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From: labc-2aa@web-4h.berkeley.edu (Greg Burrell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm
Subject: Re: Game Development Tools?
Message-ID: <1989Oct5.031110.26351@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 5 Oct 89 03:11:10 GMT
References: <4493@cbnewsh.ATT.COM>
Sender: usenet@agate.berkeley.edu (USENET Administrator;;;;ZU44)
Reply-To: labc-2aa@web-4h (Greg Burrell)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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In article <4493@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> nms@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (n.m.scribner,ho,) writes:
>
>My son is trying to write an action game of tahe D&D variety in Basic
>on a C64.  He is a novice programmer.  Are there any tool sets available
>which would make his task easier.

	I tend to think that "action" and "Basic" are contradictory terms
since Commodore Basic tends to be hideously slow. However, game writing
is a good way to learn. My suggestions are:
1) Commodore put out a cartridge called (I think) the Super Expander
   which basically added a lot of sound and graphics commands to Basic
   plus maybe a few other goodies.
2) There is another cartridge or disk called Simon's Basic which also
   extends the language. 

If he is using graphics and sound, he might look for:
1) a sprite editor to take a lot of the tedium out of designing graphic
   shapes and animation. There are dozens of public domain ones available.
   Also, most Commodore graphics books have the listing for a sprite editor.
2) A character editor so that he can easily redefine the character set. 
   Basically, you can change the set of characters to look like anything
   you want. For example, if walls are made of brick, you can redefine the
   letter A to look like a little brick, then all you have to do is print
   a row of 'A's (bricks) and there you have a wall of bricks. Look up this
   technique in any commodore graphics book.
3) A sound editor might be useful in designing game sounds. Basically you
   can make a sound and play it over and over as you change parts of it.
   Any book that deals with sound will have a type in listing. 


Personally I recommend a set of books put out by Compute magazine. They 
contain a lot of listings for the above mentioned programs as well as
several other utilities that might make things a little easier.

			Good Luck.

				-Greg

Greg Burrell
labc-2aa@WEB.berkeley.edu
University of California, Berkeley