C64 Blood Money

6 months ago

The author recalls porting 'Blood Money' to the C64, highlighting both enjoyable and cringe-worthy aspects.
Key components of the game included multi-directional scrolling, sprite multiplexor, scripting, sprite compression, turrets, character sprites, bullets/weapons, collision, shop, and front end.
The development used PDS (Programmers Development System), which included a PC ISA card and a C64 cartridge, offering a significant speed boost over traditional methods.
PDS featured a built-in text editor/assembler/debugger, capable of handling multiple files and assembling quickly.
The development timeline for 'Blood Money' was approximately 6 months, starting around October 1989 and ending in April 1990.
The game utilized zero page memory for optimizations, with specific constants and variables defined for memory management and collision detection.
Collision detection in 'Blood Money' was bitmap-based, allowing for precise interaction with the background, crucial for later levels.
The game supported simultaneous two-player mode, which impacted the sprite multiplexor design.
Initial setup involved taking over system resources, disabling ROMs, and configuring IRQs, with complex IRQ handling tied to the sprite multiplexor.

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