Creating a game from scratch can be hard work. There are concepts to be designed, coding to be done, and art to be created to make it all happen. However, it doesn’t always have to be quite so difficult. There are a variety of development tools that allow budding game designers to get started with a point-and-click approach. [Jonathan Cauldwell] has come up with just such a tool that lets you do just that, for a variety of 8-bit platforms.
[Jonathan]’s project is called the Multi Platform Arcade Game Designer, so named for its ability to create games for several 8-bit systems of yesteryear. Currently, the Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, and Acorn Atom are all supported, with plans to add more down the track.
Creating a game is a simple affair, which [Jonathan] explores in a video tutorial series. Sprite and background editors are built into the software. Scripts can be automatically generated to create a wide variety of basic game types, from scrolling shoot-em-ups to classic platformers. There’s also functionality that allows advanced users to add further functionality by supplying some of their own code.
If point-and-click isn’t for you, you can always forge your ZX Spectrum games the classic way, with assembly and BASIC. Video after the break.
Please also add the VZ / Laser.
I used to have a “compiler” called “White Lightning” intended as a game designer for the Spectrum. You assembled a game using predefined sprite handlers etc, all coded in FORTH. All natively on the Spectrum. Naturally there was no GUI.
It turns out that FORTH isn’t at all a bad way to assemble games. I quite enjoyed it, but never produced anything commercially viable with it (I did write a few commercial games in BASIC and machine code.)
As for this tool, surely the obvious platform to add would be MSX?
More on White Lightning: http://www.forth.org/lightning.html
(It did have a sprite editor programme, I had forgotten that)
+1 for the obvious platform to add would be MSX.
why gcc not create zx81 binary?
Is ther anything like this for NES?
Have you encountered NESmaker?
It is quite beneficial, although think about the facts when it reaches this target. tamildhool app