WIP of my #MARCHintosh 2026 contribution project...

[DW1992]

PewPew TANKS:2600

A new game for colour 68K machines (68030 and 68040) with 640x480 displays at 8bit colour depth.

I was hoping to have a playable demo to release by this point, but still require a little bit (a lot) more work on the tileset deployment logic before I'm happy to show the game play.

Inspired by, but not a straight clone of the ol' Atari 2600 classic COMBAT. More of a re-imagining of the Tank Pong portion of the game.

Some of the working & planned features...
- 2 tanks
- Top down view
- Think, Tank Pong with a capture the enemy flag theme meets Fire Power! on 68K System 7.
- Procedurally generated terrain maps from 2 different tilesets
- So far, a lava world and forest / ruins
- Multiple tank choices, each with different abilities and features
- Multiple background music choices to select from
- Mines and other power ups can be found throughout the play area
- Destructible terrain objects (walls, trees, etc..)
- Full source code & all resources will be included when (if? ) I get this done.

More updates as they happen!

*Still updating Operation PewPew to fix some minor bugs, so expect a new release of that in the next few days as well!*

Happy #MARCHintosh!

Aaron/DW
Dark Systems BBS

 

[David Cook]

Did you draw the splash screen? It looks amazing!

 

[iantm]

can’t wait to see it.

 

[DW1992]

Did you draw the splash screen? It looks amazing!

Thanks
To be totally honest, I cheated...

I used Affinity Photo on my M1 Macbook Air, not Photoshop 2.5.1 on real 68K hardware for drawing the splash screen and all the assets (except for the tileset).
I'm just so much more familiar with Affinity compared to 68K era drawing packages. Although, Corel was headquartered about 230KM from me...

Also, I did purchase 2, 16x16 world tilesets from artists over on itch.io so I'd be months drawing my own and getting all the tile options to align properly.
One lava and one forest / field tileset.


Just a little update to say I' haven't abandoned this #MARCHintosh project. Just slowly working through the different functions in any spare time I find (I'm at the arena typing this on my laptop as my daughter practices hockey right now.)

I finally got the procedural arena map generation working!
Well, mostly. It still connects some tiles incorrectly sometimes, but it's 90% there.
Never worked with tilesets before. Took a bit to wrap my head around the concept of identifying what sides of the nehbouring tiles were valid to connect to other tiles.
Still don't have it completely clear...
Here's an example Lava World that was procedurally generated.


The tanks (yellow & green) don't do anything yet.
They are just in starting positions partially to hold the colour palette while the tileset gnerates.

Once done, when the player starts the game, they can choose the world type (Lava or Forest) to play in.
A seperate tileset is used for each.
I'll start working on the connection rules for the forest world once the Lava world is 100% generating correctly.

Here's the icons they choose with from the menu.



Hopefully more updates soon!
Thanks again for the kind words!


**EDIT**
Just realized the poor 256 colour palette is trying to display all the PICT resources at once.
I've attached the world selection images right out of Affinity for anyone curious, as they will appear with the correct palette in the game menu.

Aaron/DW
Dark Systems BBS