[Coco] PopStar Pilot - Another chapter added

[Steve Bjork]

Bill,

Any game developer will use the best tools at hand.  When I started 
writing game for the CoCo, the first programs I created the tools 
needed.  I wrote Micro-Painter long before my first CoCo game, Popcorn.

But soon I was limited by the hardware systems of the CoCo and needed 
better hardware.  First, the Amiga was setup for doing some graphics, 
but mostly sound work.  The real help was IBM PC with the memory and 
speed that I needed to create the graphics system for the more modern 
games for the CoCo. From Character based screen maps to libraries of 
object based sprites system, the PC had the storage and power to get the 
just done.

Yes, I still used a CoCo to create the code using my own assembler.  (It 
was using my hard drive OS system.)  But that was only 5K to 6K of a 32k 
ROM pack.  If the code was any larger, there would have been a need to 
use a PC to write the code.

If I was going to write a CoCo game today, I would use a PC from start 
to end.  The 3-d graphics programs would help make the sprite object 
look more real.  In Donkey Kong Country for the super NES (1994), they 
use pre-rendered 3D graphics (a first) to improve the overall graphical 
look.  Some 20 years later, this is more or less the standard for games 
on graphics system without real time 3-D graphics system.

There are so many other reason why not to use the CoCo in creating the 
graphics.  From Limit memory and color palette, it's just too hard to 
use a CoCo for this type of work.  Why make more work for yourself when 
there are better systems and tools out there?

Steve

On 9/5/2013 2:49 AM, Bill Pierce wrote:
> Nick,
> It's really looking good.... I do have one complaint. More an observation than a complaint.
> After all the talk of "Coding it on the Coco", you use an Amiga for the graphics? What gives?
> With the great graphics tools available for the Coco (CocoMax3, ColorMax3 etc), why not keep it on the Coco?
> I actually enjoy doing graphics work on the Coco, it's one of the few things that even on modern PC with mega Gigs of memory, hasn't changed.
> Editing pixel by pixel is still the same... Click... bang.... click.. bang...