Commodore 64 Redefine Character Set

Learn how to change your Commodore 64 characters. Create your own graphics.

This video demonstrates a project i worked on back in the 90s. I was working on a way to create my own redefined characters for a text adventure I was working on called Quest for the Mad Bomber.

I also noticed that the C64 is slow at moving characters from ROM to RAM so I used an assembly routine to handle the task. After this I used DATA statements to read in my own character designs.

When the program is run, you will see the characters I had originally created. During this video however I illustrate how to graph out your own characters, calculate the bytes, and add the new change to the program.

Just in case the video is not clear on the graph, here is the row numbering you will add to each square:
128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

Each character design is 8 x 8 (width/height). For now we will draw them on graph paper, but I hope to work on a full screen editor soon.

I hope this gets you started on creating your own maps. Eventually I want to add a sprite character and move it against my own redefined character set background.

Note: I will add the D64 link to my website later. However it is now 3:52 AM here and I'm out for the night.

Please visit the new page for VICE C64 D64 downloads

Thanks for watching.

[gelbecillo]

Great video, thank you for sharing! What is the title of the book you are showing at 4:20?

[zapposh]

Thanks for your answer. For my part I'm most interested in everything concerning graphics (sprite colors, priority, movement and animation etc.). Would also be very interested in seing an indroduction to assembler, comparing the same commands in basic and asm. Thank you.

[SteveMorrow]

Thanks for the compliment. I enjoy this as it is a passion. Let me know if you are looking to learn any type of tricks or if you are stuck on learning something new in Basic. I'll be producing more Basic tutorials for the C64 now I realize people are interested in that.

[SteveMorrow]

I will do my best to explain that in the next video on game design. Coming soon.