DOS Games Discussion

Like the title says, I need help making a CGA DOS platformer.

It doesn't need to bee too complicated, all I want it to do is scroll(Tile based 16 pixel scrolling, chunky but simple(er)), have objects to pick up with locked doors that require a key to open, play PC Speaker sound effects(Maybe have AdLib Music) and have 16, 128 x 24 tile levels that are loaded from what would essentially be a renamed text file. Having as much of the game loaded into RAM as possible would be nice for speed, as I estimate the game would be around 64-80K in size, counting all of the graphics, sound, levels, and main EXE.

I would also like it to have enemies, they only have to move until they hit a tile and then turn around and repeat, firing at the player if he is in front of the enemy.

I would love if this would run on a 4.77MHz 8088, but for the sake of speed I'm aiming for a 6MHz 286 PC with 640KB of RAM.

Any help is welcome, as I am new to C. I know a minuscule amount of assembly.

Sorry for the long post.

Hello, and welcome to the forums!

I'm not a programmer myself but I think the guys here could help you, like the author of ReDuke 1 perhaps.

Hey VGAguy, how is your project going? I am getting back to DOS programming after like 15 years and its coming back very slowly. Currently I am battling DosBox vs BorlandC memory allocation problems, but hopefully will be able to start.

While I have zero experince with CGA/EGA programming, started straight in VGA, I would be happy to give you a handor at least discuss it. I imagine something along the lines of Secret Agent or Crystal Caves is what you are after? And why CGA and not VGA, considering you have it in your nick :-)

I used to code in C with only bits of inline ASM, nowadays reading more on the latter.