Games That Weren't 64

Mike Dailly speaks about work on his Xenon 2-like preview...

"I did this around mid 1989 just after seeing Xenon 2, I had a eureka moment where I figured out how to get a full background scrolling map and not just a repeating graphic, which is the way most C64 games work.

It didn't take very long, a day or 2 I guess, no more than a week... but I cant remember for sure. I always wanted to take this forward and do a game with it, but was never able to.

I've altered the source ever so slightly so that it builds with my own assembler; the old PDS system
having died a long time ago.... But its mostly unchanged, and its interesting to see how my code had come on since the early "game with no name" days, theres actually comments! Not many - but some.

A splash of colour would have been nice, but that would have probably used up all the raster time since
the colour RAM wasn't double buffered.

The background was a single screen that "wrapped", but it could easily have been a full map in its own right. The foreground was a proper map even though I can't remember how it was built - it was a long time ago.

Anyhow, it was a great technique, and one that no one else ever used (as far as I know). I've built a runable demo this time, and included the source so you can play with it on the PC with emulators - a much nicer way to develop.

If anyone does anything with it, send it to me!

The SNasm assembler is free to use and spread - enjoy. (if you find any bugs in SNasm, feel free to let me know - who knows, I might even fix them).

I hope you enjoy it."

Mike Dailly.