Continuous music idea nixed

After converting some routines into Machine Language I tested the CoCo2 music player by Simon Jonnason.  Unfortunately, the game performance, while slightly better, was still not sufficient.  Had this been a CoCo3 game it would have been easy, and while it is tempting to move to the CoCo3, I want to leave Forest of Doom as a CoCo1/2 game as it was originally designed.

I will still use the ML routines already created, but will move on with bug fixes and maybe a couple more features (yeah…feature-creep)!

Machine language routines using Structured Code!? On a CoCo?!

In January 1985, T&D Subscription Software mailed out a cassette (#31) with my game GRID RUN (super thrill for me to see my game distributed!) . On that same cassette was something called “Structured Compiled Language”, which boasted BASIC-like syntax and would compile to the “Holy Grail” of MACHINE LANGUAGE!

I was initially excited, but when I tried it out the limitations (no string manipulation, no negative numbers, etc) discouraged me from pursuing it any further.

Fast forward to 2017, I was considering writing some Machine Language routines for Forest of Doom and I remember SCL.  Fact is, I didn’t know anything about Structured Programming in the 80’s, but having since studied it in University and worked for about a decade full-time as a Computer Analyst / Programmer, I could see the benefit of SCL over Assembly Language.

SCL has its limits, but I can bang out some human readable code in a short period of time, and even tweak the compiler (written in BASIC) to suit my needs!

I seem to have off-loaded a tedious and slow bit of BASIC code, used for navigating the Adventure Map, into a Machine Language routine.  The game was OK in BASIC, but this creates the possibility of incorporating some music playing code from Simon Jonassen!