This is an Atari VCS (2600) port of FlippyBit, a Flappy Bird
clone that was originally released for iOS in early 2014. FlippyBit is styled to
look like an old Atari game, so at some point the idea of porting it to the VCS
became inevitable. The source code for the VCS version is in flippybit.dasm.
This repo includes a precompiled binary (flippybit.bin) which can be run
directly in any VCS/2600 emulator, such as Stella.
If you want to go the easy route, just grab Ian Bogost's installer that includes a TextMate bundle which gives you 6502 assembly syntax coloring, commands for building and running, and more. You'll also want to install Stella.
If you won't or can't use TextMate, or want to do this all by hand for any other reason, You'll need to do roughly this sequence of things:
- Acquire and install dasm for your platform of choice
- Put
vcs.handmacro.h(included in this repo) in some sort of reasonable location for header files - Build:
/path/to/dasm flippybit.dasm -I/path/to/includes -f3 -s"flippybit.sym" -l"flippybit.lst" -o"flippybit.bin"
Following those steps should generate the binary itself, along with a symbol file (useful for debugging with Stella, and a complete listing with all macros expanded.
The game isn't really complete. There's no start screen, no scoring, and no real end game. Your flipping bit doesn't die when it hits a wall, it just turns black during the collision. Also, the positions of the wall gaps aren't really randomized as they should be. If you feel like completing these details, pull requests are welcome!