Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
105 lines (71 loc) · 3.17 KB

README.md

File metadata and controls

105 lines (71 loc) · 3.17 KB

Rock Runner

Rock runner is an action/exploration/puzzle game for the TI-99/4A home computer, inspired by the game Boulder Dash on other platforms. Collect diamonds in 2D worlds with stone, rocks, bombs, butterflies, monsters, and lava.

Features

  • 15 challenging levels.
  • Fast 4-directional scrolling.
  • Introducing the colorful half-bitmap display mode.
  • Sound and speech (with a speech synthesizer attached).
  • Entirely written in TMS-9900 assembly code.
  • The source code!

Screenshots

Title screen Navigating between rocks and bricks Avoiding aggressive butterflies Luring butterflies to lava Staying ahead of the butterflies and monsters Collecting diamonds guarded by butterflies Collecting diamonds Navigating narrow caves Attacking with bombs Escaping monsters and caves

Requirements

  • TI-99/4A home computer.
  • 32K memory expansion.
  • Editor/Assembler module (for the disk version).

or:

  • An emulator for the TI-99/4A, such as Mame.

Building

You need to have the xdt99 cross-development tools installed, for the xas99 assembler.

On Linux, you can run the build script:

./build.sh

Alternatively, you can run its commands manually.

You'll then have the cartridge image out/RockRunner.rpk.

Running

The easiest way is to use the Mame emulator.

On Linux, you can run the script to launch Mame with the proper options:

./run.sh

Alternatively, you can run the Mame command manually.

Once Mame is running and showing the TI-99/4A launch screen:

  1. Press any key.
  2. Press 2 for "Rock Runner"

The game then starts. You can select a screen with the joystick and fire to start playing.

You can exit Mame by pressing Insert and then Esc.

History

I wrote Rock Runner around 1986, using a basic TI-99/4A, a Mini Memory module with 4K of battery-backed memory, a regular 32K memory expansion, and a cassette tape recorder for external storage. The line-by-line assembler could convert individual assembly instructions and write them straight to memory. The memory editor then still allowed to edit a program as hexadecimal values, manually changing opcodes and moving instructions and data around. Those were the days!

Decades later, Ralph Benzinger 's excellent xdt99 cross-development tools allowed me to disassemble the code. For the first time, I could see the source code of my own program in full -- and so can you now. With all-new documentation, the code is holding up pretty nicely. It can be a fun example of hand-written assembly code for the TI-99/4A.

Versions

You can check out the following git tags:

  • master Version that creates an image of a Rock Runner cartridge.
  • v1.0 Version that recreates an image of the original Rock Runner floppy disk.

License

Rock Runner is now released under the GNU General Public License, version 2.

Enjoy!

Eric Lafortune