asm GAME tutorials...needed

necro · Post by **necro** » Sun 24 Apr, 2005 6:40 pm

Games are complex and can be difficult to make or very simple to program...a tutorial meant for asembly GAMES in specific detail is needed.
What would one put in such a guide...hopefully information on storing and manipulating data, using sprites, tile maps, screen buffers, grey scale, ect., how to draw lines, circles, dithered areas, ect., how to do raycasting, collision detection, and so on.
There are a ton of basic game tutorials...ASM is much more complex and seems a good candidate for its own.

CoBB · Post by **CoBB** » Sun 24 Apr, 2005 6:43 pm

This is not assembly specific knowledge. In addition, a lot of it is discussed in 28 days.

necro · Post by **necro** » Sun 24 Apr, 2005 7:01 pm

28 days takes so long to even get into registers and such, and the layout of information is not logical (why isnt lower case enabling along side of the inverse text info...why is porting near the end instead of near the diffrence between 83 and 83+ asm programs, ect.)

CoBB · Post by **CoBB** » Sun 24 Apr, 2005 8:54 pm

You can skim over what you already know, but it was just an example anyway. No-one but you can collect all the information you need. Besides, most of it is common sense, really.

DarkerLine · Post by **DarkerLine** » Sun 24 Apr, 2005 9:43 pm

If you take a day per page, sure it's long. If you read the whole thing in an hour, you won't care about how long it takes to get into registers.

And both lower case enabling and text inverse are covered in the table of system flags linked to quite early on; the reason text inverting is talked about later is that it's useful in assembly text output (which lowercase letter enabling isn't).

coelurus · Post by **coelurus** » Sun 24 Apr, 2005 10:33 pm

Tutorials should give the foundation for learning programming which most simple asm tuts do. To widen your knowledge, read tech docs and intros to various techniques and read source code. Actually, it's a lot better to read source code than to read docs about a matter for three reasons; you see code in context, you will get things that work 100% and nobody would have to throw away valueable time to write a tutorial with proper grammar/spelling/code etc unless they like getting correction-E-Mails.

All the info needed is out there, it's just a matter of finding it.

The only other thing that I see could be interesting would be a calc-forum (

) where pointers and new ideas could be discussed to develop new tech for calcs. To be honest, things here were a lot more interesting a while back when there were ideas for the most crazy games (and some games actually came true), it feels like things have stalled a little, am I wrong?

necro · Post by **necro** » Sun 24 Apr, 2005 10:45 pm

Yes, but if a scource codes can be less than clear and concise...a simple tutorial to cover the game aspects of asm would be nice...or a list of important game concepts and commands. What I am getting at is you could absorb every last bit of knowledge in Asm in 28 days and still be very limmited in what you could do with asm...possibly more limmitted than you would be sticking to basic

Jim e · Post by **Jim e** » Sun 24 Apr, 2005 11:13 pm

coelurus is right, I learned off others code. I didn't have steady access to the internet, and the only guide at the time was asmguru. Not very good setup for learning, but I did.

I looked for sources that were exceptionally good. Some of the old classic games are like this.

Man, back in my day, we didn't have all these port references, guides and tutorials. No we had standard unoptimzed z80 code. And we walk a mile in the snow to get it.

The fact is, ASM isn't something you can pick up in 28 days(

).

DigiTan · Post by **DigiTan** » Mon 25 Apr, 2005 12:59 am

It's already an open source community. Granted, most programmers are terrible in their commenting but you can generally learn anything you need to know by looking at other works. About 2 years ago, I wanted a routine for external levels so I looked at Sam Heald's Mario source. It took me almost a month to figure out but I finally recreated it and now that feature is in Robot War.

lloydkirk1989 · Post by **lloydkirk1989** » Mon 25 Apr, 2005 1:12 am

I agree with you guys that the z80 asm info and documentation is out there in plentiful bounty, but I think necro is right about having a asm game tutorial. With asm in 28 days, it seems that the main phocus is the physics and essential concepts of asm. There isn't that much on graphics and actually implying the physics into making a game.

Post by **DarkAuron** » Mon 25 Apr, 2005 2:16 am

I think the 28 days guide is more of a reference book, to be honest.. then again I learn from example and got started off in z80 with the aide of ezasm

DigiTan · Post by **DigiTan** » Mon 25 Apr, 2005 3:58 am

Yeah, I see what you're saying, lloydkirk. I guess it couldn't hurt. There is a lack of documentation on advanced topics like compression, linking, hit detection, GUIs, external levels, and all that jazz.

Timendus · Post by **Timendus** » Mon 25 Apr, 2005 11:18 am

Me and a friend of mine wrote something about compression and linking, years ago. Here's our profile:
http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/au ... /7252.html

I think everything you need is out there. All that jazz has been written, it's just that nobody can find anything anymore in that immense archive of Ticalc.org. And next to that people often forget that they can also look at documents about other z80 calculators than their own...

DJ_O · Post by **DJ_O** » Mon 25 Apr, 2005 12:18 pm

DigiTan wrote:hit detection, GUIs, external levels

Hmm I think basic also lack those area. I receive lot of email on where to find a collision detection tutorial in basic and I always have to say there is none but to check BASIC guru online even if it only explain the basics of BASIC. It took me over 6 months to figure out how to do it and after 3.5 years I am still optimizing my collison detection routines because I always discover new undocumented tricks

coelurus · Post by **coelurus** » Mon 25 Apr, 2005 3:50 pm

If somebody wanna write a tutorial on making games, go ahead, but it's hard for one person to maintain such a doc. There was a wiki around, devote an area there for implementation-opaque references to all sorts of advanced areas in game-programming that anybody could need. Make a wish-list page where people can post topics they'd like to see explained and then some other people passing by who know about a suggested subject can contribute. Just don't write any code _ever_, only the basic ideas or the visitors will be way to narrow-minded. Besides, they have to learn and evolve.