Boulder VIC

Description

This game is a Boulder Dash like game for the Commodore VIC-computer. I developped it as an exercice of C programming for old computers.

It does include:

• Not one, not three, but TWO (2) levels
• Colors (multiple !!)
• Sound
• Keyboard gameplay
  • X, C, V and D keys to move
  • R key to restart a level
• Basic gravity management (rocks and diamonds can fall, don't stay below)

It does not include:

• Crysis like graphics
• Possibility to push rocks
• Multi-screen levels

Requirements

A Vic-20 with 3 kB RAM expansion (no less, no more)

How to build

• Install Visual Code Studio + VS64 extension
• Install LLVM-MOS-SDK - tested with version 22.3.0
• Update llvmPath setting from .vscode/c_cpp_properties.json as needed
• (Optionnal) Install [VICE emulator] (https://vice-emu.sourceforge.io/), and set it's setting as needed. You may want to setup its drive to Virtual device with type Host file system and set the host directory to the disk file in this this repository

Charset

This game use a user defined charset with the needed characters for the game. This charset is build using:

• resources/gencharset.sh script, which takes all text files (except for template.txt) from resources/chars directory, and convert if to a binary file named resources/charset.bin. An empty template file is provided, and may be used to create new characters. Files MUST be named char-id_anything-you-want.txt (with char-id between 0 and 63).
• If you change the charset, you may modify src/include/graphics.h header file (CHARSET_SIZE value and Charset new characters section).
• The file resources/charset.bin is then copied to the disk directory of the repository

Levels

You may add new levels using:

• resources/genlevels.sh script, which takes all text files from resources/levels directory, and convert them to a binary file named resources/level_<number>.bin. Files MUST be named level_<number>.txt.
• If you add or remove levels, you may modify src/include/gameplay.h header file (MAX_LEVEL value).
• The files resources/level_<number>.bin are then copied to the disk directory of the repository

A special resources/levels/title.txt (and resources/title.bin) file is dedicated to the title screen, and is included in the above process.

Trivia

• There is no usage of printf and sprintf functions as they are too costly (about 3kB added when used with strings).

• The memory map is described below (with 3 kB expansion)

  • 0x0401 : Start of user RAM
  • 0x1DC8 : Start of user RAM reserved for custom charset
  • 0x1DFF : End of user RAM

• User RAM size is 6655 bytes

• Max program RAM size is 6599 bytes

• Custom charset size is 56 bytes (7 characters, 8 bytes each)

See on Youtube

Media