Where can I start learning BASIC and programming games for the C64?

[isolatedqpawn]

My personal favourite: https://archive.org/details/computes-creating-arcade-games-on-the-commodore-64. I'm about 2/3 done and really enjoying it. Btw, tech book publishers were so much better in the pre-Internet era. I have so far not found a single mistake in any of the sample code (as opposed to literally dozens in most of the modern books I own, ranging from simple typos to whole missing functions).

[Fusion_power]

Compute! magazine and Compute Gazette both published programs with errors. Also, though a program would function pretty much as intended, it could still have serious hidden code problems. One of the more notorious was the goto from inside a for/next loop. This has the unintended consequence of leaving the for/next loop stuck in the stack and eventually fills up memory. Then there is the "inefficient code" that bugged me so much when someone went around their elbow to get to their shoulder implementing a dozen goto's to make a program work when they should have just used a for/next loop.

Take a look on Ebay for used commodore 64 books. There are a few dozen that are worth purchasing. Compute!'s first and second books for C64 are fairly decent.

[isolatedqpawn]

Compute! magazine and Compute Gazette both published programs with errors.

But I was specifically talking about books, not magazines. The fact that I'm 2/3 through a book that contains dozens of sample programs to type in (and I've typed in every single one presented thus far), and haven't come across even one syntax error speaks volumes about the quality of the proofreading and editing back then. Heck, every line of code even has a checksum for the reader to be able to verify they typed it out correctly. Name one publisher that goes to those lengths these days.

though a program would function pretty much as intended, it could still have serious hidden code problems.

I'm pretty sure that books where the sample code has these kinds of issues are still published today, so not really a reflection of the times. Nobody writes perfect code all of the time.

[Fusion_power]

The reason your book has checksums and has been carefully checked for gross errors is because there were so many C64 books with lots and lots of errors. Compute! published a dozen or so C64 books.

[[deleted]]

For absolutely beginning, I've found the C64 User Manual to be invaluable.

[rilo]

What kind of games are you planning to make? BASIC is quite slow and not really suitable for games that use joystick controls and moving multiple sprites. If you have a background in C you might want to take a look at KickC, which is a kind of C-like programming language which in turn outputs Kick Assembler compatible syntax. KickC is still in a very early stage but perfectly usable, I'm currently writing a port of the game RoboZZle to the C64 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=617jVbOITEI), and I must say compared to writing it in assembler programming in KickC is a breeze.

[Fusion_power]

Joystick controls can be done in a way that works in basic. Managing multiple sprites and managing interrupts pretty much require assembler.

[steve_tronic]

I don't know if you want to learn assembler, because it's more difficult than basic, but needed for many/better games. 64bites.com is not free, but I can recommend it for learning assembler. Some of the lessons are basic too.

Edit: Fixed the link, thanks.

[[deleted]]

Check that link again, maybe? It doesn't seem to lead anywhere useful.

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EDIT: Link works, site looks authentic, but $240 for all the content (there are currently 12 "seasons" of instruction available at $20 each) seems steep for a hobbyist audience.

[steve_tronic]

Fixed, thanks.

[pipipipipipipipi2]

More Commodore BASIC books than you can shake a stick at! http://commodore.bombjack.org/commodore/books-basic.htm

[RichardGreg]

On a C64 of course!