syntax error soft (Paul Nicholls)

I love old hardware, especially the #c64. Creator of #Pas6502 (Pascal to 6502 compiler) and #miniMIKE (#c64 game).
Links:

[syntax error soft (Paul Nicholls) @SyntaxErrorSoft]

If you like my work (my #art or #retro stuff #c64) consider supporting me at the links below:

#CodeSnippetsCookbook: https://t.co/RRP7LWWyAf
#miniMIKE: https://t.co/o1gcSwqOVe
Donate: https://t.co/9otrgSk3bL
Art shop: https://t.co/KOaXOYUXuL

[syntax error soft (Paul Nicholls) @SyntaxErrorSoft]

@EGVroom Happy birthday mate 🎂🎉

[syntax error soft (Paul Nicholls) @SyntaxErrorSoft]

@Kweepa @rickdevlog 🤜🤛❤️

[syntax error soft (Paul Nicholls) @SyntaxErrorSoft]

@wendeeluvz Never seen it (I'm Australian) but I would like to lol 😂

[BrewOtaku Homebrew Retro Gaming Magazine @brewotakumag]

Turdesley returns in Down the Pipe 2: Lost in Space (2026) by DF Design for ZX Spectrum. An 8-level shooter with Scramble or Berserk modes. Which style suits you? 🚀👾

🎁 https://t.co/Lp06xXrJio

#homebrew #zxspectrum #retro #game #downthepipe2lostinspace

[INDIERETRONEWS @Indie_RetroNEWS]

Indie Retro News: Vulgus - A nice little Arcade shooter is coming to the Amiga via JOTD and team! [VIDEO UPDATE] https://t.co/Jo0VDnG6Im #retrogaming #gaming #amiga @TheRetroAsylum @ClassicReplay @AmigaBill_ @amigamagazine @AmigaGuruBlog @PixelCNinja

[BrewOtaku Homebrew Retro Gaming Magazine @brewotakumag]

Eidolon (2026) by Oshen7876 for Atari 2600. Outrun a pickup ghost through endless rooms but stay in one room too long and it gets too fast to escape. A debut that sticks to the bare essentials.

🎁 https://t.co/iFWBrZBxlR

#homebrew #atari2600 #retro #game #eidolon

[SausageWareGames @tomjamespotter]

EEEEEEAAAAATTT LEEEEAAAAADDDD!!! 😁 *just trying things out - this level of shootiness may or may not make it into the final game 🤪 #Sinclair #ZXSpectrum #Retrogaming #Homebrew #IndieDev

[syntax error soft (Paul Nicholls) @SyntaxErrorSoft]

@Kweepa @rickdevlog Awesome mate! Do you have a link to The Keep game I could look at?

[Steve 🇺🇦 McCrea @Kweepa]

Doom for C64 work in progress. Versus my VIC-20 port, it has variable height floors and ceilings, windows, elevators, opening doors, visible weapons. Mostly operational. Needs decent artwork and music, if you know anyone that is itching to contribute! Some optimizations required.

[BrewOtaku Homebrew Retro Gaming Magazine @brewotakumag]

Dead Planets (2026) by Coopdevil for Atari 2600.
288 flip-screen screens in 4K, wrapping in all directions. You're DEWI, hunting crystals across six dead worlds — walls kill, momentum matters, and graph paper is your best weapon.

🎁 https://t.co/lmOhrKhMjj
#homebrew #atari2600 #retro #game #deadplanets

[Shane MᶜCafferty @EGVroom]

Bloody LOVE these vids.
https://t.co/KwVQG4aeYM

[syntax error soft (Paul Nicholls) @SyntaxErrorSoft]

@RoRamsay Smexy! ❤️

[RAMSAY @RoRamsay]

#c64 dev machines bitmap builder now supports layering to build up graphics.

[RetroNick @Nickshardware]

Raster Master v7.2 R134 - Raster Master Sprite/Map Editor for Windows 7/8/10/11 https://t.co/Di6AN38LKe #indiegames via @itchio #sprite #indie #free #qbasic #qb64 #lazarus #freepascal #raylib #pixelart

[Gregorio Naçu @gregnacu]

Here is the video of my presentation and overview demo of C64 OS, which I delivered at VCF Montreal earlier this year.

If you want to get an idea of what C64 OS is all about, this is a great place to start! #C64 Pls RT.

https://t.co/Q3Ygh0K4SI

[INDIERETRONEWS @Indie_RetroNEWS]

Indie Retro News: Lemmings - An all time classic has arrived on the Pico-8 by Buzzard, and it's seriously good! https://t.co/FEI9tQdTwY #retrogaming #gaming #games #pico8 @TheRetroAsylum @ClassicReplay @AmigaBill_ @amigamagazine @AmigaGuruBlog @pico8console @PixelCNinja

[syntax error soft (Paul Nicholls) @SyntaxErrorSoft]

Implement a non-lethal management plan for Neil the elephant seal - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/kArbE3fFC5

[Rhayader Computers @rhayadercompute]

Fuji Boink Atari 800XL , Based on the Amiga bouncing ball #atari

[Shannon Birt @birt_shannon]

** Sega Genesis 3D Engine Update 8 **

Significant improvements all round as you can see and hear from the last update !!

Foremost - A huge thanks to @TonimanGalvez who has joined the project to create a bit of 16bit low poly magic. Toni's an Amiga fan but also crazy about game dev in general, he's worked on GBC, GBA, PC, MD, PSP, C64, CPC, MSX... and others. Gaming titles include War Times, Metal Gear, Rocketman, Tintin & Asterix to name a few.

He's provided the great new ship model you see on screen - new striped buildings, all the backgrounds / palettes etc. There's a lot of models he's given me which need to be added, also he will be planning a lot of the level design. Very happy to have him help me turn this into something more than a tech demo as I have my hands tied pushing the MD as far as it can go haha - there is no cpu cycle to be spared.

Also many thanks to my good friend @laurent_crouzet for the Music for this showing , I wanted to have the music load occurring so we have a realistic benchmark for performance and he was only too obliging. If you're into MD chiptunes check him out !!

Since last update :

New player model , substantially more detailed than the Arwing. Last update had a 23 triangle Arwing , this update has a 39 triangle custom model from Toni. We had several to choose from , others will be used for enemies .

3D Buffer size increased 25% to 256x160. This was quite tricky as I'm close to the DMA limit even with an extended vblank . Spent a few days thinking of how to do this as like anything retro every solution has a drawback, finally got a workable solution. It makes a big difference to have a bit more vertical height .

Z Rotation added ( the screen tilting left to right ) , small hit to vertex transform on cpu thanks to look up tables doing the heavy lifting, saving 4 multiplies per vertex.

Multiple speed ups in rendering code. Onscreen paths with no range checking used until Z is close enough to cause clipping , partial onscreen drawing pathes that need to check boundaries, quad rendering completely rewritten - was very very painfull to get right . I found out the hard way that things are great when they are not rotating in the Z axis haha .

Partial buffer draw optimisations - which have helped with the massive dma load , sending up to a 20kb buffer in a single frame needs a lot of optimisation. Min / Max tile lines are analysed and only sent if dirtied , reducing most buffer swaps substantially. Still some issues to sort out , at times you can see the flicker near top of screen when frames are near full height . I need to optimise that a bit.

Due to the onscreen buffer system a full Sprite background had to be implemented almost Neo Geo style. This flips the usual MD rendering system on its head as it uses both foreground and background layers for a foreground 3d plane and sprites for the background. This presents a few issues, one is to get a tilt effect on the background by using narrow sprites (16x32) we run out of sprites when trying to cover the screen. Thankfully the MD is not limited to 80 sprites, to fix this a 114 sprite multiplexor is used to draw the background, its completely made up of 16x32 sprites !

Why do things this way ? speed . Its the interleaved foreground/background layers that allow a double buffered ram system writing to write to vram using dma in a completely linear fashion - virtually no tile translation needed. The negative is you have no planes for the background, that's where the sprites come in . Thanks to H40 mode we still have a few sprites we can use for effects in the forground also . Thankfully we can implement a fairly good tilt still for the background using sprites, in future updates this will be able to move horizontally also and a bit of vertical movement.

XGM1 music driver in use to simulate music cpu load, XGM2 unfortunately with the massive DMA needed to shift the 3d buffers would slow down at times rendering it unusable, XGM1 plays at full speed - albiet with a bit more of a cpu hit.

Together with the sprite multiplexor and the music driver active theres a 10 % hit to cpu so I've had to play around with draw distances / object heights and other optimisations to offset that. Not to mention the larger buffer takes more cpu to fill also.

Everything is placeholder so will be changed with proper stage design. We are averaging 20 FPS in the current video, I'll push for more as always !!

Progress continues on my other projects , updates soon on those - retirement can't come quick enough .

#SGDK #SegaGenesis #SegaMegadrive

[Ben's Homebrew @BenHomebrew]

Alright we now have a basic swell. Waves (that can potentially capsize) will be a follow-on.

Grok 4.5 (high) fixed the water anomaly in the screenshot after I gave it an image of the exact area. Only took two iterations.

Context is king.