Super Galaxi-I-Birds

In an attempt to further my knowledge and understanding of 6502, I've reworked and added new code to T.M.R's C64 gallery blaster 'Super Hyperzap' and have managed to produced something kind of playable in 'Super Galax-I-Birds', released today by C64 Crap Debunk.

On this occasion, as well as producing the graphics and music, I've taken T.M.R's original 'Super Hyperzap' code and added additional features such as a 'busier' title screen in the style of the early '80's space invader style games, 'get ready' type messages for each player, a 2 player option selectable on the title screen, highest score of the day for each player and a status bar that changes it's information depending on whether the title or game screen is being displayed.

In addition, T.M.R's original 'Super Hyperzap' game used 2 sprites for the player ship with only 6 sprites then available for the 3 types of enemy.  This has been recoded in 'Super Galax-I-Birds' so that the player ship is only 1 sprite, freeing an extra sprite for the now 4 types of enemy.  This has had the effect of making 'Super Galax-I-Birds' slightly more hectic than the game on which it was based.

If the game title sounds familiar, this game is indeed an unofficial sequel of sorts to the (in)famous Sensible Software game 'Galaxibirds', released by Firebird in the mid 1980's.

Again, thanks must go to T.M.R and Moloch for their ongoing help and support during my 6502 journey.

There are a few features that didn't make it in, mainly because this game went about as far as I wanted to take it; towards the end, there was no real learning going on, just 'tinkering' and/or adding things for the sake of adding things.  Better handling of waves, with perhaps only 1 type of Galax-i-bird per wave, a high-score table and more types of bird may appear in a 'deluxe' version in the future!

The game can be downloaded from the CSDb here or direct from this blog here.  Both downloads contain the game itself, along with the source code and all binaries and work files for both the graphics and music.  The game is also on GitHub here.

Prior to release, the completed game was supplied to Moloch to be passed on to Triad for 'cracking'.  Their crack release can be downloaded here.

EDIT: A YouTuber called 'NiftyRetroGamer' has done a recording of 'Super Galax-I-Birds' using both emulation and real hardware, while reviewing the game (quite favourably!).  The video should appear below, but if not it can be viewed here...