For sentimental reasons, I recently bought a ZX Spectrum from a dear colleague, but what to do with it? I could play games from my childhood, but why not make my own?! The Speccy, after all, was what created a generation of bedroom coders. Because of the 8-bit hardware limitations, this would be an excellent opportunity to flex my programming muscle, something I do not get to do all that often.
This post will be the first of many, where I will try to make a game for the ZX Spectrum. Here is what I have planed I will be covering:
- Part 1. My Development Setup
- Part 2. Prototyping in Sinclair BASIC
- Part 3. Cross-Compiling using ZXBASIC
- Part 4. Graphics
- Part 5. Running the Game on actual Hardware
It would also be fun to do a loading screen, make some SFX, and support joystick input as well, but let’s see how far I get.
The Game
I was inspired to do this project after watching a talk by Josh Deprez, where he created a game for a Macintosh Plus, so it makes only perfect sense that I make a ZX Spectrum port of that game (with Josh’s permission of course).
The objective of the game is simple. You play as Awakeman. Awakeman can pick up limes that are scattered around the screen. For each lime you pick up, you earn a point. Simple, right?
Although the game is simple, it is perfect for demonstrating how to make a game for the ZX Spectrum, and there are lots of opportunities to extend the gameplay even further if needed.
Stay Tuned
For the upcoming weeks, I will be sharing my progress getting from zero to a fully functional game running on my ZX Spectrum, so stay tuned.