Making Games for the Atari 2600
by Steven Hugg · first published 2016
9mentions
5recommended by
9HN commenters
2016–2022first – last mentioned
56% recommend44% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Clear, concise primer on building games for the 6502-based Atari 2600, paired with an online IDE for trying the examples; suits readers curious about retro game development and homebrew.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Steve Hugg has a few nice books on the topic https://8bitworkshop.com/ Like "Making 8-Bit Arcade Games in C" and "Making Games For The Atari 2600"
on “Programming Games for Atari 2600” ↗Retro Game Dev: C64 Edition[1] build two games (shooter/platformer) in 6502 Assembly Language for a Commodore 64 emulator. Some other similar books are Making 8-bit Arcade Games in C[2] and Making Games for the Atari 2600[3]. - [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692980652/ - [2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1545484759/ - [3] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1541021304/
on “Ask HN: What are some books where the reader learns by building projects?” ↗As luck would have it, the very same site under discussion also happens to host a neat online "IDE" for learning all about the 6502-based Atari 2600¹. It is a companion to the book, "Making Games for the Atari 2600". A wonderfully clear and concise primer that I thoroughly enjoyed, even though I had no interest in the Atari 2600 per se. The NES was my first console -- and naturally the one I'd always wanted to program.…
on “Show HN: Z80 Compiler Visualization” ↗I own "Making Games for the Atari 2600" which is listed on this site. It's definitely worth picking up.
on “8bit Workshop” ↗I've been into the 2600 homebrew scene since "Making Games for the Atari 2600" came out a few years ago. I haven't made anything useful yet, but the community is great and very active. There's an awesome twitch channel[1] dedicated to 2600 homebrew, ZeroPageHomebrew. They do 2…
on “8bit Workshop” ↗"Programming the Atari 2600 VCS: Coming Soon" I've been trying to work through "Making Games For The Atari 2600" by Steven Hugg over the past year and I'm just now starting to grok some of the key concepts, not only in 6502 assembler, but VCS programming specifically, which involves a lot of timing around the CRT…
on “Atari 2600 VCS and Adventure – Computerphile” ↗I like how 'Making games for the Atari 2600', features a character quite obvious supposed to be Mario. I'm struggling to id the dragon though. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1541021304/ref=as_li_tl?ie...
on “8bit Workshop” ↗I bought their (EDIT: @sehugg's) book "Making Games for the Atari 2600" too: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1541021304
on “Show HN: 8bitworkshop IDE for Atari 2600” ↗…Language for the Atari 2600". https://courses.pikuma.com/courses/atari2600 It has been excellent. Just the pace and level of detail that I need. I am lucky to have stumbled upon it. I am also reading "Making Games for the Atari 2600" by Steven Hugg. Previously I was simply exploring what is available on http://www.6502.org/, working through the Easy 6502 tutorial https://skilldrick.github.io/easy6502/, and checking out YouTube tutorials.
on “Ask HN: What Are You Learning?” ↗