There's a certain charm to multi-color VIC-20 graphics. Plus, I get to create images in 16 colors (using the lesser-known auxiliary nibble at 36878).
Code: Select all
GREENSLIME_GR:
.byte 0,3,15,14,62,250,250,250,192,192,179,255,255,253,245,245,0,192,240,252,
255,127,95,95,15,63,255,255,247,213,85,85,192,240,192,0,192,240,252,124,
250,58,62,15
.byte 15,3,15,62,253,255,191,175,175,175,175,191,127,255,255,255,253,245,253,
255,213,245,255,255,255,127,255,255,124,252,252,240,240,252,252,252,62,62,14,
15,3,0,0,0
.byte 191,191,191,175,235,234,250,250,255,255,215,215,255,255,191,191,253,245,
245,253,255,255,255,255,252,112,112,252,255,255,255,252,3,15,15,15,62,254,
255,255,250
.byte 250,234,170,171,175,170,170,191,189,189,255,255,255,255,171,95,87,87,95,255,
255,255,253,252,240,192,240,252,252,252,127,63,3,3,3,15,15,3,0,234,235,175,
175,255
.byte 252,240,0,170,250,254,63,15,15,3,0,253,191,175,171,234,255,255,63,127,255,
252,128,176,240,192,0
.byte 13*16+15 ; aux color LIGHT GREEN + 15
.byte 13 ; char color GREEN + 8
I will make 40 images (32 for monsters and 8 for "in-context" situations such as being at the adventurer's inn, encampment, talking to a barkeep, etc) in total. They will occupy memory locations A000-BFFF (the start of this will be to boot the cartridge and then jump back to $2000 where the main program resides).
Each image will be 20x40 (200 bytes) multicolor, though I may make some of them "hi-res" single color. The last 2 bytes represent color information such as the auxiliary color (I add +15 to it because it is at memory location 36878--same as the volume) and character color. The background color (black) and border color (yellow) are fixed so I can't set these for individual images.
So with color information, each image is 202 bytes. I thought about using 226 bytes for each image--as in giving each 4x8 character it's own character color but I couldn't locate a program to let me do this. And besides, I don't think I really need to go that deep into detail.
So far, I've had a lot of fun programming this game and reading everyone's responses but just thinking about the scope of it and I imagine it could take me 12-18 months to finish it. I'm trying not to think about extras (such as animated introduction screens, etc) to polish it off--this stuff will be saved for the end. I'm only doing the graphics now because I want to be able to "see" the game as I'm programming it. There will be music as well, but this can be done later.
