I have released the source code of The Return of Traxtor (CPC), a game written in C for the Amstad CPC (64k or more; so all models).
This is my second open source release after I made public the code of Castaway, for the ZX Spectrum. Looks like there is a trend now!
This one requires SDCC to build, plus some other requirements for different tools. The idea is not to provide a current version of the game, but the game as it was built back in 2015. That means an old version of SDCC is required, mostly because at some point the project changed some of the tools to manage libraries, and that change wasn’t backwards compatible.
This is probably OK because the old versions of the compiler are still available, and the game’s source code is interesting mostly as a reading exercise anyway. The only big warning is that some of the dependencies have bugs that have been fixed in later releases, so if you want to start a new project, don’t use the versions included in this repo!
Surprisingly enough, this project doesn’t have anything really embarrassing, although is not what I would call a “current” code base. It is poorly organised, with one big file, and SDCC is not the fastest compiler out there. Despite that, overall I think it is still very readable and could be useful to learn a bit about making games in C for the Amstrad CPC.
When I was testing that the game was building correctly, I’m pleased to say that it is still fun puzzle game with cracking music (if I say so myself).
Finally, I don’t plan to provide any support. I know I said that when I released Castaway and then I accepted a contribution to make the codebase compile with a current version of Z88DK; but I really mean it: if you want to compile the game, you are on your own! There may be some bumps, but take it as part of the learning experience.
If you’re gamedev, doesn’t matter if retro or not, I recommend you reading the complete guide for open sourcing video games.