Yeah, compiled graphics and compiled colour tables, also, a routine that could self-modify code in regions of RAM to do the colour table writes. A slow set-up function at level start would build the code to be JSR'd later in the level. We did that on a few games on the C64 and the Speccy and Beeb and Atari. Later used the same techniques in DOS on PC. And of course, doing the same tricks but with D0 through D7 and A0 through A6 on Atari ST and Amiga. Also doing "stuff" in zero page because the address loads were shorter. And avoiding 256-byte page boundaries where possible because of the cycle penalty.
> A slow set-up function at level start would build the code
Interesting, and good thinking :)
IIRC, when we used this technique on the C64, we didn't build the code during init at runtime, we actually built the code in the dev environment, using macros, so it got built at assembly/compile time. So we skipped the small time hit at runtime init, at the expense of a slightly longer load time for the user (and a tiny bit longer on our assembly/compile times, although that was fairly negligible cos we were building on PCs).
Yeah, we did macro builds in the development environment too, but I also had access to doing some nifty and complex macro and pre-compiled graphics code by making use of BBC BASIC to do the manipulations. Like if you were doing soft sprites, pre-compiled functions to auto-shift the sprites on the X axis without having to do any kind of ROL/ROR and handling carry bits. One of my colleagues wrote really nice set of functions where you could specify that "this sprite should have eight shifts created during setup, go create the necessary loops, toot-sweet!" or "this fast moving bullet sprite can only appear on four pixel boundaries, only needs two shifts, and can be pre-compiled at build time."
There were other functions that we all contributed to for doing horizontal and vertical flips and arbitrary rotations and a ton of stuff for collision detection boxes and bind points for weapon pickups and emission points for bullets being launched, muzzle flash, or shell casings ejected from the weapon. Tons of what was effectively dynamic macro code where you just set up a table of stuff you wanted included, and some data about how certain sprites should be handled.
My development environment was a BBC Micro Model B with a macro assembler and double-sided/double-density dual 400KB floppy drives attached - 800KB of storage, which let me assemble the code from multiple pieces. Later I had a 20MB HDD. The BBC Micro could squirt the code over to the C64 via the Beeb's 1MHz Tube IO bus straight in to the C64's cartridge port. Instant load on the C64 effectively. Also had the same setup for the ZX Spectrum, though when I worked at a different company, we used RML 380Z machines IIRC, and everything ran over a shared network.
Nice tricks! I never did much with soft-sprites on any platform really.
One C64 game I worked upon did a bunch of interesting similar kinds of tricks — flips in both axis, plus the stored graphics only used a partial area of the h/w sprite, so I could pack the graphics in advance, and copy them out every frame at runtime — but only for the main character sprite.
My first 'proper' C64 dev environment was actually a BBC B, as I mentioned in another reply — almost identical setup to yours, but without the hard disk. A much better setup than just working on a single machine! After that, we used PCs with PDS cards.
Oddly enough Andy Glaister, creator of the PDS cards, and I, (Andy is two months younger than me) have very similar early careers of creating video games, heading in to local computer shops and buying C15 tapes, then duplicating them, photocopying the labels, and collecting some nice royalties for an 11-yr old. We had never met up until we both independently moved to the US and our paths crossed for a short time (Activision, other companies). Life is weird.
I'll go hunt for your other comments down thread, seems you and I also share some disconnected history of developing games.
I did a brief stint at Software Studios / Electric Dreams (in Southampton) — who were owned by Activision — in the late 80s. And then I did some work (via Images Software) for Activision (in Reading), a little later in the 80s. Briefly met quite a lot of well-known (better known than I, anyhow) devs during that time.
I think I recall meeting Andy Glaister at some point (though not at Activision), but I might be wrong: his name was often mentioned in our office because we (Images s/w) were dealing with PDS quite a lot. But if I did meet him, it was only very briefly, and he likely wouldn't remember me. Him and our boss (Karl Jefferies) seemed to have quite a few meetings.
I think the early / home computer games dev world was actually kinda quite small (in the UK), well, fairly tightly networked — lots of folk knew one another, or were just a couple of friend-network links away. It seemed quite commonplace to meet other devs, usually during what is now called 'crunch time' towards the end of a project, in the publisher's office. I still have memories of sleeping under various desks, in various offices, on various projects.
