How To Make An Atari Game

[@GhastlyH]

As someone who actually did 2600 programming in the 6507 machine code it's really cool to see someone has developed an actual programming language for the machine.

[@jacklazzaro9820]

2:26 Wow, I never knew that the Atari 2600 in Europe had less color than ours

[@Tomlinsky]

With PAL you had higher vertical resolution, 228 instead of 192 vertical scanlines, instead.

[@blakegriplingph]

@@Tomlinsky Even worse with the SECAM version which only had eight colours. IIRC Atari simply tapped into the luminance values and assigned them to a colour encoder hence the funky palette.

[@robson_dev]

Fantastic, the years go by (10 years ago), and as a php programmer I was always curious to know how it was made, this video will be legendary for many decades or more!

[@PixelsPolygonsNPetrichor]

12 now

[@FluffyGameplay]

My dream has come true... I can now make a Mortal Kombat game for Atari 2600.

[@garypickrelliv2735]

yeah fuckin right.

[@FallicIdol]

I plan to make Final Fantasy 10 for it.

[@PokeTube]

FallicIdol Too Late.

[@KilgoreTrout1212]

Fine. Final Fantasy Tactics, it is.

[@danielhetrick677]

Crysis for Atari 2600!

[@MagnusTV1990]

This is very generic and does not really teach how to create a game, but rather how to use that IDE you're using with an example program. There is a lot of stuff going on inside the hardware of a 2600 that needs to be understood in order to properly make games for a 2600. This video makes it look easier than it is. First of all, if you run into a problem, you need to debug your game. In order to debug it, you need to use the Debugger included with Stella. This debugger not only shows the whole memory map, but also the status of every register of the emulated 6507, as well as the flags, and the program being executed. And by the way, this information is not in basic. Then comes all the features of the Atari 2600. The video says "you can only have two sprites in the Atari". Which is partially correct. There are different kinds of sprites. Bitmapped sprites, which is the two mentioned (mostly meant for player one and player two, as the IDE suggests). Then two "one-pixel" "missile" sprites (for projectiles for both player one and two), and the 40 pixel playfield. Some games like Pacman go around these restrictions by placing the second bitmapped sprite into the position of each ghost, per "frame". You can notice the flickering this causes. Other games like frogger, has what looks like different sprites, such as trucks, cars, the trunks, etc. Some games do this through "multiplexing" sprites (drawing parts of different sprites in each sprite, then mixing them), or by drawing "software sprites" (The pacman trick, or using a ball to create a line that looks like a rope, etc). Another thing to point out is that everything you need to create an atari game, is a 6507 assembler. For example, DASM, which comes included with the program. Of course, for that, you need to know not only the instruction set, but the hardware, memory mapping, how an old CRT TV works, how colors work in a specific TV, interlacing, etc. It's more tedious, but you also gain full control on how your program works. If you are not interested in learning all this stuff because it's too complex for you, DON'T BOTHER. It's not going to be rewarding for someone who only want to create a game. Instead, try making regular games for Windows with a regular WYSIWYG IDE such as Game Maker, or Unity. With those you don't need nearly any advanced programming skills, or hardware knowledge, sine everything is managed for your convenience. I'm not criticising the video, which is good as a starting point. I'm just pointing this out for all these people who is having troubles during the process, or understanding how it works.

[@lunarprix2932]

How about we get rid of all the bull shit that you just said and just make a damn game.

[@MagnusTV1990]

Lunar PRIX Go on and try. The moment you realize you can't do "this" and "that", that's when you will understand that everything I said, wasn't really bullshit. Do you think everything in the game industry is just grabbing a pirated SDK, placing some MS-PAINT sprites on it, and click on a button, to produce a game? No.

[@lunarprix2932]

TMI

[@slideon]

Ninjihaku Workshop You've made some really good points. I've heard 2600 programming is the absolute worst. Anyone out there who wants to make a game, don't start with homebrew, use a modern high-level programming language like Python (with the Pygame library installed).

[@AngelHdzMultimedia]

Here come the noobs to complain...

[@Malik-oe2ps]

Thank you for this guide, I'm a complete noob to programing and this is working great on my test game.

[@ramgladore]

I just bought the Atari 2600+. I'm excited to be able to play the older games but also I wanna see more people making games for legacy hardware. I understand too many people making bland shovelware games is what killed the Atari but maybe things will be different this time now that we have a talented modding community.

[@random_an0n]

indeed,back then it was profit based but now? its passion based,no profit to be made making a shit rom

[@fredricgreenblott4169]

This was really helpful, as I have absolutely no coding experience whatsoever, even BASIC, so thank you sir.

[@user-yk1qb5qp1b]

let's make E.T. Remake!!!!!

[@gddjcat1165]

+정태혁 just no

[@stejac133]

Noooooo!!!

[@TorutheRedFox]

+AnEmeraldStone Its the worst game ever.

[@brodym.3547]

+LBPPlayer7 E.T. was the shit.

[@cgme7076]

HA!

[@iduck6095]

what a retro throwback

[@Chris-yj2di]

Word of warning, this does NOT work in Windows 10. Just to save someone the time.

[@lebswada]

+AnEmeraldStone How do I fix it?

[@lebswada]

***** Yeah, I kind of thought that I should've just done that.

[@droptherapy2085]

what do you mean by that?

[@superdoom1unrevealed231]

Pick an apple, put it in the basket...

[@chadchaos6178]

That's funny, I just made this in Windows 10, must've been an update

[@michaelolz]

I'm wondering, are you limited to the amount of RAM that the 2600 actually had when playing via the emulator? Could you write a game on a higher scale than what the standard cartridges held back in the day?

[@Another.YouTube.Channel]

Hello, I'm not entirely sure. The basic limits are 4k of ROM and 128 bytes of RAM though they can both be exceeded through ways like bank switching and Superchip RAM. Beyond that though, I don't know much. Theoretically it's possible since emulators can be made to do more, but maybe it hasn't been done yet at least not that I know of.

[@mouth-breatherproductions7736]

The download is broken, program is outdated, find another program, such as Atari Dev Studio (ADS)

[@omaewamoushindeiru1237]

Only thing left is to find empty ROM cartridges to write on so I can actually plug it into my physical atari

[@LEE_MILLARD]

This is great, will try this out when I get time

[@jamesln5392]

Those "if" statements, they made my brain set it's self on fire! LoL

[@pc617]

everytime i try to compile it anytime after setting the sprites on the coding page it comes up with an error and says syntax error. click play a popup comes up saying missing binary. message says could not locate default.bas.bin and could not recompile. please check to make sure it was compiled correctly. everything works perfectly fine before that, and it saves with no problem before and after that too.

[@armstronglance]

Awesome! Thanks. I’m an old Atari MIDI user and programmer. But I never pgm’d games.

[@ColeSlawProductions]

I couldn't compile my projects for a while, but i needed the "Add bB Environment Variable" and "Add Bb Compiler to system path" checkboxes checked, and then i go it working fine! I like it a lot!

[@TravisJobe1981]

Man, after watching this I can't even fathom how complicated it must be making games for nowaday's standards.

[@random_an0n]

14 years ago this vid was made?!?! holy f! pro quality video for that early yt era

[@s4ndwichMakeR]

Can this be renamed to ‘How To Make An Atari Game Using BASIC’? I was expecting an Assembly tutorial. Btw: I’m always impressed how complicated simple INCs and DECs are in BASIC (7:40).

[@TheGroovySideOftheTube]

Make sure you have "Add Bb to Environment Variable" & "Add Bb Compiler to system path" checked under settings. If you are getting compile errors, make sure you add a space to the start of the line where the error happened (check messages tab) - it's pretty fussy with the way it handles indents.

[@fosterpuggy]

Wikipedia has a pretty good article on the 2600 and the 2600's Television Interface Adapter (TIA), with the external links being especially good at explaining the low-level technical details of the 2600, and some about the original dev environment used back in the 70's and 80's.

[@Caolan114]

Is this the most up to date method for making Atari games? this video Is 14 years old and some progress mustve been made

[@Fireweasle]

it is possible because some people made a Halo game for the atari 2600 and put it on cartridges and gave some out at an event. The game is Halo 2600 if you want to look it up.

[@airborne501]

This is excellent. I wanted wanted a video with more assemply, but this method is great. Awesome stuff, thanks for video.

[@MikeyS9607]

I got it working, and the code here is great. Will post response later.

[@antonnym214]

Cute game! BASIC was my first computer language. This one is different, but at least the atari is programmable in a high-level language. I did Z-80 and 8080 assembly languages, so I'm sure I could do the 6502 assembly, but the BASIC looks very capable of doing the job. Nice tutorial!

[@TheMireaux7]

today, atari games are old and simple. back in their day, they were new and complex. todays advanced games have the benefit of being leagues simpler to program, despite having tons of code in them. yesterday's programmers were the ones who were burdened with the task of solving many difficult algorithms which paved the way for programmers today.

[@Oxxyjoe]

Super explanation, this is so easy to follow. Thanks for uploading.

[@slap_my_hand]

Basic is such a weird language.....

[@SuperDeluxe80]

its easy as hell.

[@slap_my_hand]

SuperDeluxe80 i think that C# is easier. There is no shit like then, end if or dim. All you need in C# is {}[]&|=;. and some other stuff. Writing code is much faster this way and if you know C#, you can learn any other programming language in a few hours.

[@slap_my_hand]

SuperDeluxe80 then = {, end if = }, dim = unnecessary, as = even more unnecessary.

[@martijnvanzanen4075]

I learned basic on the c64. I Made a 3d maze/rpg game with leveling up when i was 13 ( with minimap and animations). All cuz of a basic book of the c64 Ah good old days:D

[@sparticus214]

Martijn van Zanen Can you teach me Lindows 😒 I tried every know command and program format for Linux or Windows but none work$

[@GataZGinkgo]

OKAY EVERYONE if you keep getting the error message "could not locate default.bas.bin i have a solution to fix that problem. when typing in: player1x=50:player1y=50 player0x=20:player0y=50 make sure you INDENT. that means putting a space before player1x=50:player1yblahblahblah. now save, compile and run, and everything should be fine.

[@prozxsniping1599]

Still doesn't work and I've tried it on his code as well. Can you help please?

[@TheVileBile]

ProZxSniping same here!

[@nono8540]

***** Thanks sooo much

[@kylenolastname9627]

***** thanks man

[@mashupmaster8874]

I’m either going to make Minecraft (some how) Super Smash Bros (Some how) Or just a remake of some other game

[@marvinalberto2852]

never thought this was such a easy to learn code

[@karaokehammick5215]

Gotta love how the Atari has like 10x more colors than the NES.

[@Jshaw71]

This is kinda cool, I didn't know there was a program to make atari homebrew games, thanks for the upload, I think I am going to check more of these kind of videos out, thanks for the upload

[@Tinkernut]

for the first tutorial i did about making games, i did use game maker. this is actually my 3rd game making tutorial. also, you can port it to atari cartridges...there's a link on my forum for how to do that.

[@mauricega1]

as a past DCL/DOS Dev - this vid is great on its own, for a start off point, or for bigger idea's.

[@FatMarioHeads]

James Rolfe sent me, someone make Video Ouija and Insult Master if they haven't been done before

[@665yoman]

when I try to compile it says: Environment variable bB not set! Precompilation failed, aborted How do I compile it right!

[@marinacelada3246]

I do have the same problem. Hope you've fixed it.

[@Miumiu0404]

Wow this is so basic. It's like the turtle drawing tool in Java.

[@aurathedraak7909]

From 2020 ten years ago lel. I'll be back in another ten lel.

[@aurathedraak7909]

@ oof

[@TastyTwinkieGaming]

Thank you Tinkernut. This video was awesome and I made a Duke Nukem Atari game. I liked this video and thank you for teaching me.

[@KevinTwiner]

Wonderful, enjoying this so much! Thanks and happy gaming

[@mariaisabeltoledogonzalez3971]

download link of visual batari basic

[@Apo458]

If you want to make a video game arcade, atari, nes, snes, etc. Use Game maker to make the game that you fancy (if 3D is going to be tricky)

[@ofadventure6004]

Thanks I always wanted to make a atari game!

[@AllGamingStarred]

i did all the instructions and got this error message: improve dasm reporting "precompilation failed"

[@sheenufilms]

Atari is a fun word to say.

[@gjc82071]

@TheJeli125 Well, I think this is more of a tutorial of what CAN be done with VbB. You'd need to know more about Batari Basic coding & stuff. I want to try....On some websites, I found the code to actual real games. I want to see if I can copy/paste it to VbB, then compile & then play them that way. If so, you can then examine the code, maybe tweak it. You can also see how it all works. Anyway, glad to see you go it working.

[@ColeSlawProductions]

My .SPR and .PLA editors aren't working, but i coded them both out manually, and if you want to change the color of a sprite, type "COLUP" then the number of the sprite, like player 0 is "COLUP0" and player 1 is "COLUP1" and so on, then you set it equal to a color value the same way you did for the playfield color. Example: "COLUP1 = $DA" would set Player 1's color to green.

[@weqgrewghtrweh]

It's the Tinker hero versus the squirrel villian!

[@UltraAceCombat]

Excellent tutorial, took a while to figure it out but it works great!

[@MikeyS9607]

In theory you could do all the typing up code in notepad/notepad++, but then I think you'd need a compiler

[@Albeit_Jordan]

I'm already lost. When I create a new playfield and click on it, it tells me it is unable to open it and that there is an error. Where am i going wrong?

[@brodym.3547]

+KurdtKobain09 Look at what the error says and work around the problem. That's programming 101 scrub.

[@Kiletykk]

You deserve 10 stars!

[@SillyPuddyTV]

This will be harder than I thought.

[@mmille10]

Very professional looking!

[@lordmikethegreat]

Yes. Go to the atariage.com forum for more details.

[@britishfireworks]

Minecraft 2600 here we go

[@prof.brunotsouza]

> Kind of (ancient) low level programming through modern IDE.

[@chancescheatz]

@gigafide i think he means like how you can program things in slightly different ways to get the same thing, like how in gml instead of something unnecessary like: variable=variable+1 you could just use variable+=1 im not sure if that is exactly what he meant, but i think he meant something like that

[@jacknorkus9557]

Tinkernut, Great tutorial! Learned a lot about Batari Basic, and it inspired me to start working on a game called Galactic Recon which is basically a combination between Berzerk, Asteroids, and Combat. I even got a title screen going, I don't know how though, I did that like three years ago and forgot how I did it! I was wondering how you can make a missile shoot downward? Is this even possible? I know I could do this using sprites, but that seems like a lot of tedious coding for something so simple. I'm not trying to learn 6502 assembly! Thanks!

[@Donflorgon]

Another great vid. @gigafide is the anyway to do the same on Game Maker? & how much would the code change?

[@marioroberts9564]

Dude ur the best loving your channel keep it up ☺

[@LTDANMAN44]

If 1980s programmers had this tool..........

[@matthewtarbard2288]

can you make a video on how to make an NES game?

[@MrBenMcLean]

matthew tarbard, unfortunately, no one has yet coded up a similar high level language for the NES or Gameboy. However, Batari Basic should prove that such a project should be doable in principle, so maybe we'll see that eventually someday. :)

[@AlyphRat]

This shiru.untergrund.net/articles/programming_nes_games_in_c.htm

[@gjc82071]

@MidnightWonko Just download/save the video like I did. It actually takes much less time to to download it, than to wait for it to load/watch it. Then you have it permanently & can reference it @ your leisure & without having to go online.

[@FredyK200]

i might of got this error sooner. it wouldn't let me play the game when he showed that the screen flickered.

[@AnimeOtaku-jz7ev]

the site is not working anymore :( please fix it

[@TravMcTavish]

My fav Atari video games were Midnight Madness and quest!

[@carlo1478]

Excellent tutorial bro!

[@ColeslawProd]

I don't why but the PLA and SPR editors never work. So, I'll try to make a separate program for editing the PLA and SPR files.

[@unfortunatebeam]

So what was the original programming language called that was used to make the old atari games back in the day and what software did they use to make it? Just something like MS-dos I guess...

[@tonurehela860]

Wonderful and a easy language to learn, I always wondered how they could create such complex games back then... :D Try to write this in Python or C#, good luck with that...

[@felixisdev]

+Must Päike what do you mean?

[@tonurehela860]

It's a nice game programming language to pick up :) and it has basic graphics, you need a lot more effort to write this in some "modern computer languages"

[@tonurehela860]

Well that´s true, if they would have modules for special kind of games like the Atari or Commodore ones were, it would be a lot less effort...

[@tonurehela860]

That's true, there are also a lot of card play games out today, like Hearthstone and some others... Some of them could have been made also as low on graphics years ago but nobody did. As much my generation have seen the games getting always better (in graphics, gameplay and everything)... from 8 bit to 16 bit and from 16 to 32 and so on.... Well as our generation much thought, that good games mostly come with good graphics... but, well, it isn't quite true... We have lost a lot of gameplay features and fun out of playing... If you know what I mean :) I mostly played console/TV games in my childhood before I got my hands on a PC... and it was such fun. I play those even today sometimbes, but nowdays in color and on a HiRes 24inch monitor :D And nowdays the games start getting back to low graphics again I have the feeling, I just hope the fun part stays in the game as it was back then... and people play those games like minecraft and similar titles...

[@seanld444]

Already have.

[@TheIntentionStudios]

I'm pretty sure it was assembly for all of the 6502 run machines.

[@mireaux7]

if you think this is a lot of code, imagine how much code goes into today's advanced games.

[@treyarmendariz7413]

wow this a really cool vid there really isnt other vids as helpful thanks and i will subscribe

[@Andreas-ri2jn]

When I double click on the background.pla, it says: Could not open. Would you li´ke to view the file in notepad? WHY?

[@addictgnome]

HELP!!!!! I keep getting errors when I try to compile/recompile a code? even if I never change anything? I have windows 7. Sometimes I get "system path does not include" or sed.exe not founde. I dont get what im missing? I have visual batari, batari basic, the sound library, why cant i compile and play game? I can play if I dont try to compile, and sometimes it deletes the bas.bin?

[@dartjat]

thanks gigafide, i really like creating games! but i dont know lots of coding.... love your tutorials, its was a good idea to subscribe to you :D

[@Misfit3755]

I had an syntax error when i compiled the player0x=50:player0y=50 player1x=20:player1y=20 thing and now i don't know what to do

[@Otacustes]

wow, very complicated. now video games seem much more impressive because of the time to type line after line of code.

[@voidbox1433]

i am having trouble at the missile part and yet everytrhing is typed perfectly but yet theres always something thats wrong but i dont see it

[@TheSebMarsh]

Got any help for when the playfield just opens in notepad? Can't seem to edit it.

[@RebornAc3]

Thanks TinkerNut. You're the man!

[@joesmoe71]

Is it possible to burn the finished code to an EPROM and make an actual working cartridge with it?

[@robknightfilms]

I want to make a game where you fire missiles horizontally, but it doesn't work! Here are the "missile shooting" parts of my code. missile0height=3:missile0x=255 NUSIZ0 = 16 ... if missile0x>240 then goto skip missile0x = missile0x-2:goto draw_loop skip if joy0fire then missile0x = player0x-2:missile0y=player0y+4 Could you doctor up these parts of code? Reply ASAP. Thanks in advance!

[@weavilledeathex]

It does not work for me. Whenever I try to compile then run the game, It says that it cannot locate the binary file and could not recompile. I tried to make it work but it still cannot. Please send me a reply.

[@KWAA201]

i have a problem the player1 is not really moving that much at all and is going off the screen when i shot it couple of times

[@svenzo1199]

grate i will use this knowlege to make space invaders 2600

[@averageWhiteMaleAGGCA]

can someone give me a batari basic installer? i cant find it.

[@joesmoe71]

You would need an EPROM programmer, they're easy to get and can be gotten for under $100, they usually come with the software.

[@speedy692]

I kept getting the error cannot find default.bas.bin. It was because there was no space before COLUBK = $20 & COLUPF = 212. Now it compiles ok & the default.bas.bin file is created & the program runs.

[@andycasi3]

gigafide im having trouble when i try to open background.pla it says could not open where ever i saved it please help me

[@stalepalemale]

Great intro video!

[@M0N3YIN4J4R]

Uhhhh..... When i try to compile and run like you did at 5:30 , it can't locate the file, but when I erase it, it runs normally again. What do I do?

[@ChaosMongrel]

I was watching your video and was fine until the player0x=50:player0y=50 line. Visual bB tells me that line has an error, but I don't know what. Until this point, everything worked fine. Please help. Thank you.

[@brandon3467]

You sir, are a God.