I was thinking about if you were able to have another version for those who have the extra ram thingy-majiger.... but then again, too much of a hassle.
Haha, you found a strange guy from Norway that mumbled something about music and design... ^__^ Happy to be onboard with your project, David. It's been many hours of hard work these last months, but more than that: just fun and I'm very proud to be part of it! Good job mate! :D *EDIT:* Unfortunately all sold out!! This went a lot faster than expected! Thank you all for supporting David! We're both thrilled to see such massive response! There will be lite versions available in the near future. Just waiting for more floppy disks and manuals. :D
I programmed the C64 for years. I knew you could write to the RAM under the KERNEL but I had no idea that you could set the video to look at that memory without banking out the ROM. SOOOO MUCH REGRET!! MAN!! THE THINGS I COULD HAVE DONE!! the things I cou.............
Atari Master You ever use a Microsoft BASIC II cartridge, for Atari 8-bits? I came across a couple in a box of 8-bit stuff (incl a 600 XL and an OG 800), and I wonder how rare Atari M$ BASIC II is...
x3mw: It depends on which level. A Pentium or later with just a Z80 emulator + somthing like SDL as video-framebuffer is not as complicated as porting on instruction-level to a 8086 with EGA...
As another graphic designer and illustrator I think the box layout is cool (but that's not really hard to achieve since they just copied the formula of older games) but the artwork... Weeeellll... I don't want to be rude but the artwork isn't really top notch.
I think the artwork is just trying to emulate the style of artwork that was often seen on games of the 80s era. They were usually really cheesy like that, and usually a lot worse.
Aesthetic is not a superlative, you need to add to it for it to make sense. Something can have a good or bad aesthetic so just saying the word alone doesn't describe your feelings.
"...this game was released in 1987, David would be a millionaire..." this is a high rating !!! If I were making a game, probably only this statement justified 50% of all the work =)))
I'm feeling like a kid that just discovered a new game to play. And all the technicals limitations explanations and how you designed the whole thing makes me look to this game with other eyes! Thank you so much to share this lovely making of and game with us!
I think that was the most complex thing I did in basic - I just remember having to write out the notes one by one and how long each one would play and having very little understanding of anything I was doing - but shockingly it worked. A ball would bounce around the screen then six numbers, between 1-49 would appear one by one - and as I said it did it while playing the theme to Dallas. Why Dallas? I have no idea - probably because it was the most simple sheet music I had available to work from.
Really it was the only way to get max performance out of very limited hardware. Back then coders actually optimized everything to squeeze every last CPU cycle out of the C64. Today they simply tell you to buy new hardware...
I have been around computers for most of my life, but since I was born in 92 and really only got smart enough to use one in around 2000, I have completely missed the early home computer days. I think I know a lot about modern computers, but the really interesting stuff (like how memory is addressed or how chips process data) is completely lost on me. I love your videos for going into so much technical detail, because that combined with the older hardware has really helped me understand the basic connections to how something works. A new PC can do so many complicated calculations and has so much data moving every millisecond, that my mind just goes to "and now this software does this". Your channel has helped me to understand more of the basics of how computers work! Thank you for your excellent videos...
Concerning the box artwork not conforming to the game itself, I say embrace it. Look at all the Roger Dean weirdness that defined early computer game artwork, or the boxes for the 2600. Breakout was awesome, but I don't remember there being astronauts and spaceships in the game.
Dorelaxen I always liked seeing the box, the manual, and the game as a whole, it really put your mind into that “mode’ where this was way more than a game.
Yeah, good box art was able to really fire up the imagination in ways that the actual graphics couldn't. I must say the box art for Planet X2 looks very authentically 80s, can almost imagine it being airbrushed
Wow, David, I'm blown away from the making of this game. Reminds me of my programming days and working around limitations. Assembly language, damn lol! Congrats on the release of your game! Looking forward to the sequel in MS-DOS!!!
Rather than discourage, I think you'd inspire. This wasn't some throwaway Steam junk, you went all out. I love physical releases, and the obscurity, rarity and heart make this a very attractive thing to own and play.
Awesome video David! I received my signed copy of the game, and absolutely love it! It's so cool to see these old systems getting new releases. Thanks for all your hard work.
You could totally make an updated version that requires a RAM expansion (like 192k for a C64 and 128k for a C128), but includes many of the features and such that got cut
I don't have a c64 but if you make the port for MS-DOS, I'll buy it! I'll buy ANY game that you make for MS-DOS. Give me a way to give you my money! Of course, Anders Jensen's music for the MS-DOS games is not only desirable but, at this point, necessary. This is such an inspiring effort that you guys made. It makes me want to start developing my own game. Great work everyone!
Same. I'm hoping for an MS-DOS version too. I wonder how they'll go about that though. I'm unsure of which storage devices were commonly used with MS-DOS but all I know is that if it's not a 3.5 floppy or CD, I'm screwed :p
This is one of the coolest projects I have seen, the fact that you coded the game, made the music and the graphics is amazing and all while trying to stay within the limits of the hardware. It’s like the days of the old game developers when they really had to be creative to make the games that they made. It’s also great to see an older game being made with the knowledge of current game mechanics.
Have you ever considered doing a tutorial for assembly programs on some of the more popular computers like the C64? If not you should! You clearly have a firm grasp of the hardware and techniques; I'd love for more people to be out there experimenting with and making games on these older computers.
I've thought about it. But that's one of those things that I think would only be interesting to a small percentage of my viewers. So I doubt I'll ever fit that into the schedule.
@The 8-Bit Guy What?? Anything you put out is a good watch! I'm sure a short little introduction to BASIC or something of the sorts would be really interesting to more people than you think :)
I will admit being somewhat terrified of Assembly, but I also want to understand it. I'd love seeing some in-depth videos from you covering it. Honestly, you've quite piqued my interest in the C64, especially. (and I haven't yet looked-into programming for it) I feel also that maybe some of the misinformation and basically fear-mongering about programming with assembly could be alleviated if there were more clear and concise information about it out there. You seem more than qualified to provide that kind of information! I cannot speak for all of us, but I'm disappointed sometimes in where you do not go as in-depth as you could. Even here, you could've talked more about the actual code you wrote, specific quirks/limits about the processor, itself. Also, hearing more about a more interesting bug and why it occurred would be entertaining, and perhaps enlightening. I can guarantee you have an audience for this kind of content!
That would be really interesting, even if it is not a full 6502 programming tutorial but maybe just showing the creation of planet X2 more from a technical perspective. Like how you organized the code to manage the complexitiy of a full game project in assembly, how the main loop is structured etc. you wouldn't need to explain it on an opcode level. Would be a great insight for all those people used to todays high level languages, which may not be a small percentage of the viewers. I myself am quite comfortable writing some small routines or simple programs in assembly for 8bit microcontrollers and TI-calculators back in the day, but I have never atempted an assembly project of this size.
This is absolutely fascinating. As someone who's dabbled in making simple games in Unity before, it's really cool to see how you designed your game around such strict system limitations. It's something we often don't even need to consider today, but it was so important back then to squeeze every last bit of performance and memory out of these systems. Thank you for sharing a bit about the dev process with us!
Wonderful seeing how everything was created. The amount of love you poured in this project is apparent just watching how carefully you placed the labels on the disks. Great job!
Looks fantastic! Just a quick note about the RAM listed on the Amiga 500. It is true that the standard is 512k, but almost everyone with an A500 has a 512k expansion fitted. Making the total 1MB. This is also what almost all games require to run. So if you are planning to do a port for the Commodore Amiga 500, I would suggest to develop with the RAM limit being 1MB.
The A1000 is pretty rare. Very few actually have one. Its evident in the current Amiga community. Its always a big deal when someone gets one. The A500 is the "c64" of the Amiga range. Its the one most people had back in the day and the cheapest and easiest one to get now. Hell, I have 4 :D
Wow David, really incredible job. You make what would otherwise be completely boring and dated something very interesting. I look forward to the MS-DOS port. You rock.
This game is so addicting! I bought a broken breadbin 64 and a broken 1541 because of your channel. Just to play this game. Fixed both using your videos and after initial testing, decided it was time to buy planet X2. Couldn't be happier with the purchase(Autograph Box). The box looks so good on the shelf above my desk and there is nothing more satisfying than seeing that game over screen on a victory. Commodore is a good bit before my time but now I am psyched to build another DOS machine like grew up with to play Planet X3. Add this to the hobby list. Keep up the great work!
Everyone asks me, "Why do you like old computers?", my reply is "Because if you code, it forces you to be efficient...". Building apps now days, has a lot of overhead which I call BLOAT. David, you have impressed me with your skill level. My hat is off to you.
Fellow game dev here. **waves** If I were able to do pixel art that would be DOS compatible, I'd do it for free. I'd also make simple music routines for free. Yup, I believe in doing the work for the sake of charity. Or for barter (i.e. a free copy of the game or free soundtrack as an example). I like this game you've made, Hell, I've not had the opportunity to play it and I still like it, it is aesthetically pleasing to my eyes.
Making something specifically for the Amiga is such a neat idea. Love how the Amiga draws colors and all the cool tricks you can use to create the illusion of more colors or detail
Got my copy a couple weeks ago, but I've been on the road and unable to set up my C64. Can't wait to get home and get everything running! Love this BTS feature!
Fantastic, thank you so much for this look into the development, I really appreciate it. For me, this is where the magic always was - in the limitations and finding ingenious work arounds to fit within the limitations. This is why, for me at least, a large chunk of the magic has now gone, as there aren't really limitations now for people to try to work within on modern platforms. This is why I appreciate this so very much. Personally I'd love to see an Amiga (OCS/ECS, so perhaps 512K Chip, or perhaps 1MB total and single floppy, KS 1.2 and above, 7MHz 68000) and Atari 8-bit versions (130XE or other 128K system), but I can see the appeal of an MS-DOS version with CGA/EGA and 640K.
mmh. I used to own an 800XL, and while I never had one, I was fascinated by Amigas. I only just recently realised how much those two systems look alike in some ways. The Amiga basically is a 16 bit version of the atari 8 bit systems, when you consider some of the design similarities it's almost spooky...
What a clever use of banked ram/rom! And how clever of the C64's designers to allow the CPU to write to the ram under the rom and (I assume) automatically read from the rom, without having to fuss, and to allow the video chip to read from that ram! I'm an old Atari guy and they have different sorts of tricks, but yeah, it's good to remember all those clever things we used to have to do with such limited computers. There's a real art to getting the best out of those old machines. You, sir, are an artist! This was so much fun to watch!
Wow, my kudos to you. People may not appreciate just how much effort goes into writing a game of this level, on a limited spec machine like this. I remember trying to make a game on my C64 back in the 80's, and it was definitely not easy. Coding in assembly language on 6502/6510 is definitely challenging, and I remember having to contend with memory issues and interrupts. But most of all, I'm so impressed with the game concept. If this game existed in the 80's, it definitely would've been one of my favorite.
If you port this to DOS please do consider a GOG Digital release with all the patches to make it work well on Windows 10 under DOSBOX as it would be awesome to have on the go on my laptop.
Hoping for DOSBOX support too for my PC, which also has Windows 10. Something about playing classic games just feels so satisfying, and being able to do that on my PC using a physical copy of the game would be awesome.
Very interesting and inspiring video, thank you, David! I'm finally going into indie developing (currently doing everything myself), and it's just great to see such detailed review of projects, very inspiring and entertaining. I think I'll try to split my day in half and continue developing my already working first title now.
For a DOS port, I would say definitely consider targeting a 286 with EGA and Adlib for sound, as that's the era PC games started really taking off. Anyone with either a retrogaming rig or using DOSbox can meet those requirements. Lots of interesting things can be done in EGA, later Sierra (and other companies) were doing graphics dithering giving (what appeared) to be far more than 16 colors using this method.
I plan the first version to work in CGA. Because I want the game to run an an XT. I will then add at least EGA and Tandy support to the final product. Possibly VGA as well, if there appears to be any advantage.
You have to consider optimizations costs money and dev-time, they can make a bigger and better game with the that dev-time and that's what many dev-teams prefer.
@@Aaronage1 Optimisation in 2019 is Unity saying "Oh right, Object Orientation *is* horribly inefficient for game programming after all!!! Who knew?!??" ((Every turn-of-the-century coder sits slow-hand-clapping.))
Great Video! Just received my copy in the mail today (before seeing this video actually) and the quality of the finished product blew me away. Greetings from The Netherlands and looking forward to an MS Dos port.
-shrug~ I keep running into people saying how much love their is for the NES and SNES while pushing Sega stuff, but never actually see this 'love' for Nintendo stuff people seem to complain about in all those videos. XD Still, in terms of homebrew, c64 is kinda mainstream. No, the ugly duckling of the homebrew community, the system nobody seems to ever do anything with, is the n64... Consoles inherently get less homebrew than home computers do. (the reason is obvious given home computers always allowed anyone to develop software by design, while consoles were all locked down), but even among consoles some consoles get infinitely more attention than others. And for a system that isn't obscure in and of itself, the n64 is way, way waaaay down the list. Of course, if you're talking about video content, then yes, there are a lot of channels that do videos about NES games compared to c64 or other such things. XD
Heh you must be blind and deaf then. ^_^ Nintendo still exists as a console maker and has mainstream appeal so yeah it get's the lion's share of the media content. Atari, Sega, and Commodore have large fan bases but it's hard to gain new fans without a current generation console. Mostly we get mad because the mainstream "thinks" Nintendo invented everything video game related.
Ah. 'mainstrream' I see the problem already. XD I don't tend to count anything current in the same context as this. I was thinking in terms of 'retro' content. And that's quite a different ballgame entirely. Sega is still around of course. But Commodore is not. Sony has dominated the industry for a good 20 years now... I just get annoyed that people who should know better still make the same inane arguments they did 30 years ago, and parrot whatever stupid crap someone says about things without any thought whatsoever. Such as that whole 'blast processing' thing. Yes, people still bring that up. But then I guess I'm more into the technicalities of these systems than most. It has not particularly been my experience that Nintendo systems particularly dominate in discussions about older systems. Quite the opposite in fact, in many cases. But yes, if you bring mainstream gaming channels into this that mostly handle recent stuff, or a mixture of recent and semi-recent things, then you'll be overwhelmed with Sony, Xbox and Nintendo. Because that's all that's left in the console space, and the home computer space is no longer a thing at all. (so the likes of the Commodore 64, Atari 800, Amiga, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum and all that stuff doesn't just represent companies that are no longer prominent, it represents an entire category of devices that basically isn't really around anymore.)
It's not really the same argument, NES is the typical "given" topic in retro gaming, even some European gamers have been having false memories of the NES being a success or loved there because the topic is popular. My best comparison for a Nintendo fan is being a cat person, more crazy than typical pet owners lol. Yeah not many people speak of Nintendo hardware because the biggest fans of it never seem to know how it works in the slightest heh, but it's "mainstream retro" to like Nintendo blindly. It's actually a topic barely scratched with all the helper-chip variety, which itself seems to hinder homebrew. There's not much to say on a technical level about current Microsoft and Sony consoles since they've become generic media boxes so I can appreciate the Switch's uniqueness. Nothing retro is truly prominent, again Nintendo minis got a lion's share of videos.
januzi2 Well this Linus travels fellow came allow and said screw this dedicated program language and use used universal base of code to make alternative version of same high level format, this ingeniously freed up ram be emulating virtual rom,
Happy to say I'm a proud owner of this game and snagged it while it was in stock. You did an amazing job on this David. I showed all my IT buddies at work and their jaws dropped at how professional everything was. You made a bunch of folks smile today. The game play itself is excellent. I've played the emulator version, but I'm eager to find me an old TV to hook up to my C64 to get the true experience. This kind of work is a true inspiration to follow your passion, whatever it may be. Thank you for sharing.
Pixel art, you say? To shreds, you say? I'd be up for that! Though, I've never drawn tanks before? I've drawn plenty of science fiction, though. I quickly mocked up a 16x16 4-color tank, using the transparent black, for added detail. The tank treads were shaded in such a way to suggest 3D depth, when moving: i.imgur.com/mEs9PpW.png
I came to see if someone had already made the offer! I was considering it myself ;) BTW +The 8-Bit Guy (or David?), if you're going for tiles/sprites, why not make it some kind of faux perspective? It's more work, but it looks so much better that straight top-down than might be worth it!
Man... Paint shop pro! Very interesting video, and I like the fact that even if in these days we have such powerful computers, that simple graphics plus the characteristic music are still loved. I don't define myself as a gamer, but I definitely had more fun on a Gameboy than on a ps4.. Maybe was the age... Nah! Those games were just stimulating your fantasy more.
Love the video. Wish I could buy a copy, but sadly (as of 11/28/17 circa 10:00 pm cst) all copies are sold out. However, if I must make one comment on the hypothetical MS-DOS port it's the color choice of the CGA color mode. As much as I love your vids & games, I tend to not want to buy a game if it's forced CGA-mode because of the teal & hot pink choice. If it does happen, I hope it's in EGA mode. Best wishes, RetroTechNerd, aspiring retro tech reviewer
fede I think if you run CGA mode on a later style card (EGA, VGA etc.) you can redefine all 4 colors. On CGA hardware there are only a few combinations to choose from. But the game could use well chosen colors on VGA, close approximations on EGA and fall back to one of the CGA palettes on real CGA+clones. This would be simpler than the traditional choice of including code variations for each card generation, but would limit you to 320x200 even on modern hardware.
+John, as long as it's not the one with the super bright cyan-magenta-black-white eye raping combination, anything is better. I remember this game called Metal Mutant I had back in my 386, not because of the game, but because of the scars in my retinas. ;)
I always watch your videos, but never leave a message. This is the first time, I hope you read it. I'm a 33 yrs old Game Developer from Venezuela living in Canada. The first video I watched from you was about a couple of years ago, on how 8-bit graphics were made back in the 80's, it was shared in one of the game dev groups on facebook that I follow, I was impressed by three things: your knowledge, the way you explain things and your lowliness and passion when you share your knowledge. From there, I think I've watched every single video you post. This one in particular made me write this comment because I'm surprised how you manage to dedicate a full year of your life to create a game by your own with such limitations... I really admire you man! Thank you for what you do, you do a great job and you are a role model. Keep it up and if you ever need a developer to help you just write me! I would love to work with you during my spare time (even though I'm not too experienced in assembly, but better with C, C++ and OpenGL)
Big ups to The 8 Bit Guy for uploading a 34 minute video completely ad free! I know he's Patreon supported, but many other TH-camrs are Patreon supported, while still running ads. Kudos!
Very inspiring and an awesome video Personally I would like to hear how you actually coded the game in ASM , some history of your knowledge in Commodore assembly and the like I love your channel by the way - one of the best there is thank you
Fantastic video, one of the best on the channel so far, and TERRIFIC JOB on the game! Just a couple of questions: 1) how much programming/design work has been done on a real C64 VS an Emulator (e.g. VICE). On the latter, text editing for ASM would be easier, of course… 2) Why using a TV with composite when you have a fantastic 1084 monitor, with the Chroma/Luma input? Quality of video on that is MUCH better… Thank you for the passion you put in your channel
Very impressed indeed. It must be very rewarding to have a quality finished product. And this doco you made is excellent too and also you gave credit to those who helped you.
Evil Gremlin yeah, you might use up too much memory too make the game interactive with improved graphics. From my understanding it's more worth it for vga.
VGA brings with it a whole different set of problems. Among which: VGA adapters are dumb as rocks, many of them have video memory that's slow as molasses, and the ISA bus you find on most early cards is even slower. Seriously, if you have an ISA based VGA card, the bus access speed, and resultant CPU wait states are so bad that a 486 is no faster than a 286 for the majority of graphics tasks. There's a reason games like Wolfenstein and Doom started on PC... Part of it is of course that PC's, especially by the end of the 80's and early 90's had very powerful processors. But the other half of it is that EGA/VGA and even many SVGA adapters are so incredibly dumb compared to the graphics hardware in most home micros and consoles, that your best solution 9 times out of 10 is to create a framebuffer in main memory, get your CPU to do 95% of all the work in drawing graphics, then transfer that main memory frame buffer to the graphics card in short, fast bursts. And if the graphics card itself is basically not doing anything other than drawing a framebuffer to a screen, you might as well do really complicated graphics routines on a fast CPU as simpler ones... Of course, that has no real relation to the c64... But I imagine raster effects can be expensive in terms of CPU time and memory use. (not just because the effect takes a lot of CPU power, but because synchronising to the display can eat up a lot of cycles just waiting around for the right moment too.) You see all these really impressive demoscene things, but maybe you wonder why you rarely see this stuff in games? Well... Demos don't really have to do anything else... So they can devote way more memory and CPU time to graphics and sound than most games could ever get away with...
LOVE IT. I'd love to play it myself. I'll have to find a playthrough, online! Keep up the great work, Dave. I hope you continue to go above and beyond in the future. Good luck!
While this is an interesting documentary on the "behind the scenes" The narrator does little to discuss the continued allegations of the near slave like conditions for the members of the team. No mention of anyone being forced to work days on end with little food or water. No mention that they denied family visits during crunch time. 8Bit Industries and their shareholders have a lot to answer for. Hopefully 8bit keys is able to offer some outsider perspective into the madness that went into this release.
Congrats on getting it out the door; I kind of gave up on the C64 version of PP despite the working data -- not from technical difficulties, but the attitude in the C64 community I found. To be fair, I've never really understood the whole "demoscene" thing as they do all this fancy stuff at the hardware level, but don't actually do ANYTHING with it! Whilst democoding was a thing across many platforms, NOWHERE is it more entrenched in the mindset than the Commodore community... where they are probably scoffing at your game because it's a playable game and not really pushing the hardware. OH NOES, NOTS THATZ... Gets a thumbs up from me. Of course how long before a version with a replacement "loader" and cheats gets vomited up by the community? I'd probably be ok with loaders if people didn't INSIST on adding cheats, and if they weren't universally pulling stupid seizure inducing video trickery. (see "colour bars") Love how you use paint shop pro 7, which is still my go-to for a reliable low-overhead graphics editor. Wondering though if you were willing to "go there" why you didn't just make a version of tile-draw in something modern that could save values -- even do it as generated code? Also curious as to your mindset on the memory map layout. With the C64 Paku Paku I mapped out all ROM and put video at 0x4000, letting me start code at 0x8000. The program itself actually loads data in the "new" video area, then copies it into the top 8k (normally the Kernal ROM space) before setting the new video mode, the stack is then placed at the normal video location. If starting over (which I might) I have a few different approaches in mind... uhg, been so long since I even thought C64 given I'm still screwing around with the pure 8086 assembly version for DOS and trying to give it sound support for as many platforms as possible. Straddling the 4 character boundary remains one of the best tricks for wringing more colour out of the system. I PROBABLY would have tried to find a way to go mulitcolour mode even if you lose half the vertical resolution, just to try and get 10 colours per sprite (foreground, background, and two others per character) which is what I did for the fruit in Paku Paku. Still well done, getting any project like this out the door is an accomplishment. I'm actually working on something a little similar for DOS that I'm hoping will end up being a bit like Kings Bounty, but using normal text mode with 80x25 semigraphics and/or something akin to what Icon did... but sticking to proper 80x25 video mode so I can have properly formed text. One of those times I wish you could just map any memory to character generation on the PC like you could the C64.
The vic20 and c64 allow for "feature chips" in addition to ROM on cartridges, correct? It'd be interesting to see you release "Planet x4" as a cartridge-only version that pushes the system to the absolute limits...
Wow great work! My nerd-OCD side can´t stop thinking about the fact that 24k of memory are used by the map :P I would love to know more about how it is stored! The least memory efficient strategy I can think of (a bitmap) would only allow for a 156 by 156 tiles mini map (note 1). I´d gess you used something like an alphabet of unique "structures" (like trees, etc) but still a bitmap (note 2). I`d love to get a map to play with it and see how much I can compress it without a monster algorithm or loosing constant read write times :) I´m thinking of a sparse representation like "trees from tile 23 to tile 30" or something of the sort, maybe even huffman coding (to encode the structure's and different sizes of terrain) for the initial state of the map (with an index for constant time random access) and a sparse representation like a list of coordinates for what changed during gameplay. I bet something should work saving a lot of space for the cool but discarded features. Who knows, maybe it works and it helps the sequel! (note 1) alphabet is 192 unique tiles = 1 byte per tile is plenty. so 24kB = 24576 tiles ≃ 156 x 156 tiles (note 2) assuming an alphabet of 16 structures = 4 bits per structure (a structure would be for example a tank, an alien, a tree, etc) so 24kB = 49152 structures ≃ 221 x 221, from the video it looks that may be the size of the map (?) Anyway, i love your videos!
A compressed map still accessible in real-time would be no small fry, especially with that processing power. But note sprites are handled separately, thus don't need to be stored on the map, freeing some symbols. This could be extended to special buildings, or anything rare on the map really. The next step would be procedural enrichment : Store a very simplified terrain (only 8 or even 4 symbols), and have code add at run-time random details (trees, ruins etc). Even further would be full procedural generation of the terrain. But then you need to store any dynamic changes by the player.
He’s been really busy with this video and of course the game itself these last three months, but I know for a fact that there is material coming up shortly. Stay tuned. ;)
I do have at least 3 videos for that channel in the planning stages. But It just got put on the back burner because I've been ridiculously busy with conventions, getting this game launched, and trying to keep content coming on this channel.
Can't upvote this hard enough. Very inspirational! I am going through the Photon from Scoopex tutorials about Amiga Hardware Programming past weeks. Its great seeing there is a community that is not willing to abandon old machinery. As a long time professional game developer - programming resource-hogging software like games on old machines was just so much more fun!!
dude, i would be so thrilled to help someone as cool as the 8-bit guy but i have no idea what would even go into making pixel art for dos, all the pixel work i've ever done has been wholly removed from the coding aspect of game creation XD
Would be nice to be able to download the game after you purchase. I’d rather leave the floppy in the sealed bag, download the game and put it on my Sd2iec. Plus no telling how long those old floppies are gong to last. Just placed my order though. Nice job! Edit: oh. I guess you do get a digital download. As emily litella would say, “never mind...”
I loved it on the c64 but spent most of my time programming, drawing, and composing music on Gary kitchen's game maker so was somewhat exhausted by the time I got shoot em up construction kit.!
Yeah, I was hitting High School by then, and they had bigger and badder computers to fuck around with. Like 386's on a LAN. :) And there were girls, with boobs and other squishy bits. I also had a bit of fun with those Demo Makers of the era too. You know the ones where you type and there's music in the background, and you can do all kinds of other shit with them.
I spent ages trying to make my own version of Slap Fight, but the real Slap Fight was just so much better, and now that i've got it on MAME, It's hard to look at the c64 version. I was also very good at 1942 and Terra Cresta on the arcade.
Best part of the entire video was when you were discussing the maps and all the programs you crafted to put them together. I could hear the pride in your voice and it's totally justified. I never had a C64 and don't go back that far in my retro adventures, but this was fun to watch and you did an awesome job.
Lovely postmortem, really enjoyed seeing it all come together! Hoping the potential DOS version works out :)
Lazy Game Reviews I’ve already started on preliminary in-game graphics so yeah... ;)
Yeah, i can't stop thinking about all of the extra things I'll be able to include with more RAM.
I was thinking about if you were able to have another version for those who have the extra ram thingy-majiger.... but then again, too much of a hassle.
DOS version would be awesome! Digital release might be a nice option as well. Kick the kickstarter rolling!
Time to dig out my 5160 ;)
Haha, you found a strange guy from Norway that mumbled something about music and design... ^__^ Happy to be onboard with your project, David. It's been many hours of hard work these last months, but more than that: just fun and I'm very proud to be part of it! Good job mate! :D *EDIT:* Unfortunately all sold out!! This went a lot faster than expected! Thank you all for supporting David! We're both thrilled to see such massive response! There will be lite versions available in the near future. Just waiting for more floppy disks and manuals. :D
Anders Enger Jensen Ohai there!
Anders Enger Jensen I don't even have a C64 even tho I want one to experience something pretty nostalgic
What program did you use for the manual layout?
Awesome work on the box and manual Anders!!
And, of course, the music!!
Great Video! - Thank you for letting me review this game for you
Hi MVG nice to see you here!
U didn't review this game for me
MVG + 8-bit-guy = Epic
You know what?! I don't have a C64, but I wanna buy your game, just for the sake of it! Your process and product are awsome!
I programmed the C64 for years. I knew you could write to the RAM under the KERNEL but I had no idea that you could set the video to look at that memory without banking out the ROM. SOOOO MUCH REGRET!! MAN!! THE THINGS I COULD HAVE DONE!! the things I cou.............
Oof
>KERNEL
I got this wrong too.
@@futu1983 :
I think it is written kernel, not kernal.
Atari Master You ever use a Microsoft BASIC II cartridge, for Atari 8-bits? I came across a couple in a box of 8-bit stuff (incl a 600 XL and an OG 800), and I wonder how rare Atari M$ BASIC II is...
What is this the VIC20? You've got enough room for a quick reply
I'm in awe, a small group of people developed a game made a soundtrack box art a manual and made it look professional
Cant be more impressed
And the code was essentially one guy
"Professional" game development was honestly often a lot like that in the 80s.
Exactly what happened back in the day.
Yea, I never thought C64 be that popular, after the x86 era. Hats of to those who stuck with 8 bits out there.
I feel like the dos version would have to be called planet x86.
mastrvidman15 yes!
Please, like the first comment to make David see this.
Should I port PX2 to x86? I'll do it, even if I have to make it in 3D. Just call it X2-86.
LOL
x3mw: It depends on which level. A Pentium or later with just a Z80 emulator + somthing like SDL as video-framebuffer is not as complicated as porting on instruction-level to a 8086 with EGA...
One of the greatest TH-cam videos I've ever watched. The dedication and hard work involved is truly inspiring.
As a graphic designer, I find the packaging and manual VERY aesthetic. This game looks amazing, too! You're super talented, dude!
As another graphic designer and illustrator I think the box layout is cool (but that's not really hard to achieve since they just copied the formula of older games) but the artwork... Weeeellll... I don't want to be rude but the artwork isn't really top notch.
I think the artwork is just trying to emulate the style of artwork that was often seen on games of the 80s era. They were usually really cheesy like that, and usually a lot worse.
Aesthetic is not a superlative, you need to add to it for it to make sense. Something can have a good or bad aesthetic so just saying the word alone doesn't describe your feelings.
"...this game was released in 1987, David would be a millionaire..." this is a high rating !!! If I were making a game, probably only this statement justified 50% of all the work =)))
I'm feeling like a kid that just discovered a new game to play. And all the technicals limitations explanations and how you designed the whole thing makes me look to this game with other eyes! Thank you so much to share this lovely making of and game with us!
hi ! I have a small youtube channel so i am asking your help to support my youtube channel thanks!
the sun is a deadly lazer
When I was a kid I wrote a program on my C64 that would pick lottery numbers while playing the theme from Dallas and I thought it was a big deal.
Cool man
lol, me too, I was crap with the sound system though, so no sound.
I think that was the most complex thing I did in basic - I just remember having to write out the notes one by one and how long each one would play and having very little understanding of anything I was doing - but shockingly it worked. A ball would bounce around the screen then six numbers, between 1-49 would appear one by one - and as I said it did it while playing the theme to Dallas. Why Dallas? I have no idea - probably because it was the most simple sheet music I had available to work from.
Can’t wait to get the game :)
Just need a Commodore 64
Datnintendo Gamer you can buy the physical version, it comes with a digital version, use a c64 emulator and you are done
Datnintendo Gamer Me2
I'd buy it just to have it as a collection item. Yay for big box art! ♥
Me too.
alamcho ok
14:32 "My game is written in assembly language"
This is so badass...
Hahaahhaahah. IKR? I want to learn 6502 assembly or something. Hahhahhaa
@@eekrats5981 Then do it! It's far easier than you think.
This might be a good starting point: skilldrick.github.io/easy6502/
@@gwishart Awesome link, thanks for sharing it...👍
Really it was the only way to get max performance out of very limited hardware.
Back then coders actually optimized everything to squeeze every last CPU cycle out of the C64. Today they simply tell you to buy new hardware...
I d o n o t n e e d t h e B A S I C R O M
I have been around computers for most of my life, but since I was born in 92 and really only got smart enough to use one in around 2000, I have completely missed the early home computer days. I think I know a lot about modern computers, but the really interesting stuff (like how memory is addressed or how chips process data) is completely lost on me. I love your videos for going into so much technical detail, because that combined with the older hardware has really helped me understand the basic connections to how something works. A new PC can do so many complicated calculations and has so much data moving every millisecond, that my mind just goes to "and now this software does this". Your channel has helped me to understand more of the basics of how computers work! Thank you for your excellent videos...
Concerning the box artwork not conforming to the game itself, I say embrace it. Look at all the Roger Dean weirdness that defined early computer game artwork, or the boxes for the 2600. Breakout was awesome, but I don't remember there being astronauts and spaceships in the game.
Dorelaxen I always liked seeing the box, the manual, and the game as a whole, it really put your mind into that “mode’ where this was way more than a game.
Yeah, good box art was able to really fire up the imagination in ways that the actual graphics couldn't. I must say the box art for Planet X2 looks very authentically 80s, can almost imagine it being airbrushed
Wow, David, I'm blown away from the making of this game. Reminds me of my programming days and working around limitations. Assembly language, damn lol! Congrats on the release of your game! Looking forward to the sequel in MS-DOS!!!
*SO MUCH RESPECT !!!*
from one dev to another!
Nelson Baietti Same
gay :)
Nelson Baietti Yes first time I seen virtual zram used in basic. Normally Microsoft firmware cannot use use storage for virtual memory.
This might be the most interesting and amazing video I ever saw. Really impressive work David. Congratulations
18:59 Still better AI than Oblivion NPC's
still less glitches then skate 3
Still better than Fallout 76
Not as awful as *SONIC O’6*
So much truth, all of you
Rather than discourage, I think you'd inspire. This wasn't some throwaway Steam junk, you went all out. I love physical releases, and the obscurity, rarity and heart make this a very attractive thing to own and play.
ItsHyomoto plus it's not just dev, it's also manufacture and distribution. I don't know how he has so much time.
Well, thanks to his patreon he's full time 8-bit guy, so it's his job, now!
I think you're doing a bit of a disservice to modern indie gaming with that "throwaway Steam junk" comment.
Awesome video David! I received my signed copy of the game, and absolutely love it! It's so cool to see these old systems getting new releases. Thanks for all your hard work.
The amount of work and dedication that this guy put on this is just amazing.
Congrats!
You could totally make an updated version that requires a RAM expansion (like 192k for a C64 and 128k for a C128), but includes many of the features and such that got cut
I can't help but love how much Vintage PC TH-camrs work together, puts a smile on my face every time
I don't have a c64 but if you make the port for MS-DOS, I'll buy it! I'll buy ANY game that you make for MS-DOS. Give me a way to give you my money! Of course, Anders Jensen's music for the MS-DOS games is not only desirable but, at this point, necessary.
This is such an inspiring effort that you guys made. It makes me want to start developing my own game.
Great work everyone!
Same. I'm hoping for an MS-DOS version too. I wonder how they'll go about that though. I'm unsure of which storage devices were commonly used with MS-DOS but all I know is that if it's not a 3.5 floppy or CD, I'm screwed :p
I didn't realize I could buy a copy so close to home here in Sweden, and there were still a few left!
Thank you so much for making this!
Awesome video, learned alot. First we got LGR's awesome post on Friday and now this, that's over one hour of quality content. Keep it up.
With an MS-DOS version we could get a Steam-release in DOS Box like the first Tomb Raider games.
It's 2020, planet x3 has been released
@@voxeltek6624 dumb dumb you do realize this comment was made 2 years ago right?
@@thenewbgamer6416 yes i do. im letting this person know, just in case they havent found out yet.
@@thenewbgamer6416 uhh u dont have to be a asshole idiot also yes i am aware this coment is old
9b
This is one of the coolest projects I have seen, the fact that you coded the game, made the music and the graphics is amazing and all while trying to stay within the limits of the hardware. It’s like the days of the old game developers when they really had to be creative to make the games that they made. It’s also great to see an older game being made with the knowledge of current game mechanics.
Have you ever considered doing a tutorial for assembly programs on some of the more popular computers like the C64?
If not you should! You clearly have a firm grasp of the hardware and techniques; I'd love for more people to be out there experimenting with and making games on these older computers.
I've thought about it. But that's one of those things that I think would only be interesting to a small percentage of my viewers. So I doubt I'll ever fit that into the schedule.
@The 8-Bit Guy What?? Anything you put out is a good watch! I'm sure a short little introduction to BASIC or something of the sorts would be really interesting to more people than you think :)
I will admit being somewhat terrified of Assembly, but I also want to understand it. I'd love seeing some in-depth videos from you covering it. Honestly, you've quite piqued my interest in the C64, especially. (and I haven't yet looked-into programming for it) I feel also that maybe some of the misinformation and basically fear-mongering about programming with assembly could be alleviated if there were more clear and concise information about it out there. You seem more than qualified to provide that kind of information!
I cannot speak for all of us, but I'm disappointed sometimes in where you do not go as in-depth as you could. Even here, you could've talked more about the actual code you wrote, specific quirks/limits about the processor, itself. Also, hearing more about a more interesting bug and why it occurred would be entertaining, and perhaps enlightening. I can guarantee you have an audience for this kind of content!
That would be really interesting, even if it is not a full 6502 programming tutorial but maybe just showing the creation of planet X2 more from a technical perspective. Like how you organized the code to manage the complexitiy of a full game project in assembly, how the main loop is structured etc. you wouldn't need to explain it on an opcode level. Would be a great insight for all those people used to todays high level languages, which may not be a small percentage of the viewers. I myself am quite comfortable writing some small routines or simple programs in assembly for 8bit microcontrollers and TI-calculators back in the day, but I have never atempted an assembly project of this size.
Thank you 8-Disk guy
The internet needs MORE Commodre 64 episodes! Great stuff!
This is absolutely fascinating. As someone who's dabbled in making simple games in Unity before, it's really cool to see how you designed your game around such strict system limitations. It's something we often don't even need to consider today, but it was so important back then to squeeze every last bit of performance and memory out of these systems.
Thank you for sharing a bit about the dev process with us!
Wonderful seeing how everything was created. The amount of love you poured in this project is apparent just watching how carefully you placed the labels on the disks. Great job!
I am damn impressed, great job man!!! And the helpers too!!!
Looks fantastic! Just a quick note about the RAM listed on the Amiga 500. It is true that the standard is 512k, but almost everyone with an A500 has a 512k expansion fitted. Making the total 1MB. This is also what almost all games require to run. So if you are planning to do a port for the Commodore Amiga 500, I would suggest to develop with the RAM limit being 1MB.
Well, I was also thinking of the Amiga 1000.... but it's probably moot a this point.
The A1000 is pretty rare. Very few actually have one. Its evident in the current Amiga community. Its always a big deal when someone gets one. The A500 is the "c64" of the Amiga range. Its the one most people had back in the day and the cheapest and easiest one to get now. Hell, I have 4 :D
Wow David, really incredible job. You make what would otherwise be completely boring and dated something very interesting. I look forward to the MS-DOS port. You rock.
This game is so addicting! I bought a broken breadbin 64 and a broken 1541 because of your channel. Just to play this game. Fixed both using your videos and after initial testing, decided it was time to buy planet X2. Couldn't be happier with the purchase(Autograph Box). The box looks so good on the shelf above my desk and there is nothing more satisfying than seeing that game over screen on a victory. Commodore is a good bit before my time but now I am psyched to build another DOS machine like grew up with to play Planet X3. Add this to the hobby list. Keep up the great work!
Everyone asks me, "Why do you like old computers?", my reply is "Because if you code, it forces you to be efficient...". Building apps now days, has a lot of overhead which I call BLOAT. David, you have impressed me with your skill level. My hat is off to you.
Fantastic job, very very impressive right through from development to final packaging. Seriously professional!
Fellow game dev here. **waves**
If I were able to do pixel art that would be DOS compatible, I'd do it for free.
I'd also make simple music routines for free.
Yup, I believe in doing the work for the sake of charity. Or for barter (i.e. a free copy of the game or free soundtrack as an example).
I like this game you've made, Hell, I've not had the opportunity to play it and I still like it, it is aesthetically pleasing to my eyes.
Your videos are great!
My favourite video of yours, great achievement on that hardware and really demonstrates how the 'bedroom coder' explosion was even possible.
Making something specifically for the Amiga is such a neat idea. Love how the Amiga draws colors and all the cool tricks you can use to create the illusion of more colors or detail
Got my copy a couple weeks ago, but I've been on the road and unable to set up my C64. Can't wait to get home and get everything running! Love this BTS feature!
That is your fault for not purchasing the portable version
no games are meant to be played. period doesent matter how as long as the user has fun the creator is just happy there enjoying there work
Unless the creator is EA. Then they're happy about money.
mawthecringelord 100% agree with you
Fantastic, thank you so much for this look into the development, I really appreciate it. For me, this is where the magic always was - in the limitations and finding ingenious work arounds to fit within the limitations. This is why, for me at least, a large chunk of the magic has now gone, as there aren't really limitations now for people to try to work within on modern platforms. This is why I appreciate this so very much. Personally I'd love to see an Amiga (OCS/ECS, so perhaps 512K Chip, or perhaps 1MB total and single floppy, KS 1.2 and above, 7MHz 68000) and Atari 8-bit versions (130XE or other 128K system), but I can see the appeal of an MS-DOS version with CGA/EGA and 640K.
And yes, I admit to having a strong preference for the Jay Miner systems, LOL
mmh. I used to own an 800XL, and while I never had one, I was fascinated by Amigas.
I only just recently realised how much those two systems look alike in some ways.
The Amiga basically is a 16 bit version of the atari 8 bit systems, when you consider some of the design similarities it's almost spooky...
Oh absolutely, and the SIO port on the Atari 8-bits is a direct predecessor to our modern USB, designed by the same person...
"SIO's designer, Joe Decuir, credits his work on system as the basis of USB."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_SIO
Super cool that you did this in 2017 👍🏻
What a clever use of banked ram/rom! And how clever of the C64's designers to allow the CPU to write to the ram under the rom and (I assume) automatically read from the rom, without having to fuss, and to allow the video chip to read from that ram! I'm an old Atari guy and they have different sorts of tricks, but yeah, it's good to remember all those clever things we used to have to do with such limited computers. There's a real art to getting the best out of those old machines. You, sir, are an artist! This was so much fun to watch!
Wow, my kudos to you. People may not appreciate just how much effort goes into writing a game of this level, on a limited spec machine like this. I remember trying to make a game on my C64 back in the 80's, and it was definitely not easy. Coding in assembly language on 6502/6510 is definitely challenging, and I remember having to contend with memory issues and interrupts. But most of all, I'm so impressed with the game concept. If this game existed in the 80's, it definitely would've been one of my favorite.
👍 I watched your speech at PRGE 2017. This seems like an expanded and simplified version - added to favorites.
Yeah, I used that for the basis of this video. However, I was able to add more to it, while reducing the overall length.
Planet X-III for the Amiga coming soon in 2022, lol.
and planet x X for PS4 in 2070 with all those microtransaction retro glory :P
I would make it dos based
fuck
Planet X-III should be on the Commodore 128
Less people own a 128 than an Amiga, bruh. Just saying.
shadowmax889 nope
For ps5
I love how you handled production when it came to 'pressing' the discs.
This is my favorite video so far!
I loved every second of it!
Keep up the fun Mate:)
A real labour of love man. This looks terrific. Congrats on pulling it all together
You have inspired me to get a C64 so I can play your game.
If you port this to DOS please do consider a GOG Digital release with all the patches to make it work well on Windows 10 under DOSBOX as it would be awesome to have on the go on my laptop.
Hoping for DOSBOX support too for my PC, which also has Windows 10. Something about playing classic games just feels so satisfying, and being able to do that on my PC using a physical copy of the game would be awesome.
27:20 the disks were produced for the military. they have a National Stock Number and 1994 SPO Contract on the label.
If I could I would give multiple thumbs up for this video. Thanks for your great work, David!
Very interesting and inspiring video, thank you, David!
I'm finally going into indie developing (currently doing everything myself), and it's just great to see such detailed review of projects, very inspiring and entertaining. I think I'll try to split my day in half and continue developing my already working first title now.
For a DOS port, I would say definitely consider targeting a 286 with EGA and Adlib for sound, as that's the era PC games started really taking off. Anyone with either a retrogaming rig or using DOSbox can meet those requirements. Lots of interesting things can be done in EGA, later Sierra (and other companies) were doing graphics dithering giving (what appeared) to be far more than 16 colors using this method.
I plan the first version to work in CGA. Because I want the game to run an an XT. I will then add at least EGA and Tandy support to the final product. Possibly VGA as well, if there appears to be any advantage.
New here, love the channel! I loved doing Ascii art on my old BBS back in the day so I totally dig that intro,
and now you get 8 gigs of video memory and 8 gigs of ram and devs are like "optimization? LOL"
mmh. And this is why ports to Nintendo consoles have suffered. 'You mean I have only 4 gigabytes of RAM total!? What!? Forget that! Can't be done!' XD
You have to consider optimizations costs money and dev-time, they can make a bigger and better game with the that dev-time and that's what many dev-teams prefer.
Optimisation in 1984 and 2017 are two very different things :-)
@@Aaronage1 Optimisation in 2019 is Unity saying "Oh right, Object Orientation *is* horribly inefficient for game programming after all!!! Who knew?!??"
((Every turn-of-the-century coder sits slow-hand-clapping.))
Oh yeah, I guess using garbage collection in real time applications *is* a bad idea...
Great Video!
Just received my copy in the mail today (before seeing this video actually) and the quality of the finished product blew me away.
Greetings from The Netherlands and looking forward to an MS Dos port.
This video was the coolest thing i've ever seen. Well done guy...Well done.
Nice to see the C64 getting lots of love, so sick of NESTube.
-shrug~
I keep running into people saying how much love their is for the NES and SNES while pushing Sega stuff, but never actually see this 'love' for Nintendo stuff people seem to complain about in all those videos. XD
Still, in terms of homebrew, c64 is kinda mainstream.
No, the ugly duckling of the homebrew community, the system nobody seems to ever do anything with, is the n64...
Consoles inherently get less homebrew than home computers do. (the reason is obvious given home computers always allowed anyone to develop software by design, while consoles were all locked down), but even among consoles some consoles get infinitely more attention than others.
And for a system that isn't obscure in and of itself, the n64 is way, way waaaay down the list.
Of course, if you're talking about video content, then yes, there are a lot of channels that do videos about NES games compared to c64 or other such things. XD
Heh you must be blind and deaf then. ^_^ Nintendo still exists as a console maker and has mainstream appeal so yeah it get's the lion's share of the media content. Atari, Sega, and Commodore have large fan bases but it's hard to gain new fans without a current generation console. Mostly we get mad because the mainstream "thinks" Nintendo invented everything video game related.
Ah. 'mainstrream' I see the problem already. XD
I don't tend to count anything current in the same context as this.
I was thinking in terms of 'retro' content.
And that's quite a different ballgame entirely.
Sega is still around of course. But Commodore is not.
Sony has dominated the industry for a good 20 years now...
I just get annoyed that people who should know better still make the same inane arguments they did 30 years ago, and parrot whatever stupid crap someone says about things without any thought whatsoever.
Such as that whole 'blast processing' thing. Yes, people still bring that up.
But then I guess I'm more into the technicalities of these systems than most.
It has not particularly been my experience that Nintendo systems particularly dominate in discussions about older systems. Quite the opposite in fact, in many cases.
But yes, if you bring mainstream gaming channels into this that mostly handle recent stuff, or a mixture of recent and semi-recent things, then you'll be overwhelmed with Sony, Xbox and Nintendo.
Because that's all that's left in the console space, and the home computer space is no longer a thing at all.
(so the likes of the Commodore 64, Atari 800, Amiga, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum and all that stuff doesn't just represent companies that are no longer prominent, it represents an entire category of devices that basically isn't really around anymore.)
It's not really the same argument, NES is the typical "given" topic in retro gaming, even some European gamers have been having false memories of the NES being a success or loved there because the topic is popular. My best comparison for a Nintendo fan is being a cat person, more crazy than typical pet owners lol.
Yeah not many people speak of Nintendo hardware because the biggest fans of it never seem to know how it works in the slightest heh, but it's "mainstream retro" to like Nintendo blindly. It's actually a topic barely scratched with all the helper-chip variety, which itself seems to hinder homebrew.
There's not much to say on a technical level about current Microsoft and Sony consoles since they've become generic media boxes so I can appreciate the Switch's uniqueness. Nothing retro is truly prominent, again Nintendo minis got a lion's share of videos.
I agree, the NES is VERY overrated
*Sold out, sold out, sold out*
ugh
*goes to European site*
*sold out*
ffffffffffffffff.......................
*Waits a few weeks*
*sold out*
UGHHHH
But you can buy lite edition
@@EricZhang456 Nope
640K of RAM? Should be enough for everybody ;)
januzi2 Well this Linus travels fellow came allow and said screw this dedicated program language and use used universal base of code to make alternative version of same high level format, this ingeniously freed up ram be emulating virtual rom,
Ahhh, the limitation of the IBM PC and it's 8088.
Still got my DOS 7.10 running with sound, keyboard and mouse and 624k free base memory.
HappyBeezerStudios - by Lord_Mogul Now days a tansistor is small and cheap enough to build that entire computer in a 3.0 flash drive.
januzi2 Apparently Bill Gates never said that. Thanks Mandela Effect!
I am using a Windows 95 with 4 mbs of ram
Congratulations on completing this amazing game David.
Happy to say I'm a proud owner of this game and snagged it while it was in stock. You did an amazing job on this David. I showed all my IT buddies at work and their jaws dropped at how professional everything was. You made a bunch of folks smile today. The game play itself is excellent. I've played the emulator version, but I'm eager to find me an old TV to hook up to my C64 to get the true experience. This kind of work is a true inspiration to follow your passion, whatever it may be. Thank you for sharing.
Basic Dos Gaming indeed a great solution. My c64 will be on display and I’m looking for an authentic look.
Pixel art, you say? To shreds, you say?
I'd be up for that! Though, I've never drawn tanks before? I've drawn plenty of science fiction, though.
I quickly mocked up a 16x16 4-color tank, using the transparent black, for added detail. The tank treads were shaded in such a way to suggest 3D depth, when moving: i.imgur.com/mEs9PpW.png
looks nice.. why don't you send me a PM...
I came to see if someone had already made the offer! I was considering it myself ;)
BTW +The 8-Bit Guy (or David?), if you're going for tiles/sprites, why not make it some kind of faux perspective?
It's more work, but it looks so much better that straight top-down than might be worth it!
That looks sweet af
If I were the 8 bit guy, I would hire you for pixel art! It looks amazing!
yeah, perhaps you should hire Icelink256 to do a overhaul for X2 game. it would be sweet gesture for all the buyers
Man... Paint shop pro!
Very interesting video, and I like the fact that even if in these days we have such powerful computers, that simple graphics plus the characteristic music are still loved. I don't define myself as a gamer, but I definitely had more fun on a Gameboy than on a ps4.. Maybe was the age... Nah! Those games were just stimulating your fantasy more.
Love the video. Wish I could buy a copy, but sadly (as of 11/28/17 circa 10:00 pm cst) all copies are sold out.
However, if I must make one comment on the hypothetical MS-DOS port it's the color choice of the CGA color mode. As much as I love your vids & games, I tend to not want to buy a game if it's forced CGA-mode because of the teal & hot pink choice. If it does happen, I hope it's in EGA mode.
Best wishes,
RetroTechNerd, aspiring retro tech reviewer
Ah yes, hate that cga palette. But IIRC, you can define different palettes in CGA?
I think you can define *other* 4 colors to use.
Just so long as my DOS game has more than 2 colors, I'm happy.
fede I think if you run CGA mode on a later style card (EGA, VGA etc.) you can redefine all 4 colors. On CGA hardware there are only a few combinations to choose from. But the game could use well chosen colors on VGA, close approximations on EGA and fall back to one of the CGA palettes on real CGA+clones. This would be simpler than the traditional choice of including code variations for each card generation, but would limit you to 320x200 even on modern hardware.
+John, as long as it's not the one with the super bright cyan-magenta-black-white eye raping combination, anything is better. I remember this game called Metal Mutant I had back in my 386, not because of the game, but because of the scars in my retinas. ;)
Remember this people: You can't purchase the game if it's sold out!
I always watch your videos, but never leave a message. This is the first time, I hope you read it.
I'm a 33 yrs old Game Developer from Venezuela living in Canada. The first video I watched from you was about a couple of years ago, on how 8-bit graphics were made back in the 80's, it was shared in one of the game dev groups on facebook that I follow, I was impressed by three things: your knowledge, the way you explain things and your lowliness and passion when you share your knowledge.
From there, I think I've watched every single video you post. This one in particular made me write this comment because I'm surprised how you manage to dedicate a full year of your life to create a game by your own with such limitations... I really admire you man!
Thank you for what you do, you do a great job and you are a role model. Keep it up and if you ever need a developer to help you just write me! I would love to work with you during my spare time (even though I'm not too experienced in assembly, but better with C, C++ and OpenGL)
Big ups to The 8 Bit Guy for uploading a 34 minute video completely ad free! I know he's Patreon supported, but many other TH-camrs are Patreon supported, while still running ads. Kudos!
Very inspiring and an awesome video
Personally I would like to hear how you actually coded the game in ASM , some history of your knowledge in Commodore assembly and the like
I love your channel by the way - one of the best there is
thank you
Fantastic video, one of the best on the channel so far, and TERRIFIC JOB on the game! Just a couple of questions: 1) how much programming/design work has been done on a real C64 VS an Emulator (e.g. VICE). On the latter, text editing for ASM would be easier, of course… 2) Why using a TV with composite when you have a fantastic 1084 monitor, with the Chroma/Luma input? Quality of video on that is MUCH better… Thank you for the passion you put in your channel
He used a TV probably to be able to judge how the game looks on one.
I think I just learned more about how RAM works by watching this that I did at 2 year of Vo-Tech school
Very impressed indeed. It must be very rewarding to have a quality finished product. And this doco you made is excellent too and also you gave credit to those who helped you.
I'm speechless. Incredible work. Impressive dedication. Congratulations!
Did you use any of those bit hacking techniques to get more than 16 colors on screen at a time?
I didn't see it in video. But bithacking is no small code, also timings should be perfect.
Evil Gremlin yeah, you might use up too much memory too make the game interactive with improved graphics. From my understanding it's more worth it for vga.
Doubt it, since it's using text mode.
iirc you could change the text color on the exact right scanline and it would color that line in without changing previous lines in text mode
VGA brings with it a whole different set of problems.
Among which:
VGA adapters are dumb as rocks, many of them have video memory that's slow as molasses, and the ISA bus you find on most early cards is even slower.
Seriously, if you have an ISA based VGA card, the bus access speed, and resultant CPU wait states are so bad that a 486 is no faster than a 286 for the majority of graphics tasks.
There's a reason games like Wolfenstein and Doom started on PC...
Part of it is of course that PC's, especially by the end of the 80's and early 90's had very powerful processors.
But the other half of it is that EGA/VGA and even many SVGA adapters are so incredibly dumb compared to the graphics hardware in most home micros and consoles, that your best solution 9 times out of 10 is to create a framebuffer in main memory, get your CPU to do 95% of all the work in drawing graphics, then transfer that main memory frame buffer to the graphics card in short, fast bursts.
And if the graphics card itself is basically not doing anything other than drawing a framebuffer to a screen, you might as well do really complicated graphics routines on a fast CPU as simpler ones...
Of course, that has no real relation to the c64...
But I imagine raster effects can be expensive in terms of CPU time and memory use. (not just because the effect takes a lot of CPU power, but because synchronising to the display can eat up a lot of cycles just waiting around for the right moment too.)
You see all these really impressive demoscene things, but maybe you wonder why you rarely see this stuff in games?
Well... Demos don't really have to do anything else... So they can devote way more memory and CPU time to graphics and sound than most games could ever get away with...
8 bit keys: why did someone put numbers on keys. The 8 bit guy: let's put numbers on keys
Those two guys must hate each other...!
¿Porqué hay 208 personas que no les gusta este video? está EXCELENTE!!!
LOVE IT. I'd love to play it myself. I'll have to find a playthrough, online! Keep up the great work, Dave. I hope you continue to go above and beyond in the future. Good luck!
Amazing, amazing, amazing. Everything amazing. The documentary, the process, the help, the end result. What an amazing channel this is.
While this is an interesting documentary on the "behind the scenes" The narrator does little to discuss the continued allegations of the near slave like conditions for the members of the team. No mention of anyone being forced to work days on end with little food or water. No mention that they denied family visits during crunch time. 8Bit Industries and their shareholders have a lot to answer for. Hopefully 8bit keys is able to offer some outsider perspective into the madness that went into this release.
I don't think 8 bit guy and 8 bit keys are on speaking terms at the moment 😆
Congrats on getting it out the door; I kind of gave up on the C64 version of PP despite the working data -- not from technical difficulties, but the attitude in the C64 community I found. To be fair, I've never really understood the whole "demoscene" thing as they do all this fancy stuff at the hardware level, but don't actually do ANYTHING with it! Whilst democoding was a thing across many platforms, NOWHERE is it more entrenched in the mindset than the Commodore community... where they are probably scoffing at your game because it's a playable game and not really pushing the hardware. OH NOES, NOTS THATZ...
Gets a thumbs up from me.
Of course how long before a version with a replacement "loader" and cheats gets vomited up by the community? I'd probably be ok with loaders if people didn't INSIST on adding cheats, and if they weren't universally pulling stupid seizure inducing video trickery. (see "colour bars")
Love how you use paint shop pro 7, which is still my go-to for a reliable low-overhead graphics editor. Wondering though if you were willing to "go there" why you didn't just make a version of tile-draw in something modern that could save values -- even do it as generated code?
Also curious as to your mindset on the memory map layout. With the C64 Paku Paku I mapped out all ROM and put video at 0x4000, letting me start code at 0x8000. The program itself actually loads data in the "new" video area, then copies it into the top 8k (normally the Kernal ROM space) before setting the new video mode, the stack is then placed at the normal video location. If starting over (which I might) I have a few different approaches in mind... uhg, been so long since I even thought C64 given I'm still screwing around with the pure 8086 assembly version for DOS and trying to give it sound support for as many platforms as possible.
Straddling the 4 character boundary remains one of the best tricks for wringing more colour out of the system. I PROBABLY would have tried to find a way to go mulitcolour mode even if you lose half the vertical resolution, just to try and get 10 colours per sprite (foreground, background, and two others per character) which is what I did for the fruit in Paku Paku.
Still well done, getting any project like this out the door is an accomplishment. I'm actually working on something a little similar for DOS that I'm hoping will end up being a bit like Kings Bounty, but using normal text mode with 80x25 semigraphics and/or something akin to what Icon did... but sticking to proper 80x25 video mode so I can have properly formed text. One of those times I wish you could just map any memory to character generation on the PC like you could the C64.
Jason Knight PSP7 forever! Literally.
Great profile pic
@@ThommyofThenn Well I'm just an excitable boy...
The vic20 and c64 allow for "feature chips" in addition to ROM on cartridges, correct? It'd be interesting to see you release "Planet x4" as a cartridge-only version that pushes the system to the absolute limits...
Beautiful!!! Congratulations David!! Maybe someday I'll aquire a C64 thanks to your passion.
Im from germany and I got the game today. Cant wait to test it. unbelievably good packaging and high quality materials used.
Wow great work! My nerd-OCD side can´t stop thinking about the fact that 24k of memory are used by the map :P I would love to know more about how it is stored!
The least memory efficient strategy I can think of (a bitmap) would only allow for a 156 by 156 tiles mini map (note 1). I´d gess you used something like an alphabet of unique "structures" (like trees, etc) but still a bitmap (note 2).
I`d love to get a map to play with it and see how much I can compress it without a monster algorithm or loosing constant read write times :) I´m thinking of a sparse representation like "trees from tile 23 to tile 30" or something of the sort, maybe even huffman coding (to encode the structure's and different sizes of terrain) for the initial state of the map (with an index for constant time random access) and a sparse representation like a list of coordinates for what changed during gameplay. I bet something should work saving a lot of space for the cool but discarded features. Who knows, maybe it works and it helps the sequel!
(note 1) alphabet is 192 unique tiles = 1 byte per tile is plenty.
so 24kB = 24576 tiles ≃ 156 x 156 tiles
(note 2) assuming an alphabet of 16 structures = 4 bits per structure (a structure would be for example a tank, an alien, a tree, etc)
so 24kB = 49152 structures ≃ 221 x 221, from the video it looks that may be the size of the map (?)
Anyway, i love your videos!
A compressed map still accessible in real-time would be no small fry, especially with that processing power.
But note sprites are handled separately, thus don't need to be stored on the map, freeing some symbols. This could be extended to special buildings, or anything rare on the map really.
The next step would be procedural enrichment : Store a very simplified terrain (only 8 or even 4 symbols), and have code add at run-time random details (trees, ruins etc).
Even further would be full procedural generation of the terrain. But then you need to store any dynamic changes by the player.
You should probably create a DLC (Expansion Pack) for people with RAM expansions!
not a fan of DLCs
I think back then they called them "expansions", lol
LMFAO!
But seriously, that's probably the way DLCs should be.
Lawl
What happened to 8Bit Keys? There hasn't been an upload in 2 months, and I'm beginning to miss it.
Cammer Ford this
He’s been really busy with this video and of course the game itself these last three months, but I know for a fact that there is material coming up shortly. Stay tuned. ;)
Molly House ?
I do have at least 3 videos for that channel in the planning stages. But It just got put on the back burner because I've been ridiculously busy with conventions, getting this game launched, and trying to keep content coming on this channel.
Chapeau David! This for me is by far the best video from you, it shows a great sheer amount of dedication for a project that ended up being very nice
Can't upvote this hard enough. Very inspirational!
I am going through the Photon from Scoopex tutorials about Amiga Hardware Programming past weeks. Its great seeing there is a community that is not willing to abandon old machinery.
As a long time professional game developer - programming resource-hogging software like games on old machines was just so much more fun!!
dude, i would be so thrilled to help someone as cool as the 8-bit guy but i have no idea what would even go into making pixel art for dos, all the pixel work i've ever done has been wholly removed from the coding aspect of game creation XD
Would be nice to be able to download the game after you purchase. I’d rather leave the floppy in the sealed bag, download the game and put it on my Sd2iec. Plus no telling how long those old floppies are gong to last. Just placed my order though. Nice job!
Edit: oh. I guess you do get a digital download. As emily litella would say, “never mind...”
Any fans of Shoot-Em-Up Construction Kit on the C64?
Had it on the Amiga! Spent so long making sprites
I loved it on the c64 but spent most of my time programming, drawing, and composing music on Gary kitchen's game maker so was somewhat exhausted by the time I got shoot em up construction kit.!
Yeah, I was hitting High School by then, and they had bigger and badder computers to fuck around with. Like 386's on a LAN. :) And there were girls, with boobs and other squishy bits.
I also had a bit of fun with those Demo Makers of the era too. You know the ones where you type and there's music in the background, and you can do all kinds of other shit with them.
I spent ages trying to make my own version of Slap Fight, but the real Slap Fight was just so much better, and now that i've got it on MAME, It's hard to look at the c64 version. I was also very good at 1942 and Terra Cresta on the arcade.
I had it on the C64 and Atari ST and I loved it. I spent hours on it and made a few good games.
Best part of the entire video was when you were discussing the maps and all the programs you crafted to put them together. I could hear the pride in your voice and it's totally justified. I never had a C64 and don't go back that far in my retro adventures, but this was fun to watch and you did an awesome job.
If I had found this TH-cam video sooner, I definitely would have bought a physical copy. It looks amazing for the Commodore 64.
They're still on sale.