Introduction

After writing a few simple demos, I wanted to start writing an actual game for the PC-Engine. After receiving positive feedback from other PC-Engine enthusiasts, it will be an "open source" work, with this webpage devoted to its progress. Updates will happen as frequently as possible, but I have a job and a family, so this is still just a hobby...

For simplicity, I decided to do a "falling block" style of game. Since the existing tools haven't really been tested on real-life development, I didn't want to try something too difficult at first. This genre of games are usually fun, but they're also fairly simple in terms of programming.

The source code for this game is published (with considerable comments!), for the purposes of education and attracting more developers to this wonderful gaming platform. I also hope to have the comments and other text translated into other languages as well.

The target platform is a "HuCard" (ROM, not CD), so it should be playable on most emulators and even real systems with RAM-card devices.

If you want to assemble the sources for yourself, you will need the MagicKit Assembler (v2.01) package from the MagicEngine homepage.
NOTE: Current version also available at bottom of this page.

Current Status

• 1999/05/27:
  • Demo #4 is available today. It's amazing how quickly this thing has come together, based on a good initial design.
    (I actually have very little time to do this, contrary to the appearances from the past 2 weeks).
    Anyway, updates include:
    • The game is not just playable now, it also has scoring and increasing difficulty levels
    • Score is displayed, as are PAUSE and GAME OVER messages
    • Block doesn't instantly hit bottom when down is pressed.
    • Joypad auto-repeat sped up.

• 1999/05/20:
  • Demo #3 is available today. WOW, 2 updates in one week ! Updates include:
    • The game is now playable, with blocks automatically falling.
    • New textured graphics (with color!) for pieces. They look much better now.
    • Joypad auto-repeat on movement.
    
    

• 1999/05/16:
  • Demo #2 is available today. Updates include:
    • line-erasing when a line is full
    • pieces enter from the top, partially covered
    • "game end" detection when a piece is transferred, but partly in the "drop area" above the playing field
    • some (simple) new background graphics
    • a couple of bugfixes with movement of the pieces
    • code is re-organized with graphics in their own source files
    
    

• 1999/05/08:
  • No, I'm not dead... yet. I've been doing lots of PCE-related things, but unfortunately, not updating this game demo. Hopefully, this will change very soon. I have already re-organized the source code a bit, and I will add a bit more substance to the demo ASAP.

• 1999/02/20:
  • I've been sidetracked again, but it's not a completely bad thing. Besides my job (which has been pretty consistently heavy since October), I have been working with David Michel on an update to the MagicKit assembler, which would allow you to actually play demo programs (such as this game) on your own PC-Engine, via a 'Develo' download link from your PC. More news on this to follow...

  • I have also been playing with a few concepts in graphic editors. If I do end up writing a real graphic editor for PCE development, it will definitely take a substantial amount of work (and time). For now, I am playing with Visual Basic v5.0, and trying different concepts in user interfaces. I know what I want to accomplish, but there's substantial effort involved. I will certainly entertain any offers of assistance.

  • Finally, I have been trying to use some of the more advanced features from MagicKit in the game demo.
    These features (like defchar, defspr and defpal) will help in many ways:
    • visualization of the graphics
    • management of video memory
    • migration of graphic data to a separate file, and hopefully to a graphic-data tool
    I also want to examine different ways of compressing the data down a bit...

• 1998/12/26:
  • Demo #1 is now available.
    Pieces can be moved, rotated and placed on the playing field. Next version will have the pieces falling, and hopefully will detect full lines.
    

• 1998/12/20:
  • The MagicKit v2.0 release is finally available. The reasons for the long delay are because the documentation grew to be a major undertaking, and also because I've been working 70 hours a week at my day job lately. David Michel has been doing extra work for the past 6 weeks to make up for my absence.
    There were a couple of last-minute changes made to the macros, so it will take me a day or two to fix up my game demo to be avaiable.

• 1998/11/08:
  • The MagicKit v2.0 release has taken a bit longer than expected. This is partly because we've fixed and/or added a few small things to both the support library, and the assembler itself. It's also because we're expanding the documentation to be more comprehensive than we originally expected. (Also, I suddenly got extremely busy at my day job). The assembler itself seems complete, and the doc's are progressing.

  • A pleasant side-effect of the delay is more example source code; one such piece is a 'slideshow' demo which displays pictures on-screen. I will soon have a slideshow available, of the excellent anime artwork from dil (being made for the game).

• 1998/10/27:
  • MagicKit v2.0 is almost ready for release; I am currently updating the documentation.
  • The first game demo will be ready at the same time as the MagicKit release. It will allow you to move the pieces and place them on the playing field.

• 1998/10/19:
  • I am rewriting parts of the game demo to take advantage of some new features of the upcoming MagicKit assembler release. I should be able to release the first "moveable-piece" game demo at the same time as the MagicKit release. All of my previously-available code samples will also be updated for the release.

• 1998/10/14:
  • Progress on the new version of the MagicKit assembler is proceeding well, and should be ready for release soon. This version of the assembler package will include more demos, and some tutorial notes.
  • More data has been keyed into the falling-block game demo, but unfortunately there is nothing visible to show for the effort yet.

• 1998/10/01:
  • Recognized that updates to MagicKit assembler are very important to the progress of the project. These will be coming soon.
  • Working on aforementioned demo of simple moving pieces. So far, only the background exists.

• 1998/09/28:
  • Created this status page

• 1998/09/24:
  • Have most of the basic concepts on paper
  • Discovered that a graphic editor would really be useful for designing even the simple shapes involved in "falling block" games.
  • First demo release will simply be a playing piece which can be moved and rotated in the playing field.

Downloads

• Game Demo #1 (98/12/26)
• Game Demo #2 (99/05/16)
• Game Demo #3 (99/05/20)
• Game Demo #4 (99/05/27)
• MagicKit v2.0, the assembler for PC-Engine programming (and now NES!). Includes lots of documentation, several sample programs, and comes complete with its own source code. Compiled with DJGPP for DOS or Windows environments, but will also be ported to other gcc-based environments.
  If you port it (or want to port it) to other platforms, please let me know (especially if code changes are necessary). Send email to: daves@interlog.com
  I would like to post binaries here.

Links

• CG graphic design page by dil
• MagicEngine and MagicKit Homepage

Special Thanks to:

• dil, for supplying background graphics
• David Michel, author of MagicEngine and MagicKit
• Bt Garner, who also runs the TurboList
• Hiroyuki Ito, of the PC Engine Perfect Conquest Project

(c) Copyright 1998,1999 by Dave Shadoff