Game idea!

[Jackoland]

How many times do you see this "I have an idea for a game..... It needs to be graphically superb like a classic Amiga game, I have no programming experience.....I need help......" Etc

Well I have an idea for a game, and I have no programming experience! Stop don't leave just yet!

My game is basic, I would really like to use assembly language and use this game idea of a way to learn things. I know I am never gonna be a amazing programmer, but my goal is to put a disk in my a500 and display something and have something to interact with.

Now I have been reading lots of books, tutorials and hardware reference manual etc, and to be fair some of it seems straight forward, but most of it has just flown over my head.

I learn best by watching and been shown things.

Would it be possible that some of you talented guys out there could help me and in some cases suggest code to help me on my basic game project.

My first question is what kind of things do you need in a set up code for a stand alone program before the main loop starts?

Cheers

Rich

Ps, if this is inappropriate or in wrong place, please delete or move, thanks

[davideo]

Have you looked at Copperhsade.org?

http://coppershade.org/

[Jackoland]

Cheers, seen the videos on YouTube, but didn't know about the full site. Cool has some info about start up code. Cheers.

Rich

[davideo]

No problem. Good luck and don't forget to let us know how you get on.

[Jackoland]

Right then, had a bit of a poke round a coppershade.org some ace stuff. Fired up ASMone in 1.3 a500 config on WINUAE, loaded some code from the site and ran it successfully. Great! but i really dont understand the code, it even as comments and i dont understand it. So i loaded a simple scroll, was able to change the text around, cool that was easy.

So iam working through the code, trying to understand it and googling it to help.

I will keep reading

cheers

[OmegaMax]

Hi Jackoland
Here is some game source code,if you think it might help.

http://monkeyfighter.com/leisure.html

http://www.villehelin.com/ancient.html

[Jackoland]

Thank you for the links. I will check out the source code.

Cheers

[Jackoland]

Right, been watching the photon tutorials on youtube, again don't understand all of it, but some stuff is sticking. So this is my list of first goals....

1. Set up asm one on my winuae a500 1.3 hd setup
2. Shut off system/interrupts and save settings for exit
3. Define a screen
4. Display a image
5. Ask for the name of user, store name
6. Print the name on screen

Seems doable. I will post my code as I go, I will put in the comments of the code showing what I think each line does for you experts to critique.

Hit a slight snag, got asm one working when I come to load .s I don't get a file window, I get req.library not found, I can load code by typing file name, but would nice to search, think I need a library file to add to workbench, but can't find req.library to add to lies

Cheers
Rich

[Jackoland]

solved the asm one prob- i downloaded req.library and put it in my libs drawer, bang, i get a file selector now.

right onto my first program.

cheers

[phx]

Originally Posted by Jackoland

1. Set up asm one on my winuae a500 1.3 hd setup
2. Shut off system/interrupts and save settings for exit
3. Define a screen
4. Display a image
5. Ask for the name of user, store name
6. Print the name on screen

When programming the Amiga hardware directly, without using the OS, your last two points might be difficult for a beginner. Correctly reading the raw key codes from the CIA, translating them into ASCII, implementing a small editing mode (at least with backspace), is not something I would start with.

Display sprites or draw objects with the Blitter, and move them with the joystick should be doable.

[tolkien]

If the game is so simple...why not use C and the OS functions to start?

[Jackoland]

Yep game is simple, and blitz/Amos etc would do it easy I'm sure. I fancied having a go with assembly that's all. Could I learn how to program was the question I asked myself. And it's hard and slow, but I'm in no rush, it's a hobby to keep my mind active and a good excuse to use my Amiga. No harm done.

Cheers

Rich

[davideo]

@Jackoland

That's what I've been doing with C for a few years now!!

No hurry, keeping my old mind active and learning a few things on the way lol

[nogginthenog]

Originally Posted by Jackoland

Yep game is simple, and blitz/Amos etc would do it easy I'm sure. I fancied having a go with assembly that's all. Could I learn how to program was the question I asked myself. And it's hard and slow, but I'm in no rush, it's a hobby to keep my mind active and a good excuse to use my Amiga. No harm done.

Cheers

Rich

68000 is probably one of the easiest assembler dialects to learn. Motorola did a fine job. Nice powerful syntax & lots of general purpose registers. From a programmer's perspective it's a full 32bit CPU with no stupid hacks.

Go for it :-)

[meynaf]

You can do asm without killing the OS.
So you can setup your screen, open a backdrop/borderless window on it to get keyboard events, display some image, whatever you want.
Might be a little tricky, but once this is done, you can reuse it at will (which is what i'm doing).

[Photon]

Lots of code on Coppershade, including some old snippets, 2nd from top is #ChkKey.S

I think this is one of the few that have a CPU-wait loop which should be replaced with a loop to wait for n scanlines or similar. It's just snippets I wrote for my own use back in the day before A3000, A4000 etc.

If you want to do your game using the system, like Sim City or Marble Madness, I think the SystemStartup.S on the Asm-One disk shows how to read keypresses.


And yes, regarding the topic, ideas are cheap. But I prefer to see it from this perspective: if the game is simple, and you don't make it yourself, you miss the opportunity and pleasure of watching it come alive

[Cylon]

I think it is much easier to start programming a simple game using AMOS or Blitz and make it snappier by converting it to ASM later on. That way you don't have to invent the basics of every game, like make a display or printing characters onto bmap. The learning curve with ASM is pretty steep, imo.

I am in a similar position as you, but i think maybe i have some more knowledge of 68k, i have brought some boots for reference which i read while im going to sleep some of which i understand & some i still need to learn.

Photons tutorials really are fantastic they have helped me a lot, i have always learned from looking at examples and changing code as i go to understand which does what etc.

I would recommend printing out a hardware reference guide to learn some of the important instructions, but dont be put off by how many there is just learn a few of the basic ones and work from there.

I totally understand wanting to learn asm over making a easier to do C program.

Also something i did was download a 68k emulator and write a few programs which moves data around the registers into memory and manipulate the data which gives you an understanding of what is going on with the CPU RAM & memory. I found this useful because the 68k emulator had a debugger which would show you what data was in each memory space.

Also the obvious things like learning hexadecimal or at least understanding it is very handy.

Its nice to see someone in the same boat as me with programming & reasons for learning asm.

[OmegaMax]

http://www.easy68k.com/