For how many of us is our favorite Christmas memory unwrapping our very first Commodore? I remember it well. The first gift unwrapped was the datasette and I exclaimed “why would I need this unless…” as I reached for the bigger box immediately. 😊
Whilst restlessly waiting to see if Santa was stopping by (in the middle of the night), you delivered the best Christmas present ever! Cheers for all your C64 (and more) efforts!
So this game is kind of special to me. I loved it back then, fiendishly hard but somehow I just really enjoyed playing it. A couple of years later I bought an Amiga, learned to code and my first game was a remake of Christmas Eve. And now I'm 52 and still every Christmas Eve I play the c64 version again. Some weird tradition I'll keep doing every year 😅
10:10 The memories come flooding back.... At that time I worked at State Engineering in Leighton which was 14kms from Cottesloe and we produced the winged keel that Alan Bond used on his yacht. There were a lot of security people and things were covered up so no one could see what was going on lol
Sandy Munro? Could this be the great Sandy Munro that runs Munro and Associates? He runs the youtube channel "Munro Live." He's an engineer. That's a pretty unique name. And he would have been in his 40's probably when he wrote it. Now I must know!
We need to contact him, if nothing else so he can update his version with your optimizations and bugfixes. I mean, we all assume he has a C64 connected up permanently in his home office, so he can play Christmas Eve all year, right?
"no one's ever noticed this" bug in a 40 year old type in game that the one person who typed in and played thought it sucked... Merry Christmas! Great video!
There are just so many things I enjoyed about this video. One, Commodore 64 and for whatever reason, there is this indelible link between Christmas and Commodore 64. The sounds of the keyboard are forever linked with these memories. . Secondly, that is a great period of games. Simple and playable that just brings a smile to my face. Additionally, the Lego minifigs on the C64 is yet ANOTHER Christmas nostalgia tie that is simply fantastic. Thanks so much, Merry Christmas and I wish you the best and brightest New Years yet!
Bravo! Amazing episode. Merry Christmas to you and your family. I'm inspired to go through my old magazines and search for a type in program that I think I can improve a little. Thank you for that gift!
Great video! Merry Christmas Robin. Just got to 48 minutes in where you adjust the thrust velocity to -0.1 on line 105, but you should also consider altering the starting value of E on line 160 or else the gravity is stronger. I think I saw a section elsewhere in the code to that increments this as levels get harder which may also need adjusting. BTW - love a big video at Christmas, I'd have happily stayed with you for 2 hours if you wanted to waffle on about the magazine, listing or whatever :)
I think you're right! I'll look into that tonight and see what values feel best. Thanks for your support re: big videos, I probably could have gone on for another hour about the magazine :)
Merry Christmas and Happy New year from my family to yours. Thanks for what you do. I know C64 has a sweet spot in your heart as Atari 800XL has in mine.
It's incredible a basic 2.0 game looks and plays like an early commercial c64 game, really many compliments to the original author and to your much interesting video. I remember "Rox 64" by jeff minter was another interesting basic game that seemed almost commercial, you could analize it and try to improve it too. Happy Christmas Eve!
This makes me want to do a game mod. Maybe a gameplay trade-off. The floor is safe (but not the ceiling), but you can't shoot the sacks. Also, the "bowling pins" could move back and forth like the robots from Impossible Mission. LOVE the music!
Great video Robin! Merry Christmas! I’ll be playing this game (original and your optimized version) soon. It looks quite impressive for a basic type-in game. Opening tune, thruster sound effects and decent looking game play. Nice! Makes me think a bit of Joust. Spawning somewhat randomly would be interesting in that you would potentially have to go up a few floors / tiers / levels. Though having a level start the sleigh at the bottom might be enough added challenge. Random spawning might not be needed. And it looks hard enough as is anyway.
13:32 My brother and i spent days typing in the code from a magazine, only to be greeted by a error message. We then spent days checking our code. Many of the magazine programs had errors. Since it was before internet existed, I was too unaware to debug.
Fan-tas-tic memories ! Though, in 1987 I was having an Amstrad CPC and not a C64. (Amiga I got a bit later) But I did LOVE Antiriad on the CPC. I am from France, and it is kind of amazing to see an Australian guy commenting an european magazine :)
The touchiness of the game reminds me of the very first tape game I ever bought for my C64 back around 1984, China Miner, which required precision position before jumping otherwise it was game over very quickly.
We got CU in New Zealand and I had a subscription to it from 86 to 92. I used to go get it and bring it into high school so me and my friends could read it. I owned a C16 back then and wanted some type ins for it and reviews. I eventually got an Amiga A500 in 88. Good times man.
45:11 Isn't shorter and faster to make lines 160-170 into only one test and two lines? 160 U=U+E:IFABS(U)>1THENU=SGN(U) 170 Y=Y+U:GOTO105 Or are the BASIC 2.0 so inefficient that calling the ABS() and SGN() functions is longer than the two IF...THEN clauses ?
Interesting coincidence, Sandy (Alexander) Munro is host of the eponymous UA-cam channel where he analyses how cars and other devices are built and where cost can be reduced. I highly doubt it's the same person.
Good work getting to level 4, that's a tough game. Also, I could totally see you picking up the banjo one of these days. A very merry Christmas to you and yours.
Banjo could be fun :) My instrument collection is already a bit oversized though, with multiples each of bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and ukulele.
I realize that to most C64 fans it probably seems strange, but I didn't play a lot of games back then. Aside from the type-in, Oil Tycoon, there were really only two commercial games that I played (and mastered); Jumpman and Fort Apocalypse. But, I spent so much time writing programs in BASIC with some assembly subroutines that were only of interest to me that my Ex physically attacked my C64s. From cutting the ribbon cable (which I miraculously repaired) to throwing them against the wall and taking a hammer to them. My obsession probably contributed to the end of our marriage, heh. It was ill conceived anyway. I'm enjoying my TheC64 (maxi).
Apparently by fixing a typo in a REM statement! :) To try to be fair, while CSDb categorizes this as a "C64 Crack", the credits just list "Original Supply". So this is probably a case of type-in magazine games not conforming very well to the database, so they're shoe-horned in rather than being excluded, or expanding the database categories.
The only difference between the two Commodore 64 models is that less time is spent drawing the side borders and more is spent drawing the top and bottom ones, and that each frame stays on screen a little longer. Even the "jiffy clock" is made to count 60ths of a second in both regions. Anything that runs in pure BASIC is too slow to take advantage of the precise timings needed to exploit the framerate or border drawing time.
Guess I was a 90's teenager too - turned 13 in 1990. The 80's were a fantastic time to grow up! Can't help feeling like I missed out some by being so young, but it was a wonderful childhood.
Merry Christmas Robin from Scotland UK 🎅🤶👼🏼🙏❄⛄ You pronounced ANTIRIAD correctly first time and growing up in Scotland meant we had alot of magazines. I have a ZZAP64 celebrating PACLAND C64 conversion
As far as I can tell, the game will just continue level after level, but the difficulty (gravity changes and number of ice demons) maxes out at level 6. So levels 6, 7, and on are all identical.
It would be interesting to add an option to randomly spawn on different levels instead of always spawning on top. Of course one issue that comes from that is you might spawn on top of something so you'd also have to make sure there's no sprite collisions (eg, check the locations prior to spawning, defaulting to the top if there aren't any free spots
2:20 Why'd he remove most of his armour in the middle of a battle? 42:40 You can also put a GOTO after the first of two contradictory joystick directions: the user can't both press and not press the Fire button, or press Left and Right at the same time. 1:04:55 Wait, does that bass guitar have *five* strings? I take it there's an acoustic guitar off-screen.
In Antiriad, part of the game involves finding the suit of armour, so presumably he hasn't had a chance to put on the rest of it yet :) Yes, that's my 5-string bass. It has an extra-low B string, below the regular E string (below in pitch, but above as far as being further from the floor). I finally make use of it in the final note of the song. And yes, the acoustic guitar (and guitar player) are off-screen :)
For how many of us is our favorite Christmas memory unwrapping our very first Commodore?
I remember it well. The first gift unwrapped was the datasette and I exclaimed “why would I need this unless…” as I reached for the bigger box immediately. 😊
Whilst restlessly waiting to see if Santa was stopping by (in the middle of the night), you delivered the best Christmas present ever! Cheers for all your C64 (and more) efforts!
So this game is kind of special to me. I loved it back then, fiendishly hard but somehow I just really enjoyed playing it. A couple of years later I bought an Amiga, learned to code and my first game was a remake of Christmas Eve. And now I'm 52 and still every Christmas Eve I play the c64 version again. Some weird tradition I'll keep doing every year 😅
10:10 The memories come flooding back.... At that time I worked at State Engineering in Leighton which was 14kms from Cottesloe and we produced the winged keel that Alan Bond used on his yacht. There were a lot of security people and things were covered up so no one could see what was going on lol
Sandy Munro? Could this be the great Sandy Munro that runs Munro and Associates? He runs the youtube channel "Munro Live." He's an engineer. That's a pretty unique name. And he would have been in his 40's probably when he wrote it. Now I must know!
We need to contact him, if nothing else so he can update his version with your optimizations and bugfixes. I mean, we all assume he has a C64 connected up permanently in his home office, so he can play Christmas Eve all year, right?
I contacted him once through Linkedin, asking if he was indeed the same, but never got a reply. So still not sure if it's indeed the same guy.
"no one's ever noticed this" bug in a 40 year old type in game that the one person who typed in and played thought it sucked... Merry Christmas! Great video!
What a great type-in game. I remember typing in games on my TI-994a when I was a kid. Thanks for making this video.
An unexpected video for Christmas!! Woot! Thanks Robin, and Merry Christmas to you and yours!
What a wonderful way to spend an hour on Christmas day. Thanks so much for the memories and a Merry Christmas to you and every viewer!
There are just so many things I enjoyed about this video. One, Commodore 64 and for whatever reason, there is this indelible link between Christmas and Commodore 64. The sounds of the keyboard are forever linked with these memories. . Secondly, that is a great period of games. Simple and playable that just brings a smile to my face. Additionally, the Lego minifigs on the C64 is yet ANOTHER Christmas nostalgia tie that is simply fantastic. Thanks so much, Merry Christmas and I wish you the best and brightest New Years yet!
Thanks Nate, Merry Christmas to you and your family!
Great video. Loved the unexpected Christmas originals!
I loved you flipping through the magazine and just talking about it! Good stuff! Merry Christmas Robin!
Awesome song. Merry Christmas, Robin.
Bravo! Amazing episode. Merry Christmas to you and your family. I'm inspired to go through my old magazines and search for a type in program that I think I can improve a little. Thank you for that gift!
Cool video and cool little game, Merry Christmas!
For a type in that game was well done! I hope your memories of Perth, WA, was good. Great ending.
I loved this episode, and the music. Merry Christmas!
Great video! Merry Christmas Robin. Just got to 48 minutes in where you adjust the thrust velocity to -0.1 on line 105, but you should also consider altering the starting value of E on line 160 or else the gravity is stronger. I think I saw a section elsewhere in the code to that increments this as levels get harder which may also need adjusting.
BTW - love a big video at Christmas, I'd have happily stayed with you for 2 hours if you wanted to waffle on about the magazine, listing or whatever :)
I think you're right! I'll look into that tonight and see what values feel best. Thanks for your support re: big videos, I probably could have gone on for another hour about the magazine :)
I was 16 and the world was so much better than now. Merry Christmas mate 🎄👾
That's not a bad type in game. I am going to play it today, both original and sooped up version. Merry Christmas to all 64ers.
Merry Christmas and Happy New year from my family to yours. Thanks for what you do. I know C64 has a sweet spot in your heart as Atari 800XL has in mine.
Excellent video as always. Merry Christmas! :D
Great video for the festive season. Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas to you and your family!
Thanks for all the great content!!!
Have a happy holidays 8-Bit Show And Tell
Merry Christmas Robin! Great content as usual and looking forward to next year!
Merry Christmas to you & the entire 8-Bit family!
Merry Christmas Robin! Happy New Year too!
Great channel, Merry Christmas 🎉
Thank you, Robin! That was a very interesting video and also comical. :-). Merry Christmas to you and your family! -pred
It's incredible a basic 2.0 game looks and plays like an early commercial c64 game, really many compliments to the original author and to your much interesting video. I remember "Rox 64" by jeff minter was another interesting basic game that seemed almost commercial, you could analize it and try to improve it too.
Happy Christmas Eve!
I really miss my Commodore 64, I miss the times I had it - Lovely Video - all the best
🌟🎄Merry Christmas and thank you Robin, for many interesting C64 shows and tells.🌟I'm sitting here wrapping presents...
This makes me want to do a game mod. Maybe a gameplay trade-off. The floor is safe (but not the ceiling), but you can't shoot the sacks. Also, the "bowling pins" could move back and forth like the robots from Impossible Mission. LOVE the music!
Great video Robin! Merry Christmas! I’ll be playing this game (original and your optimized version) soon. It looks quite impressive for a basic type-in game. Opening tune, thruster sound effects and decent looking game play. Nice!
Makes me think a bit of Joust.
Spawning somewhat randomly would be interesting in that you would potentially have to go up a few floors / tiers / levels.
Though having a level start the sleigh at the bottom might be enough added challenge. Random spawning might not be needed. And it looks hard enough as is anyway.
Merry Christmas Robin for all you family you are incredible in all the videos Saludt from Argentina
Merry Christmas, Robin.
13:32 My brother and i spent days typing in the code from a magazine, only to be greeted by a error message.
We then spent days checking our code.
Many of the magazine programs had errors.
Since it was before internet existed, I was too unaware to debug.
Awesome Christmas video! I'm going a couple of years into the future, playing Ultima 4 on the Vice emu.
Merry Xmas, Robin
Fan-tas-tic memories ! Though, in 1987 I was having an Amstrad CPC and not a C64. (Amiga I got a bit later) But I did LOVE Antiriad on the CPC. I am from France, and it is kind of amazing to see an Australian guy commenting an european magazine :)
The touchiness of the game reminds me of the very first tape game I ever bought for my C64 back around 1984, China Miner, which required precision position before jumping otherwise it was game over very quickly.
I remember going to the local grocery store to buy a current copy of RUN magazine. We hung on every word in those old magazines and learned a lot!
Hey Robin. I'm American -- I loved Transactor too! :)
Great job Merry Christmas 🎅
Thanks for the memories. I saved the first issue of Commodore Gazette for decades, but after our last move I couldn't find it...sigh.
We got CU in New Zealand and I had a subscription to it from 86 to 92. I used to go get it and bring it into high school so me and my friends could read it. I owned a C16 back then and wanted some type ins for it and reviews. I eventually got an Amiga A500 in 88. Good times man.
merry christmas 🎉
Merry Christmas!
Gosh I remember buying this like it was yesterday... I used to love Commodore User 😃
Nice! I have that very issue of Commodore User (and here in the Netherlands they were hellishly expensive!)
I used to be able to find issues of Commodore User sometimes back in the day, but I was more familiar with their Amiga rag. :)
Merry C=hristmas Robin and 8bSAT fam
Anita Sinclair - that has to be a joke name for a commodore magazine 😂😂😂
She is/was a games programmer and one of the founders - the main founder I believe - of the Magnetic Scrolls.
Well, that got me through my annual present-wrapping session
Awesome mae-ger-zine
1983 was the Christmas I got my C64, too!
I think here in the UK we had the best of the C64, we were spoilt for choice with games and magazines
I still have that issue, and the calendar poster!
Merry Christmas - Cottesloe is slightly north of Perth city, not south ;)
You might be thinking of City Beach, which is just North (West) of Perth and Cottesloe is still South of Perth as it was in 1987 😉
Merry Christmas robin spent the last 2 days looking thinking where is Robin’s video
"I'm playing this game so you don't have to" 😂
I know them only as CU Amiga. One of my favourite magzines
Merry Xmas from one Canadian to another eh
45:11 Isn't shorter and faster to make lines 160-170 into only one test and two lines?
160 U=U+E:IFABS(U)>1THENU=SGN(U)
170 Y=Y+U:GOTO105
Or are the BASIC 2.0 so inefficient that calling the ABS() and SGN() functions is longer than the two IF...THEN clauses ?
26:00 - It's surprisingly competent for a BASIC game!
Would another thing be having a line 0 that jumps to an init section and then pull the main loop up and number all the lines 2,3,4, etc.?
Interesting coincidence, Sandy (Alexander) Munro is host of the eponymous UA-cam channel where he analyses how cars and other devices are built and where cost can be reduced. I highly doubt it's the same person.
Great memories
Back in the day magazines were powerful, the could make or break a game.
"We wish you a Merry Xmas, we wish you a Merry Xmas, we wish you a Merry Xmas, and a Happy New Year!" (Played with beeps!) Happy Xmas everyone!
Regarding World Games: I'm still wondering why Epyx thought that jumping over barrels on skates is a thing here in Germany! 😄
13:35 made me laugh so hard!
Fixing a typo = crack! :) Happy New Year!
Given that two subroutines are called only once, would it be quicker to include the relevent codes as part of lines 140 and 155?
US viewers, 'Antiriad' was "Rad Warrior" :)
I would remove one layer and increase the height between each layer. Then maybe every few levels/screens, decrease the height by a pixel or 2.
Good work getting to level 4, that's a tough game.
Also, I could totally see you picking up the banjo one of these days.
A very merry Christmas to you and yours.
Banjo could be fun :) My instrument collection is already a bit oversized though, with multiples each of bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and ukulele.
I realize that to most C64 fans it probably seems strange, but I didn't play a lot of games back then. Aside from the type-in, Oil Tycoon, there were really only two commercial games that I played (and mastered); Jumpman and Fort Apocalypse. But, I spent so much time writing programs in BASIC with some assembly subroutines that were only of interest to me that my Ex physically attacked my C64s. From cutting the ribbon cable (which I miraculously repaired) to throwing them against the wall and taking a hammer to them. My obsession probably contributed to the end of our marriage, heh. It was ill conceived anyway.
I'm enjoying my TheC64 (maxi).
Did you change the initial high score also?
I removed it entirely so the initial high score is zero. That way it tracks the highest score you've achieved during the current session.
cannot you use chat gpt to scan the code page and ocr ? but how do you get it back into the c64?
Cottesloe is about 5km away from me. 🏖️
pretty funny. how do you have a "cracked" version of a type-in program?
Apparently by fixing a typo in a REM statement! :) To try to be fair, while CSDb categorizes this as a "C64 Crack", the credits just list "Original Supply". So this is probably a case of type-in magazine games not conforming very well to the database, so they're shoe-horned in rather than being excluded, or expanding the database categories.
The basic program written on a Commodore 64 for pal actually work on ntsc?
The only difference between the two Commodore 64 models is that less time is spent drawing the side borders and more is spent drawing the top and bottom ones, and that each frame stays on screen a little longer. Even the "jiffy clock" is made to count 60ths of a second in both regions. Anything that runs in pure BASIC is too slow to take advantage of the precise timings needed to exploit the framerate or border drawing time.
Just started with watching and already liking it! Great work, thank you!
After reading "Ready Player One" I'm fascinated by the 80's. I was a 90s teenager, but it seems like the 80s were fascinating to be young in.
Guess I was a 90's teenager too - turned 13 in 1990. The 80's were a fantastic time to grow up! Can't help feeling like I missed out some by being so young, but it was a wonderful childhood.
Cottesloe is more west south-west than south of Perth.
Ha, on level 3 at the bottom, you shot and it somehow went through the first ice demon and took out the second one. I think that's a glitch
If this had been a commercial game, it would have had a timer and limited fuel.
Sometimes, optimizing a game to run faster is isn't the best choice. :-)
Merry Christmas Robin from Scotland UK
🎅🤶👼🏼🙏❄⛄
You pronounced ANTIRIAD correctly first time and growing up in Scotland meant we had alot of magazines.
I have a ZZAP64 celebrating PACLAND C64 conversion
A sleigh which can't touch the ground is stupid. Would just get rid of that.
It's funny they used down for fire, and then button for up. Why not just use up for up and button for fire?
Is there an actual win condition, or does the game just crash if you progress to a humanly inaccessible level?
As far as I can tell, the game will just continue level after level, but the difficulty (gravity changes and number of ice demons) maxes out at level 6. So levels 6, 7, and on are all identical.
Instead of checking for (J AND 16) > 0, could you not simply check for (J AND 16)?
Was you dad in the Canadian Military?
It would be interesting to add an option to randomly spawn on different levels instead of always spawning on top. Of course one issue that comes from that is you might spawn on top of something so you'd also have to make sure there's no sprite collisions (eg, check the locations prior to spawning, defaulting to the top if there aren't any free spots
But but but that code is (c) copyright 1986 (c) , three times!
Line 110. Just delete >0. 105,115,120,140 use =.
2:20 Why'd he remove most of his armour in the middle of a battle?
42:40 You can also put a GOTO after the first of two contradictory joystick directions: the user can't both press and not press the Fire button, or press Left and Right at the same time.
1:04:55 Wait, does that bass guitar have *five* strings? I take it there's an acoustic guitar off-screen.
In Antiriad, part of the game involves finding the suit of armour, so presumably he hasn't had a chance to put on the rest of it yet :)
Yes, that's my 5-string bass. It has an extra-low B string, below the regular E string (below in pitch, but above as far as being further from the floor). I finally make use of it in the final note of the song. And yes, the acoustic guitar (and guitar player) are off-screen :)
👍👍👍👍🎄🎄🎄🎄