While I was excitedly entering the retro world, I also thought about what I should do about it. I was just going to follow this industry. Would I also get into some pursuits that could be retro myself? I think I should have actively done something about it. Then some things started to emerge that I could do.
- engrave (glass or wood)
- picture image transfer (on wood or canvas)
- Game development
I've had some work done on all of these options. However, here I will tell you about my efforts in "Game Development".
It's been over 30 years since I messed with old computers. I used some programming languages in my youth. I also edited some game programs. However, I have never had the chance to develop a game that was entirely my own code. What can I do? I asked myself. First of all, which computer should I work with? It had to be a device that I felt was most suitable for me to use. I chose the device. “ATARI 1040 STe”. So which programming language should I use on this device? It would be difficult to learn a language that I don't know at this time. I had never really worked with "C or Assembler". Usually I was using "BASIC" and "PASCAL" languages. I decided to use "ATARI STOS BASIC" based on "BASIC" in ATARI ST.
ATARI ST STOS BASIC
“ATARI STOS BASIC”, First of all, I started to examine it. I researched how to install this language in ATARI ST, its libraries and subprograms from the sources available in .NET. I downloaded the books shared in some sources as *.PDF. I started to study these. STOS BASIC included particularly easy methods for developing games compared to the standard BASIC language.
The next step was to determine the theme of the game and roughly create the algorithm of the game flow.
- Determining the variables and constants in the game.
- Designing player sprites.
- Designing the map of the game sections
- In-game joystick controls
- Checking for sprite collisions
- Selecting soundtracks and linking them in code
- Creating the body structure of the game code algorithm and making all code distributions dependent on it.
- Designing under which conditions the game will be won and under which conditions it will be lost.
- Designing game entrance, game intro screen and game end screen and displaying them within the code structure.
The basic structures were like this.
During the development of the game, I had a lot of time due to COVID. I concentrated my concentration on this. In order to convey the meaning of time, I gave my game to those who lost their lives due to COVID and healthcare professionals whose efforts are very valuable in this regard. I also stated this in the program code.
I will not go into the capabilities of the STOS BASIC language here. However, for those who are curious, the relevant code dumps of my game are presented to you in the link.
or
and
You can use these codes with the information you will find in the documents, with original hardware or emulators. The only point to note is that you must use the same hardware structure of the development environment when using it on original hardware and emulators. All of this information is available in these documents.
With this work, I have fulfilled a passion that I had in mind. It will be a reference for me in my future works. I hope it will be useful to those who are interested.
I wish you pleasant times.
@freedom