The Atari 2600 was released in 1977, and now there's finally a book about how to write games for it! You'll learn about the 6502 CPU, NTSC frames, scanlines, cycle counting, players, missiles, collisions, procedural generation, pseudo-3D, and more. Use our web-based IDE to write 6502 assembly code, and see your code run instantly in the browser. We'll cover the same programming tricks that master programmers used to make classic games. Create your own graphics and sound, and share your games with friends!
List of chapters:
Introduction to 6502 The 8bitworkshop IDE VCS Memory Map Writing Your First Assembly Code Painting on the CRT Playfield Graphics Players and Sprites Color Sprites Sprite Fine Positioning Player/Missile Graphics The SetHorizPos Subroutine Joysticks and Switches Indirect Addressing A Complex Scene, Part I A Complex Scene, Part II NUSIZ and Other Delights Scoreboard Collisions Asynchronous Playfields: Bitmap Asynchronous Playfields: Bricks A Big (48 pixel) Sprite Tiny Text Six-Digit Scoreboard A Big Moveable Sprite Sprite Formations Advanced Timer Tricks Multisprites Random Number Generation Procedural Generation Drawing Lines The Sound and Music Pseudo-3D: Sunsets and Starry Nights Pseudo-3D: Driving Down the Road Bank Switching Wavetable Audio Paddles Illegal Opcodes Timing Analysis Making Games Troubleshooting Appendix A: VCS Memory Map Appendix B: VCS Colors Appendix C: 6502 Opcodes Appendix D: 6502 Instruction Flags