I have done some simple game programming before on computers so I've always had my game map stored in memory - this means it's easy to alter. On Neo Geo with less than 64k of RAM, i will probably be reading it from ROM (let's say it's a big map for this example). I wanted to ask what is the best way of altering the map permanently. e.g for destructable blocks or even for example: collectables like the rings in Sonic - when he collects them - they don't come back?
I have thought of a few ideas but they all seem like a fair amount of extra work for the processor. How is this normally done on consoles?
You can do it multiple way,
The easiest is to copy everything from rom to ram and alter the map accordingly to the game. For small/medium maps it will be ok.
For big map I'll recommend to only store the diff in the ram, so your game engine will first look in the ram what "block" to draw and if the information isn't here fetch it from the rom.
Peace Unity Love et Having Fun!!!
HPMAN Le 23/06/2014 à 19:57 Depending on the number of destructible elements you can store the map in ROM in its destroyed state, then overlay dynamic objects displaying non destroyed state.
Thank you HPMAN. Yes that's a very good idea.