Is 8-Bit Minecraft Possible?

Using the power of the Commander X16, a newly released 8-Bit computer I've begun the process of building a brand new 8-Bit block game. Through some heavy programming I designed a chunk loading engine in 6502 assembly. But because there weren't any great tile designing tools for the X16, like YYCHR for the NES, I had to make them myself. The links to my tile maker is available below. However, after designing a chunk rending engine with tiles, I realized that it looked terrible. I tore it out and replaced it with a new method of rending using the X16's bitmap mode. Although it uses more video memory, the isometric blocks look much better. And most of the code from my first attempt could be recycled, so nothing ended up being a waste. More updates are soon to follow so stay tuned.

Additional Resources:
X16 4bpp and 8bpp tile and palette editor:

3D ant attack footage

This video was sponsored by Brilliant

[Riiludragon]

You could probably speed up rendering significantly if you just searched for all visible blocks and rendered only them, as a matter of fact, since you have as much RAM as you do, you could probably store a list of all visible blocks and update it as the world is interacted with, that way you'd probably be able to smooth scroll again. Since you'd not spend so much time rendering.

[itzGavinP]

That is so cool! This is giving me a HUGE reminder of Paper Minecraft back when I was on Scratch. I will 100% be following this project, because this is the coolest CX16 project I'm seeing so far.

[MynamesMe-]

If I had one suggestion, it would be changing the palettes of the blocks based on time of day? Really not sure how much that would take, but it would add a lot to this charming little thing!

[jlklinck]

This is great!!

One suggestion just about this video specifically - I'm wearing headphones, and the hard-left pan of the music made it difficult for me to concentrate on what you were saying, because the music sounded like it was just a little guy playing music in one ear while you were talking to me. So, in future videos, maybe consider having the music in stereo / both ears (even if panned some), instead of just all the way to the left.

[trunkit]

I think a major issue here will be being able to see things obscured by the blocks in front of it. Maybe add the ability to rotate the camera 90°, which should be feasible with your method of chunk storage.

[coltynstone-lamontagne]

Never been more sad to see this is 5h old! I was so ready to binge a series! Can't wait for the next one

[Xenn]

Really creative and interesting video! Can't wait to see more! Only thing I'd recommend is lowering your music sound, or boosting your voice volume, the music overpowered you a little during some parts of the video.

[NotTheWheel]

I don't know what a lot of this means son, but I'm proud of you.

[ryanthescion]

This is the greatest project I’ve ever seen

[pieeater]

It’s gorgeous, it genuinely looks like the beginnings of something really cool

[TheBcoolGuy]

Wow! I wanna see the block interactions. Building and breaking. It'd also be cool if you use old-school game design principles to implement modern game mechanics and vice versa.

[stevemcwin]

This is really impressive, I can't wait to see how this project will turn out! Wish you best of luck working on this!

[Yassinius]

The amount of effort that you had to put in to make this video is insane to me. I'd love to see you finish this!

[yukiyt]

"It's only a waste if I give up." such a good line.

[kannr]

Looking good! I think that instead of rendering a bit of every chunk around the player (13:12), rendering just the "current chunk" that you're in, and have a transition for travelling between said chunks would be a good choice! Saves a bit of processing power, too, hopefully. Looking forward to more progress 😸

[Chillco]

I think it'd be an interesting challenge to try and figure out how to let the player break/place blocks behind other blocks despite not being able to see where they are placing/breaking.

[Artoooooor]

Distinguishing between things that can be mined can be quite hard at this scale. Maybe some GUI that shows exact thing Steve is looking at could be helpful? Something as WAILA from Minecraft. Also - when the screen is static (I am writing it with 13:41 paused) it's quite messy and hard to tell what is exactly on screen. Maybe some visual indication of the exact shape, or block Steve is on would be of some use? Maybe outline of the blocks... well... still looks great, especially on 8-bit machine :)

[dortuff]

Awesome, gonna be waiting for the next one.

[nou]

my left ear really enjoyed the background music

[barry]

the music starting at 6:24 was really distracting imo, couldnt watch the rest of the video cuz of it