XT-Engine: small, but powerful platform game engine in asm

[Ralf]

As long as you are having fun with it, it's okay.

My experience is that guys who mess too much with tools never deliver the final product.

I remember a guy who wrote a code on some archaic assembler from 1980s running on Pc running Dos and
connected to a real Spectrum for testing.
And I remember a guy who wrote assembler by poking directly opcodes into memory.
And I remember guys insisting that code for Spectrum should be written on real Spectrum.
They never finished anything.

But it's your free time. Spend it the way you like it.

[ketmar]

My experience is that guys who mess too much with tools never deliver the final product.

tbh, i am not holding high hopes on finishing "The Development Studio" myself too. ;-)

the problem is that i will definitely NOT finish it using other languages. i tried two times already. both attempts failed. this is my third attempt; this time i'm trying to make the process itself fun enough, so i won't drop it again.

[Wall_Axe]

Are you thinking of making a text editor,gfx editor etc. or a bunch of command line tools?

[ketmar]

Are you thinking of making a text editor,gfx editor etc. or a bunch of command line tools?

both. i already have prototype CLI tools working, but creating rooms in ASCII form, for example, is not fun. it's not hard too, yet i see no reason to not make graphical tools.

it won't be in the first version, but for version 2 i am planning to create "live game preview" too. i.e. if you will write your game in built-in AGD-like language, you prolly will be able to test it without compiling and running in emulator. it won't be 1:1 correspondence to real (or emulated) ZX, but enough to playtest algorithms and such.

my project plan is quite huge, i have at least 3 versions already planned. first is MVP with basics done, and then gradual improvements.

p.s.: of course, there is always a chance to have only UrForth and nothing more. but let's hope for the best. ;-)

[ketmar]

everything went wrong and totally off-rails, of course. so, here it its: UrForth/Beast — self-hosting x86 GNU/Linux (windoze version is planned too) Direct Threaded Forth System!

"self-hosting" means that The Beast can rebuild itself without requiring any external tools, and it does it in ~60 msecs (contrary to ~20 seconds for UrForth/C). of course, it is smaller and faster than /C too.

x86 assembler and disassembler included. batteries NOT included. all "Forth standards" happily ignored.