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The Making of Nox Archaist
In 2020, for the first time in 30 years, a commercial role-playing game was released for the Apple II computer. The goal of Mark Lemmert and his team was to develop a retro role-playing game with a more modern user interface and compelling storyline, written in assembly language on real Apple II hardware and shipping in a deluxe boxed set.
Mark describes the challenges, including a decades-long quest to create the tile engine, a failed Kickstarter, the Apple’s quirky graphics system, and getting decent audio out of a one-bit speaker. Along the way, the team received help from many sources, including Richard Garriott (Lord British), Dr. Cat, Burger Becky, and Steve Wozniak (Woz). Finally, after a wildly-successful Kickstarter and a year of non-stop coding, Mark details how an obscure floppy disk bug nearly derailed the entire project just weeks before release.
With a mix of personal anecdotes and technical details, The Making of Nox Archaist is the ultimate insider’s account of the creation of a modern game on a classic computer platform.
About the author: Mark Lemmert is a Finance & Business Management consultant who began developing retro computer games in 2015. His interest in programming, gaming, and the Apple II began at age five when his family purchased an Apple Il+. When Mark is not immersed in retro gaming, he enjoys traveling and mountain hiking. Mark happily lives in Wisconsin, USA where he is surrounded by cheese and cows.
Mark describes the challenges, including a decades-long quest to create the tile engine, a failed Kickstarter, the Apple’s quirky graphics system, and getting decent audio out of a one-bit speaker. Along the way, the team received help from many sources, including Richard Garriott (Lord British), Dr. Cat, Burger Becky, and Steve Wozniak (Woz). Finally, after a wildly-successful Kickstarter and a year of non-stop coding, Mark details how an obscure floppy disk bug nearly derailed the entire project just weeks before release.
With a mix of personal anecdotes and technical details, The Making of Nox Archaist is the ultimate insider’s account of the creation of a modern game on a classic computer platform.
About the author: Mark Lemmert is a Finance & Business Management consultant who began developing retro computer games in 2015. His interest in programming, gaming, and the Apple II began at age five when his family purchased an Apple Il+. When Mark is not immersed in retro gaming, he enjoys traveling and mountain hiking. Mark happily lives in Wisconsin, USA where he is surrounded by cheese and cows.
238 pages, Paperback
Published March 2, 2022
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March 9, 2022
Anyone thinking about building a large 8-bit game should read this story of how Nox Archaist was created. While mostly non-technical, it will keep coders entertained as well. I like reading about hard-to-find bugs, and how developers slayed them. I thought the A* path-finding algorithm ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A*_sear... ) implementation for NPC movement was particularly interesting -- paths that will be needed in the near future are computed in the background while the player considers his/her next move.
I'd be interested to know why ZX7 won the bakeoff for map compression, I guess I'll ask on the discord server (discord.noxarchaist.com).
I'd be interested to know why ZX7 won the bakeoff for map compression, I guess I'll ask on the discord server (discord.noxarchaist.com).
Displaying 1 of 1 review