Atari Graphics And Arcade Game Design

Atari Graphics and Arcade Game Design is the most comprehensive book about designing arcade games on the market. More than just a book on designing games, it teaches all of the basic fundamentals of Atari graphics including scrolling, GTIA color, display lists, player-missile graphics, character animation, vertical blank and display list interrupts.

The book is understandable and informative to programmers on all levels ranging from intermediate BASIC to advanced Assembly language. Atari Graphics and Arcade Game Design addresses an audience of teenagers and young adults, so it presents graphics concepts simply through clear text, diagrams, and easy to follow examples. The book thoroughly flowcharts and explains the sometimes complex logic of the game code discussed. Subjects such as bomb drops, laser fire, millile and ship movement are covered in great detail as are the physics and mathematical concepts needed to make them work realistically. And useful tools such as character and player-missile editors are included as an added bonus.

Atari Graphics and Arcade Game Design teaches game design using advanced Atari graphics principles.As examples, it develops a wide variety of complete working games in both BASIC and Assembly language. The first two example games are first written in BASIC, then translated into Assembly language as a learning bridge between BASIC and the faster, more powerful Assembly language. A third BASIC game demonstrates that you can create playable moderate-speed games in BASIC with the help of machine language routines developed in this book. Finally, three commercial quality machine language arcade games - an alphabet maze, a scrolling game with ground laser bases and a programmable alien attack, and a two- player tank game with rotating turrets and blow-away walls-help advanced programmers pursue state-of-the-art game design.

ISBN 0-912003-05-7
$16.95 (U.S.A.)
Arrays, Inc.
THE BOOK DIVISION