All Questions
Tagged with gaming programming
12
questions
60
votes
3
answers
45k
views
Does this 8088 code in the Leisure Suit Larry 2 game actually do anything?
In the Sierra On-Line game "Leisure Suit Larry 2" there's a part in the game where the main character (Larry) has to write a program in 8088 assembly language as part of his tribal ...
- 1,457
25
votes
1
answer
4k
views
What is 'Adaptive Tile Refresh' in the context of Commander Keen?
The question Did John Carmack really invent "Adaptive Tile Refresh"? asks about the origins of the scrolling and drawing techniques used to allow an MS-DOS PC to provide a NES console-like ...
- 12.6k
32
votes
6
answers
7k
views
Why did the monsters have "infinite invisible pillars" of hitboxes vertically in all versions of the DOOM engine?
Even in the last version of the DOOM engine, v1.9, used for Final DOOM, there is this strange limitation in which all the monsters have an invisible, infinitely tall "pillar" above and ...
- 329
13
votes
2
answers
2k
views
What really prevented PC games from using hardware scrolling on CGA
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_tile_refresh:
CGA (the previous generation of PC graphics hardware) lacks features for scrolling in hardware
so PC games started featuring ...
- 2,222
6
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Was there anything about the "power of the NES" that made Super Mario Bros. have "realistic physics"?
If you look at older platformers, and even many later ones for other platforms and even the NES, there is typically no "momentum" and "realistic" physics for the main character ...
- 61
0
votes
1
answer
647
views
How were console games ported to DOS?
Many popular DOS games were ported from video game consoles:
Earthworm Jim
Mega Man
The Lion King
The Lost Vikings
Turrican 2
Rayman
Oscar
Zool
Video game consoles generally have wildly different ...
- 1,016
9
votes
1
answer
886
views
How did old car games, using "sprite illusions", function on a technical level?
Example: https://youtu.be/E9QJZSBpvg0?t=80
The road turns not only left and right, like in the classic Pole Position, but also goes up and down. Other than the cars and the road, there are numerous ...
- 91
9
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Were any DOS games (or software) known to use VBE/AF?
Were there any MS-DOS games or graphics software that were known to take advantage of VESA BIOS Extensions/Accelerator Functions (VBE/AF)?
some of the functions defined in the standard are ... Bit ...
- 2,222
57
votes
7
answers
18k
views
How did old MS-DOS games utilize various graphic cards?
Nowadays each graphic card has some driver in operating system that translates some (typically) standard API such as OpenGL, so that programmers use some standardized API code to tell graphics cards ...
- 641
7
votes
2
answers
3k
views
What was the dithering algorithm used in Sierra and LucasArts games?
I am trying to write a program in C# that will re-create the type of dithering used in many of the old Sierra and LucasArts games. I have looked up many different dithering algorithms and none seem to ...
- 171
14
votes
4
answers
4k
views
What is going on in the overscan area of Sega Genesis games?
I noticed that different games display different things in the overscan area.
I understand this was never intended to be seen.
However, I would still like a technical explanation. Was this useful to ...
- 573
9
votes
3
answers
4k
views
What "Write your own RPG/Adventure game" books were available for 8-bit computers? [closed]
During the 70s and 80s there were a number of books about how to write your own games for 8-bit computers, usually in BASIC. Three examples of these books are How to Create Adventure Games by ...
- 2,472