The Atari 2600 was released in 1977, and now there's finally a book about how to write games for it! You'll learn about the 6502 CPU, NTSC frames, scanlines, cycle counting, players, missiles, collisions, procedural generation, pseudo-3D, and more. Use our web-based IDE to write 6502 assembly code, and see your code run instantly in the browser. We'll cover the same programming tricks that master programmers used to make classic games. Create your own graphics and sound, and share your games with friends!

List of chapters:

Introduction to 6502
The 8bitworkshop IDE
VCS Memory Map
Writing Your First Assembly Code
Painting on the CRT
Playfield Graphics
Players and Sprites
Color Sprites
Sprite Fine Positioning
Player/Missile Graphics
The SetHorizPos Subroutine
Joysticks and Switches
Indirect Addressing
A Complex Scene, Part I
A Complex Scene, Part II
NUSIZ and Other Delights
Scoreboard
Collisions
Asynchronous Playfields: Bitmap
Asynchronous Playfields: Bricks
A Big (48 pixel) Sprite
Tiny Text
Six-Digit Scoreboard
A Big Moveable Sprite
Sprite Formations
Advanced Timer Tricks
Multisprites
Random Number Generation
Procedural Generation
Drawing Lines
The Sound and Music
Pseudo-3D: Sunsets and Starry Nights
Pseudo-3D: Driving Down the Road
Bank Switching
Wavetable Audio
Paddles
Illegal Opcodes
Timing Analysis
Making Games
Troubleshooting
Appendix A: VCS Memory Map
Appendix B: VCS Colors
Appendix C: 6502 Opcodes
Appendix D: 6502 Instruction Flags