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Disthron
Account closed
Registered: Sep 2013
Posts: 21 |
Looking for C64 programmer [paid]
Hi everyone,
I've been developing a retro throw back game for the PC in the style of the Commodore 64. I'm working on a Kickstarter project to get it finished and I was thinking of having an actual Commodore 64 port as one of the stretch goals.
No one on the team has any live C64 programming experience so I'm putting the call out to people who might be interested in working with us. The artwork will have to be converted. Our artists try to stay as faithful to C64 specs as possible but little things can still slip through the cracks. Also you'll basically be on your own programming wise. If you're interested in the project please send me a PM and we can talk more about specifics.
Since this will be a stretch goal I can't guarantee this will go ahead even if we get funded. But I need to talk to someone in order to know how much it will cost, and thus how much to ask for in the stretch goal.
Thanks for reading my post.
~Disthron |
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CreaMD
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 3057 |
That retro 64 screenshot has hires gfx (1x1pixel). I would be glad to see such GFX on c64 but it's more likely that it would look like this on Amiga. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2980 |
Quoting DisthronAnd I've always been a fan of the pixel art aesthetic. I see. But keep in mind that making a game on an actual 8-bit platform gives you all the restrictions that were one of the main reasons for the "pixel art aesthetic" in the first place. A lot of design decisions are actually based on circumventing this or that shortcoming of the machine, also limiting the artist's degrees of freedom, but enabling creative solutions for these limitation problems.
Quoting DisthronUnfortunately the artwork would need a lot of converting and apparently the coding would be a LOT more involved than I'd initially thought. There's a lot more than coding to be done when making a good port. The converted graphics will need a graphics artist's manual touches to shine, and the music and sound effects should be made by a SID expert as well.
However, the coding part can be simplified by sharing as much code as possible among both the original PC and the C-64 ports. If the PC version is written in C, consider using a C compiler like cc65 to compile the C-64 port, and gradually replace the original C code, especially inner loops and hardware abstraction layer implementations, with hand-crafted assembly code until your performance criteria are met.
If the game's code structure is good enough from a cross-platform perspective, creating the C-64 port could be some kind of "fill in the gaps" and "optimise this" or "beautify that" problem.
This approach would likely have implications for the original PC game code, meaning compromises or simplifications will feed back into the PC code (re: amount of enemies on screen), with the aim of having both ports be as close as possible to each other.
As mentioned before, developing the game for a cartridge (=EasyFlash) would enable many things otherwise impossible, such as great amounts of animation and plenty of memory usable for unrolled loops to achieve high performance. See Prince of Persia 1.1 which is a fine example for that. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2980 |
Thinking further about it, a cross-platform approach would have to put emphasis on the C-64 port. That also means that anything that looks and feels good on an actual C-64 should also be good enough for the PC version. Graphics manually retouched for the C-64 port could replace the original PC graphics. That requires good CRT emulation, but i see you have already started on that. Code engineered and optimized for the C-64 could also be wrapped with a thin emulation layer on the PC port, for better sharing of code. |
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Disthron
Account closed
Registered: Sep 2013
Posts: 21 |
Quoting KrillI see. But keep in mind that making a game on an actual 8-bit platform gives you all the restrictions that were one of the main reasons for the "pixel art aesthetic" in the first place.
I know, I had similar issues. Though my limitations were trying to fit my game into a tiny budget rather than a tiny amount of ram. ^_^
The game isn't being written in C. It's being written in Fusion 2.5, and won't be able to share any of the code with any port that isn't also made in Fusion 2.5.
It might be able to use the scripts from the dialog system I'm developing, but even that might not be efficient enough for the C64. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2980 |
Without much re-usable code, a C-64 port would require a complete re-implementation of the game's logic and not just a few low-level low-end hardware front-ends.
This pushes it even further into the ambitious realm.
I'm pretty positive a script interpreter for dialog handling is well within the C-64's capabilities, though. |
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PopMilo
Registered: Mar 2004
Posts: 146 |
Thanks Disthron for those links!
Wastland looks great in that retro pixel style with C64 palette.
I wonder if such colorfull picture could fit into bitmap multicolor mode ? |
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PopMilo
Registered: Mar 2004
Posts: 146 |
Quoting PopMiloThanks Disthron for those links!
Wastland looks great in that retro pixel style with C64 palette.
I wonder if such colorfull picture could fit into bitmap multicolor mode ?
Used tool at: http://c64.superdefault.com
And got this:
As always, a lot is possible on c64, just a matter of time ;) |
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Disthron
Account closed
Registered: Sep 2013
Posts: 21 |
Hay everyone, a couple of people have volunteered to work on a C64 port of Edelin Tales on there own time. I made a video of a map test that they did. Check it out on my Youtube channel.
https://youtu.be/eAAD2DIv8b4 |
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Hein
Registered: Apr 2004
Posts: 954 |
Is that bitmap graphics instead of character mode? That'd rule out some programmers posting on this thread. Still, a mystery programmer who needs love, that could be anybody. :)
Nevertheless good work, whoever did it. |
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PopMilo
Registered: Mar 2004
Posts: 146 |
Cool!
Gotta start somewhere :) |
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