[Coco] converted AGD games - BIGPacks v2.4 released

Pere Serrat psergm at gmail.com
Sat Jul 20 04:25:36 EDT 2019


Hello Art,
the Arcade Game Designer is an application created by Jonathan Cauldwell
that runs on a ZX-Spectrum and allows the user to create elements as
tiles, sprites, objects, fonts, screens and define the behaviour of the 
sprites
programming some kind of events.
There is a group working on a Windows version of the application to
make use of the easy of work of modern O.Ss.

You will find a lot of info in these pages
https://jonathan-cauldwell.itch.io/arcade-game-designer
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0020176

Let's say that the events are written in a high level language using
special commandsthat are predefined (see AGD manual)
The full script can then be converted to an executable binary file using a
compiler made in C language that 'must' include as part of the code the
AGD engine already ported to the target CPU.
In our case I ported the engine for 6809 machines and then changed the
C 'compiler' so that it outputs proper 6809 ASM code for each AGD command

To me, the most difficult thing is not the programming ability but the
need to imagine/draw the tiles to build up the screens, design the fonts
and create all the frame sprites to get a smooth movement, not to say
the need to write the game 'story' for the characters that move ...

cheers
pere

Ps In case you would like to have a peek at at real AGD script file, I could
upload a few in the archive.world.ofdragon web. Just let me know what
games you would prefer.

------------------------------
> Previuos Message
> Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2019 05:55:04 -0400
> From: Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu>
> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Subject: Re: [Coco] AGD converted games - Pack #36 (Bearsden P6 part
> 	4)
> Message-ID:
> 	<CA+LuDcc5kdKs1NcqLfJwZ7ZindF05N8MKOkua=XdpaEdcmGFVQ at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> Getting 10-year old children to acquire the skills to write a computer game
> seems like an impressive achievement in itself.
>
> Am I correct that the games are written in some sort of language that is
> peculiar to AGD and from there compiled to run on various platforms?  If
> so, I wonder if you could be so kind as to upload a short, preferably
> commented listing of some lines of AGD code so as to convey a general
> impression of what the language looks like and what a 10-year old might
> need to grasp to write a game in it?
>
> Art
>



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