![]() He also wants to add VGA graphics support, which will take up more space than the CGA version of the game. He’s run into an array of problems, many of which stem from the fact that, as well as a digital download of the game, he plans to sell Planet X3 on both 720K (3.5 inch) and 360K (5.25 inch) floppy disks, on which space is very restricted. “If I didn’t have the help of Jim Leonard coaching me I probably wouldn’t have figured out how to do half the things I need to do.” With a lack of a community of developers to reach out to, Murray relies on coaching from Jim Leonard, a well-known coder of games for old systems. This is his first time programming for MS-DOS, and it’s “really, really difficult” at times. But that doesn’t mean it’s been an easy ride. It’s working well: he’s about 75 percent complete with the game. He then opens the final version in an emulator to test it, and frequently copies it over to a floppy disk to run it on his Tandy 1000 MS-DOS computer. But he’s following roughly the same process as he did for Planet X2-he writes the code in Notepad and then uses a compiler called A86 to convert the code into something that can run on MS-DOS. ![]() Murray says he can’t say how different the process is from making games for modern systems because he’s never developed for them. But what are the challenges that come with developing for near 40-year-old systems? Learning a lost art Clearly, certain players are hungry for games that run on older hardware. Now, he’s already pre-sold 2,000 copies of Planet X3 through Kickstarter. Murray self-funded Planet X2 and wound up selling nearly 800 copies of that game, beating his initial order of 500 copies. It’s the sequel to Planet X2, which Murray released last year for the Commodore 64, the 8-bit home computer released in 1982. Murray is not in the same boat as most developers: Planet X3 is a strategy game designed for MS-DOS, the operating system that came out in 1981. “You Google, it will pull up some forum that will say ‘here’s how you do that, check this link’. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |