating, but it is a lot of fun as well

[Lonewolf10]

I have made a few games/software with AMOS Pro...

Alutia's Jewels
Breaker
BLAIM!
Simple Art 2004
ABI Encoder & Decoder

... but I have only really sent them to 2 other people who have helped me in the past with AMOS stuff (code and extensions). I will upload them to Aminet in the next week or so.


Regards,
Lonewolf10

[ant512]

Originally Posted by Graham Humphrey

However the manual is about as useful as a solar-powered torch so you'll basically (pun most definitely intended) have to teach yourself.

If you already know how to program, though, the Blitz manual is fantastic. Easily the best programming manual I've ever used. It's ring-bound so it'll sit open on the desk, and includes the keyboard raw key codes, list of system calls, a complete list of 68K asm commands and information about the Amiga's memory map and custom chips.

[Huezo]

I manage C and C++ quite ok, I am a Symbian programmer,
have made hundreds of .mod files,
nowadays I am making music with instruments on weekly basic,
I can draw well and render 3D.

- so what I am interested in Is it very hard to write and compile Amiga game code in C or C++?

Is this Blitz Basic thing good then?

-Huezo

[Doc Mindie]

Huezo: C/C++ is almost as common on the Amiga as on Linux. The Amiga OS itself was written (reputedly) in C back in the days.

Examples of C packages I know about ATM: SAS/C, HiSoft C (is this alos C++?), StormC, Dice, GNU C (Though probably "only" v2.95 still, as there's not as many people porting to Amiga as there once was).

Some of these also supports C++ to a more or less satisfying degree.

[Huezo]

Ideal would be a working setup zipped.
Setting up the env is always the main challenge for me,
not producing the code.

I have not actually done much with Linux.
I use IDEs like VC6, CodeWarrior, Carbide (made on top of Eclipse I think)
I have scratched surface of gcc, but not much,
that was with Nokia N770 Linux device some test apps.

Well, assembler might be interesting too =)
I made some little proggies in school some years ago.

-Heikki

[Graham Humphrey]

There is a version of SAS C in the Zone, actually (courtesy of eLowar), maybe you'd like to give that a try?

[Madcrow]

Originally Posted by Doc Mindie

Huezo: C/C++ is almost as common on the Amiga as on Linux. The Amiga OS itself was written (reputedly) in C back in the days.

Examples of C packages I know about ATM: SAS/C, HiSoft C (is this alos C++?), StormC, Dice, GNU C (Though probably "only" v2.95 still, as there's not as many people porting to Amiga as there once was).

Some of these also supports C++ to a more or less satisfying degree.

AmigaOS was written in BCPL, which is a relative of C (both come from B) but even nastier IMHO.

[eLowar]

Originally Posted by Madcrow

AmigaOS was written in BCPL, which is a relative of C (both come from B) but even nastier IMHO.

Pretty sure it's the other way around, BCPL being a predecessor of B, and B being a predecessor of C. No clue about the AmigaOS bit.

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by Doc Mindie

Huezo: C/C++ is almost as common on the Amiga as on Linux. The Amiga OS itself was written (reputedly) in C back in the days.

Examples of C packages I know about ATM: SAS/C, HiSoft C (is this alos C++?), StormC, Dice, GNU C (Though probably "only" v2.95 still, as there's not as many people porting to Amiga as there once was).

Some of these also supports C++ to a more or less satisfying degree.

Actually, if you're on an emulator, you're better off using a cross-compiler. It will compile natively from Windows, Linux, or MacOSX and then run the executable on your emulator. This way you don't have to wait for the emulator to slowly recompile the compiler's execution as it will compile on the Intel or PowerPC instruction sets.

See http://www.zerohero.se/cross/os3.html and follow the directions.

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by Madcrow

AmigaOS was written in BCPL, which is a relative of C (both come from B) but even nastier IMHO.

AmigaOS 1.3 and earlier were written in BCPL and Assembly but, starting at version 2.0 many parts of the OS (except for dos.library) were rewritten
in SAS C.

[Rebel-CD32]

Bishmanrock, if you want to make games straight away without any programming knowlege, download Backbone from Aminet (make sure you get the latest version, any patches for it or any extra files, just check it out).

You can mke your own platform games with it, it's all point and click, you create your graphis in Personal Paint or Deluxe Paint or something, import some mods and sound effects, lay it all out, it's easy to use and has a lot of features, but it's slightly buggy and the games don't run very fast compared to something that is coded from scratch.

[Graham Humphrey]

Also maybe you'd like to try Reality if you can find it (you can create Dizzy-type games and horizontally-scrolling shoot-em-ups with that, not sure if there is any way of creating other types of games), or SEUCK to create vertical shooters. They're both pretty limited but they do work and offer a good insight into game design if you've never tried that sort of thing before.