New adventure game project

[djangojames]

Hello, over the next few weeks I will be blogging about creating a 6502 adventure game (ostensibly targetting C64 hardware, but not specifically) with a view to entering the Interactive Fiction competition in September. This is part of a wider experiment in meta-programming and ad-hoc program assembly.

So far I have built a 6502 assembler and monitor in LISP, and am currently working on text rendering and image compression. I will be posting about 6502 and programming topics in general so if you are into the nitty-gritty of practical programming you may be interested. Source dumps and strong opinions will be included.

I have been using the excellent resources at 6502.org as I have been going along and am now getting a feel for how things are done with the chip. My only experience with 8-bit processors was with Z80 in the 80s, a most unpleasant experience, whereas the 6502 has a certain aesthetic pleasingness about its instruction set.

Any and all criticism is welcome.

https://github.com/djangojames/explorat ... er/blog.md and
https://github.com/djangojames/explorat ... /README.md.

Here is a screenshot of some variable width and justified text...

6502.org wrote:

Image no longer available: https://github.com/djangojames/exploratory/blob/master/blog/muse.png?raw=true

[commodorejohn]

That font looks fancy and all, but the inconsistent vertical alignment makes it look like the lines of text are wobbling all over the place and makes it harder to read. I'd see about using a character set that's a little more consistent, even if it's not quite as pretty.

[BigEd]

Wibbly-wobbly text looks old-fashioned- might be appropriate! Welcome to the forum djangojames!

[White Flame]

You had me at Lisp!

[BigDumbDinosaur]

commodorejohn wrote:

That font looks fancy and all, but the inconsistent vertical alignment makes it look like the lines of text are wobbling all over the place and makes it harder to read. I'd see about using a character set that's a little more consistent, even if it's not quite as pretty.

The apparent vertical alignment issue is due to the chosen font. The character baseline appears to be in the center, not at the bottom as is customary in typesetting. Also, characters with descenders are elevated relative to the baseline. All-in-all, that gives the impression of misalignment.

Being "visually challenged." I also find the text somewhat difficult to read.

[djangojames]

Thangs Big Ed for the welcome and to everyone else for their replies. I will no doubt be tapping people for their knowledge, especially any C64 lurkers with specific knowledge of VIC-II.

Yes, the wobbly font. It's going to be polarising all right. I kind of like it, but I agree that it might be just a bit too jaunty. One of the programming principles I am following is YAGNI- "You aint gonna need it" so I have to be strong and move on to the next thing when something is "good enough" so I will be looking at images next. Hopefully I will have time to revisit the fonts and tweak them to address readability concerns.

I will say this- 6502 is definitely fun. A lot more fun than C# for business.

[Dr Jefyll]

djangojames wrote:

I will say this- 6502 is definitely fun. A lot more fun than C# for business.

I think it's safe to predict unanimous support for that outlook!

I'm surprised that opinions are polarized about the font, though. I liked it a lot -- was immediately charmed by it. (But the screenshot you posted is no longer visible -- not sure what happened there... )

-- Jeff

[barrym95838]

Dr Jefyll wrote:

... (But the screenshot you posted is no longer visible -- not sure what happened there... )

-- Jeff

It still shows up fine over here, doc. Maybe the problem is at your end?

Mike B.

[commodorejohn]

Dr Jefyll wrote:

I'm surprised that opinions are polarized about the font, though. I liked it a lot -- was immediately charmed by it.

Oh, it's a pretty font. It's just the inconsistent vertical alignment of different characters that makes it hard to read.

[BigDumbDinosaur]

barrym95838 wrote:

Dr Jefyll wrote:

... (But the screenshot you posted is no longer visible -- not sure what happened there... )

It still shows up fine over here, doc. Maybe the problem is at your end?

It is visible here as well. Maybe the tin cans and string that connect Jeff to the Internet broke.

[Dr Jefyll]

There may be some tin cans and string within my own premises. But -- interestingly, for a city of its size -- Stratford itself is a leader in technology. A quick web search with the terms Stratford and "smart city" reveals results like this article (excerpt follows).

Quote:

Pull up your socks and look smart, Toronto. One of the judges of urban intellect — from the New York-based think tank Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) — is heading to Canada’s largest city next week and will be touring key sites here.

In June the ICF will be picking the world’s most intelligent community from a list of seven smart cities — which includes Stratford, Ont. (our only Canadian rival); Columbus, Ohio; Taichung City, Taiwan; Taoyuan County, Taiwan; Oulu, Finland and Tallinn, Estonia.

The top seven came from a whittling down of the top 21, announced last fall. A total of 400 international cities had entered the competition.

[djangojames]

I was going to upload a new screen shot with the other two fonts, a gothic, medievally one and a futuristic one, however my Ubuntu laptop has decided to die with all the work I did. What is the MTTF for an SSD? It was about four years old...

I had the colour attributes working, with the C64 palette from this link,

http://unusedino.de/ec64/technical/misc/vic656x/colors/

they seem far more convincing than the ones at the C64 wiki which appear to me to be extremely saturated.

More updates tomorrow if and only if I can get it up and running.

Here's an older test screen-shot. Don't mind the unusual combination of letters, I was experimenting with kerning.

6502.org wrote:

Image no longer available: https://github.com/djangojames/exploratory/raw/master/blog/kerning.png

[GARTHWILSON]

djangojames wrote:

What is the MTTF for an SSD? It was about four years old...

I've seen a lot of first-hand reports on the forums of SSDs not lasting very long. I'm not ready to depend on one until the durability is improved. For now, we do have quite a system of daily automatic backups here at home (to mechanical hard discs), thanks to our son's server in the garage. It also has its own backups. It's just better to not need to go through the process of restoring everything though.

[BigDumbDinosaur]

Dr Jefyll wrote:

There may be some tin cans and string within my own premises. But -- interestingly, for a city of its size -- Stratford itself is a leader in technology.

Wikipedia says:

Quote:

Stratford is among the best places to retire in Ontario, according to Comfort Life, a publication for seniors.

I wonder how that was determined. Me, I'd look at Gananoque. Very picturesque and I have sentimental ties to the place, plus the Canadian National's double-tracked mainline is nearby. However, Stratford celebrates the Immortal Bard with lots of events amd has a very lively music scene. So it might be a tough choice.

[GARTHWILSON]

Dr Jefyll wrote:

There may be some tin cans and string within my own premises.

Now, how's your modem?