Posted January 20, 2023 by orlof
After 2.0.2 release Ad Astra totally filled the C64 memory - XCBasic is good, but it cannot compete with hand crafted assembly. Still I am not ready to give up basic. Especially the Verge Station menus and the main game loop are much faster to implement in basic.
So... I spent couple of long nights optimising the code, but all I was able to free was about 1 kB. After that I decided to make the Big Leap. Ad Astra would no longer be a-single-file-and-everything-in-memory type of game. In this first phase I implemented my own disc reading code and used it to load couple of images to spice up the story. The major implication is that now I have a totally new playground to explore.