Pre Post Mortem on Current/Last Project

[+Gemintronic]

Post Mortem Quick Thoughts

I'm close enough to declare most of the actual coding is done.  So, I thought I'd share some observations and/or discoveries.  This is not a call to code like I do.  Just some ramblings that may or may not be useful.

 

SUPERJUMPS
Towards the middle of development I started having resets when gosub'ing between banks.  Mitigating multi bank gosub use didn't completely solve the issue.  Instead, I set a "superjump" variable that would trigger an ON .. GOTO statement in the main game loop.  Basically, a proto gosub.  When I get to the multi kernel framework I suspect this will be even more useful.

 

NYBBLES
Using nybble macros and defines saved me MANY, many variables.   Did not seem to eat as many CPU cycles as I feared.  Even the sound system (which is called every main game loop) was fine with nybbles.

 

DUAL NTSC / PAL60
Using a simple left / right choice with clever colors mitigated the lack of NTSC/PAL autodetect.  Having sets of constants for NTSC and PAL colors wasn't painful due to changing primary sprite colors as little as possible.

 

DUAL TITLE SCREEN KERNELS
Using both atari-background-builder and RevEngs title screen kernel was a lifesaver.  I could stack parts of RevEngs work for a password screen and use atari-background-builder for the displayed title screen.  I fit the two kernels where I could in the most free banks.

 

MODDING MINI KERNELS
I hacked at the 4 scores mini kernel until I got 2 large icons.  Also, mini kernels usually have some variable use that can be replaced by constants (such as score color).  Removing the 6 digit score also freed up some much needed variables.

 

BOOLEAN VARS
Another must use are boolean values.  This is the only way I could store all the players stored items, mode and game variant in 6 characters.  There are various advanced things you can do once you understand what works and doesn't.

 

DISCIPLINE WITH BANK 8
I try to put the bare minimum needed to call sprites and playfields here.  Usually using a more code intensive setup routine for a sprite or playfield that calls the stripped down asset loading label in bank 8.

 

CONSTANTS

Having constants like CONST _testing = 1 was a time saver and led to less unexpected code cleanup when inserting test only code.  Just make sure to avoid naming collisions between labels, variables and defines.

 

INFORMAL GAME DESIGN DOC
I went through 7 major revisions of an informal game design doc.  Writing down a proto manual and developer detailed rundown of bank usage and game internals.  In the end the actual game manual was already written.