Denial

Mike wrote:...
As long as it doesn't take 10+ years like the still unfinished port of Gauntlet by exitof99, also for the unexpanded VIC-20...

Oooooooooh, that's just so wrong, man.

johncl wrote:You have to be a geek to understand the motivation and feeling of achievement for these kind of projects.

Someone called?
Yeah, I encourage you to do your progression, but then *complete* it with an expanded version. There's a different joy found by doing both.

darkatx wrote:Oooooooooh, that's just so wrong, man.

Well, one can dream, eh?

Gauntlet on unexpanded Vic20 surely is a daunting challenge, I can imagine a project like that taking forever, even if you expand the machine - it is after all a rather large game. But I perfectly understand the motivation to see what you can fit in 5k memory. But it might not be the memory limit that really halted a project like that, but just that the initial challenge was either somewhat solved or the realization that the hard work of actually making it into a complete game (i.e. all work, and no fun) dawned on the developer. It sounds very familiar from the many different game projects I have been on (including a startup company with the goal of developing a game). Since there is no financial motivation in projects like these, you have to dig deep to do the last bit that makes it into a complete game - yet another experience I got on the Rocket Smash (jetpac clone for the C64), which was that I finished 95% of the game in 3 months or so, and then spent over a year doing the remaining 5%. I am sure if there was a big fat check waiting at the end of those first 3 months those last 5% would be done in no time (as that was approximately the time spent doing those last 5% as well).

johncl wrote:Gauntlet on unexpanded Vic20 surely is a daunting challenge

Yes, I thought it was a tall order, but this has given me encouragement.

I think I might try "Call of Duty" on the unexpanded Vic next..

Get real man Starcraft

One option I haven't seen yet is to reduce the size of your bitmap screen size, or text screen size, so you can have more space for your code.

setbit lda #$cc ;screen matrix set to $1000, character data set to $1000
sta $9005
lda #15 ;15 columns (120 pixels wide)
sta $9002
lda #17 ;8 rows of 8 x 16 character cells (128 pixels tall)
sta $9003
lda #33 ;verticle centering of bitmap
sta $9001
lda #12 ;horizontal centering of the bitmap
sta $9000

This moves the screen matrix to $1000, but there's no reason it can't stay at $1E00. You would just have to figure out what characters to use on the bitmap to allow maximum contigious memory. The VIC chip is very versatile. See my 3D rotating cube, under programming.

One option I haven't seen yet is to reduce the size of your bitmap screen size, or text screen size, so you can have more space for your code.

setbit lda #$cc ;screen matrix set to $1000, character data set to $1000
sta $9005
lda #15 ;15 columns (120 pixels wide)
sta $9002
lda #17 ;8 rows of 8 x 16 character cells (128 pixels tall)
sta $9003
lda #33 ;verticle centering of bitmap
sta $9001
lda #12 ;horizontal centering of the bitmap
sta $9000

This moves the screen matrix to $1000, but there's no reason it can't stay at $1E00. You would just have to figure out what characters to use on the bitmap to allow maximum contigious memory. The VIC chip is very versatile. See my 3D rotating cube, under programming.