In the past, I\u2019ve made a few arcade ROM hacks, new Z80\/Pac-Man hardware ROM code, as well as writing some tools that quite a few people have used over the past 15 years or so (AGE and Turaco). Being that this next LD is notable as being the 10th, I figured I\u2019d celebrate by attempting to do an LD entry that is \u201cretro\u201d to the fullest extent that I can think of. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to do a 16kbyte \u201cMs Pac-Man Bootleg\u201d (mspacmab) romset entry. I will provide an emulator so that you can play it in a web browser (or at least via Java) or you can drop the romset into your MAME emulator port of choice to try it out. (Note: This means I\u2019m targetting that cpu (Z80) Memory Map (Pac-Man Arcade Hardware), Color PROM (MsPac-Man), etc. You will be able to burn the roms, and drop them onto real hardware to play this!)<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll be using my z80 kernel (some routines to simplify screen drawing, handling a coindrop menu, that kind of thing) which is available on google code here: http:\/\/code.google.com\/p\/bleu-romtools\/ . (Also there are the graphics tools mentioned before (Turaco), as well as a slightly modified Z80 assembler, adding some things that simplify use in a constrained ROM memory map) <\/p>\n
It should be pretty fun and very challenging! I invite any of you as insane as I am to pick your retro platform of choice (Commodore 64? PET? Amstrad? Sinclair? Atari 8-bit? Amiga?) and go for it for this one along with me!<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t really been in a Z80 headspace in a couple years now, I\u2019ll be starting this on the end of a work business trip ,coding in a hotel and airplane, then working on it while helping care for a toddler, and that the tools aren\u2019t as advanced as for other platforms\u2026<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure my entry and effort will go down in a blaze of failure, due to so many things being against me on this, but I\u2019m going to give it a try anyway. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n
Tags: ld23<\/a>, pacman<\/a>, retro<\/a>, z80<\/a><\/p>","time":"March 31st, 2012 7:37 pm","title":"LD Retro","title_was_empty":false}