"I could use C, Pascal, or Assembler." Me: "I'd go with C, but this guy seems like the type to choose Assembler." "I didn't know Assembler for 8086, but I endeavored to learn." I KNEW IT! :D

@madcorndog

4 жыл бұрын

I would choose c too. I used to know pascal, but I forgot ):

@blackcathardware6238

4 жыл бұрын

I'd chosen Turbo C or Turbo Pascal as that segmentation on 8086 is really awful. And both Borland compilers really create nice machine code anyway.

@classicnosh

3 жыл бұрын

@@blackcathardware6238 - That brings back memories. Turbo C++ and Microsoft Quick C were my favorite. Sadly, I didn't start using Turbo Pascal until version 6.

@benz0rx86

3 жыл бұрын

@@classicnosh I never knew there was a QuickC - you've blown my mind!

@classicnosh

3 жыл бұрын

@@benz0rx86 - Oh, yes. If you have an MS-DOS, FreeDOS or even a DOSBOX machine. You can get it from WinWorldPC. It's like QuickBasic with the IDE, help files built-in and everything. It's actually fun to code with.

That french guy's cutscene art is friggin ridiculous. It nails that 80's sci fi aesthetic perfectly.

@FinalBaton

6 жыл бұрын

i know right? it's dynamite

I might have said it before but you are an unbelievably patient person.

Man, hiring that pixel artist makes for a tremendous difference! Looks gooorgeous. Also; That CGA composite mode! I am also amazed why not more people used it back then.

@ashkat64

6 жыл бұрын

I think his own graphics had a certain charm as well tho

@andersdenkend

6 жыл бұрын

Evan Verburg Definitely!

@tomwilson2112

6 жыл бұрын

That's because it's not available on anything but a few display cards, and it only works with a composite monitor. It worked on the PC Jr, for example, and (maybe) on the original IBM CGA card when plugged into a composite display, but once everyone went to RGB displays, that mode disappeared because it can't actually be displayed on an RGB monitor.

@andersdenkend

6 жыл бұрын

Tom Wilson Ooohhh, now that makes sense actually.

@KrzysiuNet

5 жыл бұрын

Actually 8 bit guy had a nice video about composite mode.

I'm blown away by the CGA composite mode.

@MultiMidden

6 жыл бұрын

Yeah it looks great but has one flaw, AFAIK it only looks that good on NTSC composite TVs or monitors... So wouldn't work correctly in most of the world outside the Americas where PAL or SECAM are used.

@BrendonGreenNZL

6 жыл бұрын

MultiMidden any TV made since the 90s should support all three video standards; regardless of where it was sold.

If it works on DOS, does that mean you can release it on Steam?

@williamv0242

3 жыл бұрын

🤔

@sameash3153

3 жыл бұрын

@DamnMerasmus blows marijuana smoke on your face vigorously

@checksum00

3 жыл бұрын

@DamnMerasmus He's telling you to chill the fuck out, get laid, do something. "His own website where he provides downloads" is not steam, and has nowhere close to the same exposure.

@squirlmy

3 жыл бұрын

@DamnMerasmus and I don't think we could but such awesome emojis on youtube two years ago, so there's that. And you didn't use a hip term like "necro-posting". If you want to complain about someone resurrecting a thread, you have to use a clever term! ;)

@taavi948

3 жыл бұрын

@DamnMerasmus Because he's a moron. What kind of a normal person would respond just 🤔

Writing x86 assembler in college [1984? 1985?] was one of the most miserable times of my life so kudos to you from having picked it up and made it work so quickly. Looking forward to part 2 and the Kickstarter!

I'm really digging those new sprites you commissioned. Such a "small" thing makes the game look so much more refined.

@FinalBaton

6 жыл бұрын

Agreed , makes a yuge upgrade to the look. Well worth it

There are only a few channels I like the video before watching and this is most definitely one of them. I always get excited when I get a notification for The 8 Bit Guy.

@carterodell1805

6 жыл бұрын

jerrywh3 same, this channel is my favorite!

@TheBossssssssssss

6 жыл бұрын

jerrywh3 What was the old name of his channel agin I forget iBook guy or I can’t remember?

@Celcius1

6 жыл бұрын

If I could spare more per month I would gladly give 8bit guy more money for more great content

@jerrywh3

6 жыл бұрын

Tay Tay yes it was iBook Guy.

@jerrywh3

6 жыл бұрын

Celcius1au when things get better for I, I will gladly support his channel monetarily. I’m glad people like you are able to give anything right now so I can enjoy such great content.

I haven't seen it commented on yet, but - wow - that's super fast work. I mean, since november you have two tools written and useful, and even a prototype of the graphics modes. Either you're super fast with this kind of programming, or you have way more free time than I do! Hats off to you! I guess my background isn't in micro programming, so some would think I work fast at what I do, but to me having these results that quickly is damn good...

@ripxkid

6 жыл бұрын

He is a workaholic nerd, probably sleeps just few hours a day xD

@rogerperkins

4 жыл бұрын

Does the game come with the map editor?

this is just so cool! really enjoying seeing an ms-dos game brought to life! the internet is just so amazing; so cool that you can collaborate from Texas with someone in France and put a video of it out still just blows my mind! looking forward to the future updates!

Always enjoy 8-bit guy videos, full respect for putting so much effort in to clearly explain your thinking and methodology in all of your projects

> first info on DOS port of planet x2. > Isn't called planet x86. I AM DISAPPOINT.

@jaekoff5050

6 жыл бұрын

is that greentext on youtube

@JoaoVitor-cw2vg

6 жыл бұрын

This should be the real name of the game

@kbhasi

6 жыл бұрын

"Planet x86" 😂 But in reality, he released "Planet X1" on Commodore VIC-20 (or 16, but I can't really remember), and later he released X2 on C64.

@Adolf1Extra

6 жыл бұрын

Jaekoff for someone wstching a guy's channel about retro stuff you sure are not familiar with mailing lists and qutoing are you?

@vectrex28

6 жыл бұрын

>using meme arrows on youtube

Oh boy! Can't wait to play it on my brand new 286 processor with 640k of ram and a cutting edge VGA graphics card!

@nisserot

6 жыл бұрын

Were you able to afford the 10MB hard drive upgrade? Or is it floppy only? ;)

@unanonymous4655

6 жыл бұрын

Oh yeah I got a sweet deal on the hard drive! It only cost a second mortgage and my firstborn son. I was totally stoked to get it.

@cpufreak101

6 жыл бұрын

speaking of which, I have an old machine I probably should get up and running, it is a very late DOS era machine though, it's from the later 90's using a Celeron and i think megabytes of Ram :/

@nicolasmartinez4337

6 жыл бұрын

UnAnonymous I love you

@unanonymous4655

6 жыл бұрын

Perfect Focus I love you too. ;)

Having played a lot of this kind of games I love the dedication you put to keeping alive the vibe that gave me so much joy. Plus learning a lot along the way. Love the channel. Great job!

The CGA pixel art is absolutely dynamite.

@iProgramInCpp

5 жыл бұрын

The VGA pixel art is absolute TNT.

@vittosphonecollection4134

4 жыл бұрын

No the GCA composite is TNT. The VGA is ATOMIC BOMB.

@niko5008

4 жыл бұрын

For me, the VGA is absolutely a DUKE NUKEM

@ThommyofThenn

4 жыл бұрын

Correct.

@jaxplaz1081

3 жыл бұрын

Yes it is

The red/green/yellow CGA palette is so much easier on the eyes than the white/magenta/cyan palette. Maybe I'm just partial to it because of the classic Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!, and Family Feud games from around 1987 that I played when I was a kid. They used the RGY palette (and J! actually used both, the RGY palette was used for the contestant podiums while the CMW palette was used for the main game board and clue text).

@BrendonGreenNZL

6 жыл бұрын

Andrew Long Green/Red/Yellow can be used to great effect; especially if low-intensity blue is programmed as the background/border colour.

@Grishanof

6 жыл бұрын

Double that. Magenta on the black background makes eyes hurt after a while, red and green are much softer in that regard.

Hope this will be on GOG in digital form.

@jackkraken3888

6 жыл бұрын

Great point, I'm sure lots of folks would support him there. This guy is awesome.

@bastscho

6 жыл бұрын

Yes please on Gog

@razmann4k

6 жыл бұрын

You can download it from the 8-Bit Guys website and use it on DOSBOX.

@thomasmuehlgrabner

6 жыл бұрын

Oh yes please put it on GOG :)

@wich1

6 жыл бұрын

Yes! Please try to put this on GOG.

I really enjoy not only the content and the production of your videos, but I really like the explanations and reasonings displayed. Great work! Thanks for producing these gems.

Probably one of my favorites of your videos. Thanks for doing such a deep dive into the process.

Please give us a choice to release this on low capacity USB or even download, not just on floppy. Main reason why people ask the game to be on MSDOS and VGA is because they only really need DOSBOX to run the game even on modern multicore computers. Only obstacle then is the media, which can be problematic when modern PC do not even get optical disc drives nowadays. I am afraid if you limit the media to floppy, that can eventually lead to piracy where people want to play it but can't due to media type which can lead to someone to rip the game and upload online... then the sales will go away. If you give us option to pay to download directly or release the game on USB drives, that will make most people enjoy your game without any obstacles.

@thetechconspiracy2

6 жыл бұрын

I think he gave a download version with the purchase of x2, and I would imagine he would do the same with x3

@The8BitGuy

6 жыл бұрын

The C64 version has always included a free digital download. The same will be true for the MS-DOS version. I fully expect 90% of users to be playing it in DOSBOX.

@AshtonSnapp

6 жыл бұрын

The 8-Bit Guy Count me in the DOSBox camp. I don’t own any retro computers.

@AntonioBarba_TheKaneB

6 жыл бұрын

I would try it on my Pentium machine a few times, but then I will mostly play on DOSBox

@jasonblalock4429

6 жыл бұрын

The 8-Bit Guy: To clarify, do you have any plans on selling a download-only version? 'Coz I don't even have a machine with a disk drive any more, so I wouldn't feel like I had any need for a boxed copy. This might also be a good excuse to get yourself an account on Itch.io or maybe even see if GOG is interested in it.

Wow David, you've been busy. Really digging the Composite CGA mode.

There is a beauty to the way assembler source code looks with its instruction, op1, op2 columns all neatly formatted. Good luck with this project, mate, I love all the choices you've made.

Fascinated to watch the rest of this series! And that 256 colour VGA art is beautiful. Kudos to the artist!

YES YES YES! I'll buy it when it comes out! I'm hyped for the progress updates!

Amazing, Dave. You're the man. Eternal admiration.

Thank you 8-Bit Guy for your videos. I was born in '89 so I missed a lot of early technology. My family's first PC was a Windows 95. But I got into Retro Gaming for a while when I was around 16 to 20 years old, so your videos are really great to watch and see the history of computing. Best of luck on your game.

It's great being able to see what's behind coding a game like this for so many older machines. Your videos are always very informative and engaging, thank you for the great content!

I have been waiting for a new video about this THANK YOU THANK YOU 8-bit guy!

When you make a kickstarter, can you add a tier for both the DOS copy and a Commodore 64 copy? Unfortunately I missed the c64 full box and I would like both sets. Can’t wait! :)

Part 1 already looks amazing. You have a really good work ethic, and it shows. You've already done a ton so far!!

Another great vid, its cool seeing the progress on the game. Looking forward to the Kickstarter!

ALREADY!?!? Wow! Nice

Man, that is some sweet CGA art.

I think I finally realized why I find your videos fascinating, 8-bit Guy:Let’s set aside computers, programming, 8-bit style games, building networks and even old keyboards. It’s the fact that you are so into your hobby, and you make these videos with such in-depth detail, but at the same time demonstrate it where a layman to all these things (such as myself) can kind of grasp - it’s seriously awesome.I admire anyone who does something just to do it - basically a really enjoyable hobby. I’ve been watching your videos lately and I notice the same thing among all of them - you’re so into what you do, and you want to share it with the world.Really though, it’s awesome. Thanks for the 2 hours or so of entertainment I’ve gained from watching your videos

that pixel art is incredible. great breakdown video. your passion for this is insane!

I really adore your intro jingle

That "size does matter" shirt cracks me up! The irony is strong. Go team tiny! Lol

Eventhough I didn't have any of the computers or play any of the games from the 70's/80', getting to see and learn about all this stuff through channels like yours is so cool. I absolutely love it. Seeing your process for making this particular game is really interesting stuff.

This channel just keeps getting better and better man.

had to go back and watch from 15:43. Was waiting to see cat's reaction to Tandy modes.

@maicod

6 жыл бұрын

cat doesn't give a ehm..... cat or was it something else ;-)

you didn't call it "planet x86", *WHY!?*

@serverdll

6 жыл бұрын

or planet x16

@ChrisPowa-

6 жыл бұрын

Holy fuck, this

@Beansman-gp3ws

5 жыл бұрын

Nintendo REALLY liked naming their games like that

@gunmatheretrogamer747j

5 жыл бұрын

Cause according to it's trailer,some space marines heading to a unknown planet code named planet x3

@brandontechnerd

5 жыл бұрын

@@Beansman-gp3ws Yes, because for the Nintendo 64 there was Super Mario 64, Excitebike 64, and more.

Looks great! I really love the story art! Very cool to see those artworks between different display modes. The concept of these videos is fun too, very interesting to follow the development of an "old" game. Keep up the effort

Amazing work on this, as well as on Planet X2. I love seeing how detail oriented you are, how much thought and careful consideration you're putting into the development of this game. Shame you weren't doing this 20-25 years ago - You would have make a massive impact on the DOS gaming market back then. Even now, I can see this came developing a hardcore following.

Love your opening music!!

@enzogamerukbr

4 жыл бұрын

Me too!

When you start to look for Beta testers I'd love to sign up. I finally purchased a working Tandy 1000HX with external 5.25 floppy drive. It does have the 640K ram upgrade and mouse. :-)

That single VGA screenshot sold me - I'm in!! Excellent work so far!!! Can't wait to fund this kickstarter!

@escher2112

6 жыл бұрын

Just want to add - you also just gave me a reason to finally build a vintage dos machine!

I'm so glad you're making videos about the development process, and so glad you're doing this project! Thanks!

This is so beautiful, always wanted to see how people made games in the 80s

I was carrying a Faberger egg from one room to the other when my gf told me that this vid was up, so I straight dropped it and rushed to the tv to watch 8-Bit guy

This will be great to follow! Also, that new artwork looks really atmospheric!

8 bit guy, I really adore your videos, and your work. Keep it going, and also very much thanks to the background of everything.

I was secretly hoping 286/EGA would be the target machine, because that was my first desktop. I miss gaming on that machine! I need to find an old PC to relive those days....

@mspenrice

6 жыл бұрын

I'm actually now thinking a fun alternative graphics mode for it could be 640x200 16-fixed-colours. Only a few games ever tried it (and generally then, like with Monkey Island, it was in an attempt to recreate the VGA graphics on a CGA/EGA monitor, and generally looked like crap), but maybe it's time for another shot? With a more sympathetic pixel-arting approach it could look pretty lush. And be an interesting alternative on VGA (where it would actually still be as high as the resolution/colour combinations could go... just with line-doubling and more flexible palette). Or indeed even 640x350 16-colours-from-64, which is actually more common...

@DDavidonetwothree

6 жыл бұрын

AirborneSurfer CGA mode should work with EGA, because of backwards compatibility, but no special graphic for EGA.

@cope9489

6 жыл бұрын

DDavidonetwothree You meant that EGA is backwards compatible with CGA, and not that CGA is backwards compatible with EGA..

@mspenrice

6 жыл бұрын

+DDavidonettwothree ... well yeah, that's fairly well known. Although the compatibility is a bit limited, as it only supports the RGB monitor and a lot of the special tricks that could be pulled off by directly messing with the CGA registers won't work (and at worst could end up damaging your EGA monitor if you tried them) +SuperMushroomy ... er, yeah, that's kinda what I understood by what he said. The basic 4-colour CGA mode will work on an EGA machine, without any need for a special EGA mode. Nice as that would be, as an in-between step between CGA and VGA (or even _instead of_ VGA, especially if it was 640x200... enough old games simply used the EGA graphics with some extra hardware acceleration, or an altered 16-colour palette, if you chose VGA mode).

You know you want to make a Roland-32 Midi soundtrack.

@sfgeometrydashryu4750

6 жыл бұрын

Also Adlib, General MIDI and Sound Canvas modes pls

@GAnimeRO

6 жыл бұрын

I personally prefer SB 16 / OPL-3

@johnathin0061892

6 жыл бұрын

And PC Jr./Tandy 1000 sound!

@pelgervampireduck

6 жыл бұрын

it should support pc speaker, adlib music, and sound blaster sound effects. (sound blaster can use the same adlib music to not make things too complicated with a different set of opl3 tracks, let it use the same opl2 tracks)

@HappyBeezerStudios

6 жыл бұрын

General Midi would be nice for newer systems, basically any modern machine can run it. Adlib would be nice for the older cards.

Awesome work. Very interesting to see this come together.

The graphics and the soundtrack are fantastic. Good job, man. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product.

The Toshiba T3200 was EGA. It had a greyscale plasma display. Pretty typical of the era. I'm sure there are more. EGA was actually pretty popular. It was all I had for a long time with an old Zenith Data Systems XT clone. At one point it looked like someone had upgraded it to a 286 somehow. I haven't seen that machine since I was a kid, but I'm pretty sure the 286 was sitting on a daughter card. Haha when my 20mb(!!) MFM drive died all I had was two 5.25" floppy drives. I played so many DOS games with disk swapping and EGA. Kings Quest V was TERRRRRRIBLE to play off a floppy drive, but it was possible. Man gamers now have no idea what we were willing to put up with. I played so many Sierra games on that computer. Good times.

@HabadzaKalfa

6 жыл бұрын

I'm also recalling there actually were quite a few 286/386 laptops with EGA chips inside. That just doesn't always feel as obvious, if the display is still monochrome.

@zosxavius

6 жыл бұрын

Yeah, lots I think!

@NuntiusLegis

5 жыл бұрын

These Toshiba Laptops had gorgeous orangescale displays, not boring greyscale. :-)

will the code for X2 be in the next issue of COMPUTE! so I can type it in?

@generaltechnology8250

5 жыл бұрын

Shelby It's not basic

@Beansman-gp3ws

5 жыл бұрын

wooosh

@Simon-ps3oj

4 жыл бұрын

@@generaltechnology8250 woooosh

@deelan_

4 жыл бұрын

Just type in the assembly or the machine code ROM :^)

@joshsimmons8178

4 жыл бұрын

Your channel pic looks like a piece of hair I was like why isn't this coming off when I blow on it

I really REALLY LOVE that you are making these and all your decisions exactly as you would have decades prior... Its exactly how I would want it done now, I'm going to check your games and stuff out!!

Awesome video, can't wait for part 2. This is why this is my favorite channel.

It's always good to see homebrew software still being done today and I'm more of an indie game supporter these days as triple A games/developers/publishers are becoming scumbags these days. Roll on the work by indie developers and sod off EA and other rats!

@bananamustard1151

6 жыл бұрын

that being said some indie devs are legit lazy

@bananamustard1151

6 жыл бұрын

many are just making a cheap derivative puzzle platformers with pixel graphics

@AlyphRat

6 жыл бұрын

I agree. Like, come on. Let's make some cool artwork, great soundtrack, and a very original plot.

@reggiep75

6 жыл бұрын

Banana Mustard - You can often tell the difference between the quality indie devs and the slack handed ones tho. Some are doing derivative projects and opting for 8-bit/16-bit GFX but the good indies devs will strive to produce good standard and then improved work and not handcuff themselves to a style/genre unless they really have rewritten the holy grail for that genre and people are shouting 'TAKE MY MONEY!' The thing is that old games, styles and genres are also being rediscovered, and with triple A developers also getting lazier by the day, maybe the leading indie devs are just the right thing to offer other people games, corner the market and at a reasonable price where you don't feel like you've been robbed and then queue up again to get robbed again when you're expected to pay more for triple A games.

@demos456

6 жыл бұрын

Most of the time, you can tell, but also some devs like to test things out (what are the challenges/are my thories on how to solve said challenges good, if not I might be screwed here.../how the language actually works/etc). A crappy mario clone might actually be someone's first attempt at making a platformer. Key word here being "might" XD... Anyway, I agree that alot of AAA games don't seem to respect their fan base anymore and I'm amazed at 8-Bit Guy's motivation on making the planet X series :P

OH MY GOD IT IS HAPPENING *_screams in joy_*

Thanks again 8bit guy and looking forward to seeing planet X3!

thanks man for posting these awesome interesting video. They are so informative about old technology and new . I am in school for CIT just started tho. I really have enjoyed these videos. I stumble across your channel and never looked back. I have binged watched for hours on end and now I have ran out of videos lol. KEEP THEM COMING I LOVE IT!!!! and thanks again PS you have even got me thanking of buying a keyboard lol.

3:27 Wait, what!? There are *plenty* of games made by either a solo dev, or a small team of two to four people that have been grand successes! But anyway, yeah, this is really cool. I'd love to play it once it gets off the ground...

@The8BitGuy

6 жыл бұрын

It isn't so much a matter of success as it is just a matter of polish and features. I can't be expected to produce motion-video intros and things like that. I would need 2 years of working on this straight and a team of artists to do stuff like that.

This is so cool! I still have my first computer, an IBM PC with 4.77 MHz 8088 (and 8087 math coprocessor). It has CGA but I don't have a monitor so composite mode is the only option for now, so it's great you're supporting that mode. It has an AST Six Pack Plus card so it can have 640K of RAM and it has ROM chips from 1984 and a 20 MB seagate hard drive. I used to have a Sound Blaster but took it out at some point in time. I hope that my 4.77 MHz computer will be sufficient but I understand if you don't. I am used to things working slowly or poorly on this computer because I used it long after it was practically obsolete: 1987 - 1993! It's the computer I learned all my first languages on: BASIC, assembly (not very well), and Borland Turbo C.

@The8BitGuy

6 жыл бұрын

The goal is the game should play full speed on a 4.77 Mhz XT, as long as you are using CGA mode. Now, VGA may be a different story.

@mspenrice

6 жыл бұрын

It'd be rather amusing if you managed to throw in some routines that could detect an x87 copro and speed things up somehow using it... I think that's the one an only time I've ever heard of anyone having a 5150 with an 8087 in it (I didn't even know they came in 8-bit-bus compatible flavours...) so it would be essentially optimising the game for that one particular computer out of the whole world :D

Wow. The game looks great. Really enjoy watching both your channels. Nice one man.

This is amazing work! Seriously! Please keep up all the wonderful videos, and I wish all the best in the future of the game.

I missed out on X2 because I don't have a machine that can run it, and I'm excited to play X3. I will totally back a kickstarter.

@drg5352

6 жыл бұрын

He also distributed a disk image for PX2, so you could have played it in VICE or Frodo or what-have-you.

8086... eighty eighty six... eeghte eighty six.. aeeete eighty six.. aaaeee eighty six.. ae86!! *LOUD EUROBEAT PLAYS*

Impressive seeing such dedication for the development! I was surprised you got this far already :O

You don't come across quality content like this very often. David, thank you so much for sharing. I am really excited to see where this project goes in the future.

Quite interested to see your work process. As someone who dabbled in DOS programming back in the 90s, I do have one little suggestion for the VGA mode: Since there are actually two separate blacks in the 320x200 VGA mode (0 and 16), you can use one as a transparency color, so in VGA mode you can have the game engine render the edges of the tiles around the vehicles while still only using 1 byte per pixel. And yes, even when using assembler to take some shortcuts (I used PASCAL for most of my game code, but all of the graphics routines were assembler), in the VGA 320x200c256 mode (Was that mode 13? It's been so long, I don't remember) it's hard to refresh the entire screen on any processor under 40 mHz without seeing massive flicker. Of course, I was also an inexperienced teenager, and I was just writing byte arrays for each sprite/tile straight to the section of memory that was the screen. I'm sure there were faster/better methods, especially if you're using any additional software drivers that may be more readily available now than I had access to back in the days before the internet was ubiquitous So have fun optimizing! I usually just cheated and only redrew the tiles that changed. :)

@BrendonGreenNZL

6 жыл бұрын

Chicken Scratching(.com) partial screen updates aren't cheating; that's called being smart. And VGA doesn't limit you to the default palette in _any_ mode; you can easily redefine any on-screen colour to any one of 260,000 possible colours, even in text, CGA, or EGA modes.

@mspenrice

6 жыл бұрын

The accelerator functions of VGA, along with its multiple pages, should allow you to do full screen writes without any flicker (something which should only be an issue on CGA and maybe MCGA cards; even Hercules allows two pages). Just have two copies of the screen on separate pages, and write to one whilst displaying the other. When complete, set a flag to switch to your newly completed flag at Vblank and raise an interrupt so that your code knows to start drawing again, just this time on the other page. Bank switching / page flipping / double buffering was a fairly common technique for avoiding flickering and tearing back in the day. It lets you make a reasonably smooth, break-free impression even if your code can't run fast enough to score a perfect 50/60/70hz (or even 25/30/35hz) every time. And, yeah, that "second black" is just an artefact of how, by default, the first 16 colours of the VGA palette are set to those of CGA/EGA TTL. After that you get a larger default gamut whose exact contents depends on what VGA BIOS is in use, but it generally restarts from black, and may run through, say, the 216 colours of the 6x6x6 web-safe cube (duplicating at least a few of the first 16 along the way, and adding up to 232 total) then finishing up with an additional spread of greyscales or the like to fill it up to 256. There's no real magic to it, it's just so that the CLUT is initialised to _something_ other than all black or random noise after startup, in case a program flips to an 8-bit mode but forgets to initialise its palettes. In actual use, most programmers would be expected to completely overwrite that, from index 0 to index 255. However, the wider colour palette itself is useful; it cramps one's style rather less than to sacrifice one colour of 256 to be always transparent (generally set to some glaring colour not otherwise present in the main set of colours, often primary magenta), or one out of a 16-wide sprite palette when you've got 16 different palette banks (or more) to pick from in the first place (only losing 16 colours total, so leaving 240 behind - and as they only need be transparent for sprites, the "missing" 16 could be reused for backgrounds anyway), versus 1 out of a fixed set of 16, or worse a fixed set of 4, which are the circumstances where you'd probably want to use bitmasking instead.

@robsku1

5 жыл бұрын

I do believe that VGA's default 256-color palette is same for every properly compatible VGA card... and that 6x6x6 RGB cube + grayscale colors sounds actually like the default 256-color palette of xterm ;) But the VGA-palette is different: kzread.info/dash/bejne/X22F0MWkqty_ptY.html sorry about the HORRIBLE finnish computer generated speech - there's textings in the video in english... anyway, you should get the idea from this video. It's kinda a palette for HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) color set (instead of RGB).

Hey David, big fan. Are you going to go into your development workflow? I'd be interested in seeing what your write->assemble->link(?)->run cycle looks like and what the parts you use are. Thank you for consistently great content.

Exciting stuff! Thanks for sharing. Good luck with the project!

This is absolutely amazing. I love this series already.

What's the music starting at 2:00? Is that an own track? Sounds like an old Eye of Beholder Track. Sounds great!

@AndersEngerJensen

6 жыл бұрын

Kordanor's Reviews It’s the sound track from PX2 he released. Themes I composed with this release in mind, based on Dune2 from Frank Kleplacki. It’s available as a download under the PX2 lite version we’re selling: eox.no/product/planet-x2-c64-box-set/

@KordanorsReviews

6 жыл бұрын

Ah, cool. Thanks alot!

Dave, you could sell for now digital versions of Planet X2, then you can get an idea of how many you are going to need for the hard copy that the people will get at a later date. Also I'm defintely going to see if I can throw in a pound or two for Planet X3.

You really let us back speechless and impressed!! WOW! Hatts off, Man!

I find this kind of work very interesting, having a inside view of how games works its just fantastic, really love how the game looks, in my opinion the transition between the different types of grass can be improved, congratulations, looking forward to that kickstarter campaign.

You should add a multiplayer mode. Like humans vs aliens.

I'm curious; is there a way to make the unused space in the tiles (at least for the units) transparent instead of completely black? I think it would look nicer overall.

@The8BitGuy

6 жыл бұрын

That's the plan for the VGA version.

@fffUUUUUU

6 жыл бұрын

Thought about the same. @David, I'm assembler man too. I think you can code two tiles blending routine for CGA gfx. Can't see any problems nor significant performance hit there for vanilla 8086 (at least, if you'll cache the blended tile somewhere, probably in round robin buffer).

Fantastic work David, I'll be supporting your kick-starter for sure!

So cool that enthusiasts are making brand new games for these historical machines. Artwork looks great too. Props to the pixel artist

Awesome work. I know you are really busy but would you consider doing a few getting started videos on assembler? This video really inspired me to try and create something and you have a great presentation style that is easy to follow. I would even be willing to pay for this if you offered it as premium content via patreon.

Fun fact: Rollercoaster tycoon was made in Assembly code, too!

@therobot1080

3 жыл бұрын

Wow

Great Video, Interesting to see and appreciate all the work that goes in to the game!

Awesome man! I will be 100% jumping in on that Kickstarter!

Will the full versions of Planet X2 ever be in stock again?

@PJBonoVox

6 жыл бұрын

Watch the video to the end.

@thesilentraccoon

6 жыл бұрын

He said they require 500 at minimum what i did not hear him say was if he would actually order those 500.

@DMadHacks

6 жыл бұрын

While the answer is most likely "never", David didn't actually directly say when or if Planet X2 would be in stock at any point in the video.

@alexhehaw1813

6 жыл бұрын

This is why I’m relieved I decided to purchase 10 copies of the game. Now to list them at $200 a piece on eBay!

@enchiladamaker3692

6 жыл бұрын

$180?

MCGA! PS/2 Model 25 FTW!

@fnjesusfreak

6 жыл бұрын

I'm guessing that his "VGA" mode is actually MCGA mode (320x200x256).

@eformance

6 жыл бұрын

Well, MCGA is kinda like IBM playing revisionist history. It was released the same year as VGA, and it supported the 320x200x256 mode 13 and 640x480x2, but it lacked enough video memory to have multiple pages. It was sort of a VGA-lite, with 64K of video ram, instead of 256K. It couldn't do 640x480x16 mode. AFAIK, it was a defeatured display card that was only used on the low-end PS/2 25 and 30. We had a lab of model 25 machines at my High School.

@kiningroseburg9288

6 жыл бұрын

Ah yes! I miss my model 30... those where the days

@PhaaxGames

6 жыл бұрын

I messed around with Mode X, Y and Q on my PS/2 Model 60. :) Mode X is really nice to work with! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_X

@vwestlife

6 жыл бұрын

There was also one Epson machine that had MCGA -- the Equity Ie. It was a strange attempt at making a PS/2 clone, and not many were sold. 0blivi0n100 did a video about it.

Hell yeah, amazing work so far. The artwork is fantastic as well.

Damn! That's looking super great! Especially the 4colors CGA version! I really hesitated to propose you my help on the pixel art part, since it's also my job; but I sure I think it would not be looking so great! Really neat job!!

Would it be possible to make an "alpha" layer for the tiles so that the ground could be drawn around the player on the fly instead of leaving that black square? I'm sure the implementation could look something like generating a temporary tile during the render and then using the temporary instead of either of the source frames. I'm curious whether that'd be too much work for these old DOS machines or not.

@The8BitGuy

6 жыл бұрын

I plan on adding transparency on the VGA version. Not only will it be easier to do in a 256-color environment, but most machines running VGA should have the CPU power to handle that. Doing transparency on these old XT class machines just isn't feasible at the speeds I want to run things.

@CPCookieMan

6 жыл бұрын

Makes enough sense. It'll be really cool to see how the game turns out and it'll be fun to see these development logs for sure.

@BrendonGreenNZL

6 жыл бұрын

The 8-Bit Guy EGA has hardware support for bitmasking, making it well worth the effort to support its planar graphics mode. As an added bonus, you can reprogram the palette registers on VGA to give nicer colours while still enjoying all the hardware acceleration features EGA has to offer ;-).

@GeorgeTsiros

6 жыл бұрын

The 8-Bit Guy you coded this in asm? haven't watched the entire vid yet, if you mention it, you don't need to reply

@GeorgeTsiros

6 жыл бұрын

yup, asm

You could call the game planet x86

Holy crap, man. This is coming along nicely!

Almost 600k! Congrats.

I never jammed my finger into my phone screen into an 8 bitguy video i think i broke it

@florida-boy

6 жыл бұрын

BigChap J both

The original Ultima for the Apple II was written in BASIC...

@mspenrice

6 жыл бұрын

Yeah, but probably didn't _run_ in it. You can get BASIC compilers. It's just that the closer to the metal you code in the first place, the more you can hand-optimise the code rather than relying on the compiler to do it for you, as well as the larger a program you can make with any kind of ease because the programming and particularly compiling side of things tends to need a lot more memory (which at the very least may mean more disc accessing, maybe even disc swaps) than the final result does. With something like Ultima 1 where running speed wasn't really an issue even on a poor CPU (and the actual moving parts of the graphics were limited to a rather small part of the screen), and even memory maybe wasn't super pressing, you could get away with it. If you wanted to make a game which was signficantly more complex, and had more things happening on screen at a higher speed, you'd have to move into C or Pascal, maybe even Assembler. (and remember even ASM isn't true machine code - it still uses a lot of human readable mnemonics for variables as well as opcodes, doesn't need you to have an intimate knowledge of where every last thing will end up in memory, etc... the compiler takes care of that for you, as well as auto-optimising some common routines if it detects you're using a sloppy version of them, etc...) Some later versions of the language like QuickBASIC for DOS, or STOS/AMOS (and GFA Basic) for the ST and Amiga, added more low level features and commands and much more powerful compilers whilst still retaining their otherwise fairly friendly HLL interface, so you'll actually find some fully compiled programs and games, particularly shareware but even some commercial examples written using them.

Great work! It's hard to wait for another episode!

You are very modest. Your design on this game is quite impressive. Well done.