Top all-time · #10665
Just Some Thoughts
Personal blog · evoniuk.github.iogamesprogramming
Just Some Thoughts is a personal blog at evoniuk.github.io about games and programming. Since 2020, 7 different Hacker News readers have linked it 7 times, most often “How Atari 2600 Game Pitfall Builds Its World”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog for its deep dives into how retro games generated their worlds, especially the Atari 2600 Pitfall and its LFSR-based level generation. It is cited as a background source on procedural generation.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- How Atari 2600 Game Pitfall Builds Its World5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2021-05-10
- Solving Sootopolis City2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-07-12
What Hacker News says?
Related: How [Atari 2600] Pitfall Builds its World: https://evoniuk.github.io/posts/pitfall.html Procedural Generation [Elite, early 8-bit game]: https://procedural-generation.tumblr.com/post/112509130817/e... Procedural Generation [general article]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_generation Somewhat related: Lazy Evaluation [from Functional programming (FP) languages]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazy_e…
Comment linking /posts/pitfall.html
on “City in a Bottle – A 256 Byte Raycasting System”Submitted How Atari 2600 Game Pitfall Builds Its World as a story · 166 points
HN discussionLFSR is in my vocabulary because of these two articles: * Fizzlefade by Fabien Sanglard [0] that explains the fade to red effect in Wolfenstein 3D * How Pitfall Builds its World [1] that explains how the original Pitfall on the Atari 2600 managed to have 255 unique screens despite severe constraints on the storage space available (it used a maximal length 8-bit LFSR that was also invertible so that you can go back t…
Comment linking /posts/pitfall.html
on “Demystifying the LFSR”Submitted “Pitfall” for the Atari describes its whole world in a single byte as a story · 7 points
HN discussionProcedural generation was also used to generate levels in the Pitfall game for Atari 2600. A single level was represented with a byte (!) and bits were controlling the number of rolling logs, holes, etc. There were 255 levels there and LFSR was used to go from one level to another, so the actual level bytes wasn't even stored in the ROM. For more details and screenshots see this great blog post: https://evoniuk.gith…
Comment linking /posts/pitfall.html
on “Random(Random(Random(Random())))”Submitted Solving Sootopolis City as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Solving Sootopolis City as a story · 1 points
HN discussion