★ AMSTRAD CPC ★ Shahid Ahmad's: Chimera Diary ★ |
| Shahid Ahmad | Games - Auteurs |
This is a story of torture, sleepless nights, self-denial and devotion to duty. In other words, the every day life of a computer programmer. THE TASK This entire masochistic campaign started when I boldly claimed that I could get a conversion up and running on the Amstrad within a week. DAY ZERO - TUESDAY And so started the first day of my week of self-inflicted torture at 10.00 am, when most human beings are already hard at work. The Amstrad has been on all this time and not a single crash or disk error, and no overheating! I am pleased so far with my performance, and thanks to Phil Collins and U2 for getting me through the first day with my sanity (and my disks!) intact. DAY ONE - WEDNESDAY What is it that makes someone get up at 10.23 in the morning with a craving not for breakfast , but for a Joe Hubbard album ? I won t keep you guessing, it is programming games! Even when you are doing a conversion, a bit of inspiration always helps, and mine is fuelled by listening to good bass playing, and occasionally playing bass myself, despite the fact that the awful! Well I had a bit left over from yesterday, and I typed in the last/remains of it and test assembled it. DAY FOUR - SATURDAY The day started at noon for me today, and I realised a drastic time plan change had to be made. I would probably spend the whole day debugging D.P.A. and the mainline routines and the adventure handler would have to wait until Sunday or Monday. A good thinking session was in order, so I plugged my bass through my compressor, turned my amp right up to full volume and hod a thoughtful two hour break! Fully refreshed. I tackled the problem with renewed vigour and in view of the ever looming deadline. I decided to take a logical approach. The best way to cope with this situation was to (you guessed right!) put the Joe Hubbard album on the turn* table, get a printer listing and go through it looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.
DAY FIVE - SUNDAY I woke up at the crack of noon today, and I'm one of those people who is usually a bear in the mornings. Well today I was a mouse, and I was frightened to death of how much time I had before my head was to be placed on the block. Well, it wasn't quite that serious, but trying to get a good machine language game running on a computer which you've never seen before in your life within the space of a week is no mean feat, and takes a lot of hard work, determination and self-control. In fact. I took core of most of my debugging today! The screen looks good, and I've been moving the man around, and seeing some background animation. but I still haven't written the adventure handler! DAY SIX - MONDAY Well today is the last day - or is it? You will by now, fully appreciate that there are seven days in a week, assuming that you count from one. At last, I had written the adventure handler, and at the end of the day, I had a version of Chimera that could be played, completed and even enjoyed. The only thing that I have leapt over is some sound and a title page, but these ore trivial tasks that do not even need a thought, except, perhaps, in their presentation. If I have to dedicate this game to anyone, then surely, the honours must go to Joe Hubbard, who else? This is a truly knackered signing off. CONCLUSION - TUESDAY to THURSDAY One can draw a few useful points from this exercise. The first point is that it is quite possible to write a very good game in a week, as I have proved. It helps a great deal to have a good system to work on. I used the Amstrad CPC6128 system with colour monitor and the Hisoft Devpac 80 macro assembler, both products for which I can honestly say that it has been a pleasure to use them. I am now a convert to small disks, but I feel Amstrad should have chosen the more sensible (and popular) 3"½ inch format. Remember, write with clarity in mind. If your code is not clear you won't understand it when you're trying to debug It! Optimise it for speed afterwards, and only if it is necessary. Do not become a "speed junkie." It is not a prerequisite for games programming.
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