Hi,

I am thinking about creating a MSX game for this years MSXdev. But the last time I ever made games was before the year 2000

My question is:

Which tools are very usefull for helping me?

* Graphics
* Music
* Programming

Like I said.. still thinking about it, nothing set in stone.

Tnx in advance

Well, I use the "asMSX" pack. That is, edit graphics with any PC drawing tool (I use The Gimp) and convert them with PCX2MSX. Also, the asMSX to program, editing the program on a PC editor (I use UltraEdit). About music, PT3 is a good choice. You can edit the music with VortexTracker, on Windows, and use a PT3 replayer on the MSX (source code available somewhere).

GFX: Polka, or any other conventional tool with BMP2MSX. Advantage of Polka is that you have full control of foreground and background which *may* be relevant for some games. (BMP2MSX just converts to whatever is available for a pixel, foreground or background)

Music: Vortex Tracker seems to be popular, tho not my style, keep in mind that there's a PSG register flaw in the PT3 player which will result in a penalty point for you.. (it's some kinda dangerous bug, read recent MSXdev jury reports for details). You could also boldly go where we've gone before: make a player for some PC mod tracker and make your music in that tool. I can even remember that years ago someone actually made a mod player for psg (no samples, just notes), can't remember the details.

Code: I'd pick a cross-development tool any day, such as SjASM, Sjasm (whatever difference it may be) or tniASM, and an emulator like openMSX or BlueMSX.

Tnc for the replies so far... Don't expect too much from me, I am very bad in creating gfx and even worse in music/sounds.. I don't expect to win But will do my best..

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But will do my best...

That's the spirit!

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there's a PSG register flaw in the PT3 player which will result in a penalty point for you..

The issue of the deadly PSG bit is solved.

oh ok, then go ahead with PT3

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Music: Vortex Tracker seems to be popular, tho not my style, keep in mind that there's a PSG register flaw in the PT3 player which will result in a penalty point for you..

That was solved a LONG time ago. Anyone can use the PT3 player without worries now!

And to complement: I REALLY like Paint Shop Pro 7 (don't know about newer versions) to edit MSX Graphics, since you do have pixel level control (you should just mark the option "precision cursor" or something), you can have a grid with any size you want on screen (so, for scr2 I just use 8x8 grid) and I use a MSX1 palette when drawing... then I use any tool available to convert the graphics (usually MSXViewer, since I just need to copy+paste the image without having to save it anywhere)

For coding, I'be been experimenting with ASMSX too, and it's really usufull if you're making a ROM (although it has some annoying bugs here and there). To make .COM files I still prefer M80/L80 though.

And for music, It can't get any better than Vortex Tracker - it rocks to edit and play your music on PC without having to program anything, not to mention the ammount of time you save with it

Slotman: there is a newer version of asMSX that should fix a good amount of annoying bugs. Moreover, it has been succesfully ported to Linux. Apple Macintosh will follow soon. The only remaining "bug" is the identifiers/pseudoinstructions collision, i.e., you cannot use a label called STARTING because it collides with the pseudoinstruction START.

Get the latest beta available (it is not a full distribution) here: asMSX 0.15 beta.

Henk: just in case you decide to use asMSX, try to find version 0.12g or 0.14, 'cause they have commented source code of games for you to study.

Enjoy the MSXdev'08 spirit!

So for audio I use Vortex Tracker for creating sounds/music and use PT3 inside my engine?
For GFX I use a normal program and use a tool to convert them into MSX images? Are there asm sources to display those?
And because I want to make a ROM the best option is ASMSX?

edit: seems the links pointing to the asmsx zips dont work anymore

Try polka at least once May be a bit less conventional at points, but so far I've been able to make UU, RNFF and MJTT with it..

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And for music, It can't get any better than Vortex Tracker - it rocks to edit and play your music on PC without having to program anything, not to mention the ammount of time you save with it

It's too bad the base frequency has to be adapted when used on MSX as it's slightly too high in comparison.

About SFX: I would recommend "ayfxedit". Can't remember the full name at the moment.

Ok.

I've just uploaded the latest public distribution of asMSX: asMSX 0.14g distribution

There's a beta of the latest version, but it is just a ZIP file with a Windows exectuable and a Linux executable asMSX 0.15 beta

asMSX is a nice tool for developing ROMs 'cause it was created mainly for this purpose. You'll see that the doc is in Spanish, but you can follow the source samples, that were commented in English.

Next distribution (hopefully 0.15) will include an English doc aswell.

Now I see.. asMSX is a assembler.. whats a good tool to write the asm code in?

You can set asMSX (as most of the other cross-assemblers) to work with almost any text editor. Of course, several of them have interesting features, such as highlighted syntax, direct execution, etc. But I must say that I always use the good'n'old EDIT from MS-DOS. Lately I've been using KATE and GEDIT when using Linux, and I'm pretty satified with them.

Ultraedit is maybe the best option for Windows 'cause you can configure it with great detail.