End of the first month, so this jam is half way done!
Progress from the later week or so of August:
- Found a new editor and workflow (again!) Ive switched to CBM prg Studio after multiple faluires on the part of C64 Studio and all its glitches (managed to lose all my drawn sprites and now only have the data versions in past saved code). Grrrr C64 studio....
- Created a nice and easy initial random terrain and star background generator & implemented it into the main code (less than 30 lines!)
- Added a larger lander for experimentation - the SpaceX Starhopper protoype! (made of multiple sprites parented together)
- Added a simple particle effect during thrusting
- Reworked acceleration and gravity, much less buggy, but still some bugs..
- Worked out how to print to precise areas on the screen, which lead to not needing to refresh the text every frame (cleaner text) and nicer placed realtime stats, game now displays X,Y locations and relative acceleration
- Added in the first iteration of a fuel system, the big primary bar is for the main fuel, the smaller bar underneath will be for the ascent stage on either return to the CSM or during a landing abort. Also when fuel runs out, no more boosting!
- Various other small tweeks and experiments like crushing up the sprites on a crash landing
I certainly got a bit out of control with the Starhopper, but it was a good challenge to add it in and ended up being a lot of fun - especially as the final test hop of star hopper took place so I felt like it was a nice retro tribute to the first hop and final flight. If theres room in the final code I might leave it in as a easter egg somehow, but either way I'll be taking everything I learnt with Starhopper and applying it back to the Lunar Module soon.
Also in the first test hop (gif below) I somehow unintentionally managed to get to match up almost perfectly with the first test hop of Starhopper, video on twitter: https://twitter.com/Alex_ADEdge/status/1162194443178409984
Heres a look at the terrain and star gen in action (was really happy with how this turned out!)
Initial Starhopper once I got it loading correctly, sprites parented and flying with the LM code:
Game scene now, with fuel working, more stable text, terrain stuff added (although X/Y locations are bugged)
Maybe I should keep it as a SpaceX/Starhopper game :P
Also the next post will be an fun one, got an interesting development to post about that I'll leave for another day!
Current game code status: From about 7335 bytes to 9000 (9kb), still around 300 lines of BASIC. (Only including images and sprites that are currently loaded in the game loop itself - its probably a few more kb with the other sprites loaded). But also lots of room for optimisations soon.