I've decided to treat my Blitz project with the respect it deserves and give it a small blog all of its own (as opposed to bundling it into my LiveJournal). And so, after spending far too much time setting up a basic template for this page, here it is. Er, great. Hi. Come in. :)
I must admit, I wasn't planning on learning a C-orientated language; I've never been able to get to grips with that particular coding style, much preferring the logical, step-by-steppedness of assembly language. That was, until I was nudged in the direction of Blitz Basic. After piddling about with the demo version for a few days, the potential soon became apparent - it's a beautiful program, allows you to get results up on screen straight away, and best of all, there are plenty of support resources should you get stuck (I've stuck a couple of these in the Links column, over there on the left).
One thing that was clear in my mind, however, was the project I wanted to tackle: the unsung C64 classic-that-never-was, Martin Walker's Citadel. I followed Martin's Zzap!64 diary word by word each month (and even contributed a few ideas of my own, which gained me a wee hello from Martin in one of the entries), was completely obsessed with the game when it was released, and subsequently produced the maps and tips that appeared in Zzap!64.
I re-read the Walker's Way diaries last week in preparation for the project, furiously scribbling down any ideas or concepts that never made it into the final game (yep, all four of them). What was most useful, however, was the behind-the-scenes knowledge of how the scroller worked, along with the 'scalextric' structure of the data. This now gives me a few ideas on how to create updated maps.
Rounded off the night by grabbing the entire first level and stitching it together in PhotoShop, as well as a few other choice screens such as the Loading Screen, Title Screen logo, and Status Panel. The chessboard tiles for the floor were a bit harsh, however, so I replaced them with a stonework tile which is much easier on the eye (well, my eyes, at least).
Grabbing sprites is another matter, however; on the Amiga, I have a utility called TransSprite (written by Ash Hogg), which allowed me to download sprites to Amiga bitmaps via my C64 cross-assembler. I want to use this again, but this involves the task of dragging the C64 and Amiga from the attic and get them set up again, then getting the Amiga talking to the PC, so I can drop the graphics files straight onto my hard drive. These both require a fair amount of space, so a slight re-organisation of my desk might be in order. Hmmm.
