New Book - Modern MSX BASIC Game Development

Books, real physical, printed ones. Not a rare item back in the days of MSX glory, as not all things were digital back then. But in 2021, well, it seems a rare commodity. Thanks to the digital super highway called Internet, information is quickly obtainable but also very futile. Books are like Long Play Records, a niche product. Loved by a small amount of enthusiastics... Don't blame them, books just smell darn good. As do records.

So, whenever there's a new book on our beloved subject, we're happy to write about it. Digital, or hard copy, new MSX books are a delicacy that we can't get enough of. You might expect that, for a retro system of 35 y/o, everything's been written about and secrets are rare. Well, not always. Remember Wim Dewijngaert his recent Konami MSX Legacy book? And now, Raúl Portales gives us the "Modern MSX BASIC Game Development" book.

As the title says, a book about programming BASIC games on MSX with modern tools like emulators, automated scripts, tile editors, MSX-BASIC-KUN, and other. Raúl has written a nice English language, 238 pages book with practical examples that are also downloadable. A great piece of work for any one interested in game programming with MSX BASIC.

In the MSX scene you might know Raúl as MRC user shalafi, and as the creator of the MSXdev`20 game title Raftoid, released under his alias Plattysoft. He is also the author of Android related book titles.

The book "Modern MSX BASIC Game Development" is available on Amazon on both paperback and eBook and costs about 20 euros (ex shipping).

Relevant link: Buy the book at Amazon
Relevant link: The demo ROM, scripts and all the examples are available on GitHub

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Comments (19)

By TGC

Resident (39)

17-07-2021, 20:50

Just ordered one

By dracul

Master (171)

18-07-2021, 17:28

Me too. I hope I will get it by now ;-)

By shalafi

Master (191)

18-07-2021, 21:22

Thanks! I hope you like it.
My own copy arrived on Friday, less than 4 days since ordering. Not bad for printed on demand.

By NetNomad

Resident (55)

20-07-2021, 04:10

Mine came today! Two chapters in and already learned a bunch of stuff I didn't know. The physical book is also much better quality than I expected from print-to-order and even has full color pictures and screenshots. It's really cool!

By shalafi

Master (191)

20-07-2021, 20:36

Sure, the quality is really good for the price and printed in demand.
When I said "not bad for in demand" I was referring to the time to delivery.

@netnomad Glad you are enjoying it!

By albs_br

Hero (518)

21-07-2021, 03:16

Bought the digital version, currently read around 1/3.
Even not being an MSX Basic enthusiast, I'm really enjoying the reading. Pretty entertaining.
Congrats!

By shalafi

Master (191)

21-07-2021, 10:04

albs_br wrote:

Bought the digital version, currently read around 1/3.
Even not being an MSX Basic enthusiast, I'm really enjoying the reading. Pretty entertaining.
Congrats!

Thank you!

By Samor

Prophet (2231)

21-07-2021, 11:23

What a nice idea! I ordered a copy.

By Samor

Prophet (2231)

24-07-2021, 19:08

It arrived yesterday (pretty fast!).
Also already learned a few things unknown to me as the old books never properly explained it.

By mais1976

Master (174)

29-07-2021, 19:26

I ordered mine today

By shalafi

Master (191)

29-07-2021, 20:34

Samor wrote:

It arrived yesterday (pretty fast!).
Also already learned a few things unknown to me as the old books never properly explained it.

Nice to read that the book is serving its purpose. Please leave a review on Amazon if you liked it.

mais1976 wrote:

I ordered mine today

Thanks! I hope it arrives soon.

By black hawk

Master (134)

07-08-2021, 16:11

Mine came today. Nice and modern book. I like it. I look forward to reading it

By mais1976

Master (174)

08-08-2021, 15:30

Mine arrived yesterday. Wish I had this one, when I was a kid The intro text is very recognisable

By shalafi

Master (191)

08-08-2021, 21:40

mais1976 wrote:

Mine arrived yesterday. Wish I had this one, when I was a kid The intro text is very recognisable

I'm not sure if it is reassuring that I was not alone on my struggles :-D

By Code Witcher

Resident (43)

22-09-2021, 22:22

Hey Shalafi! I bought it a few days ago, it's on my kindle, I take it everywhere! I'm looking at the estimate time it says I'll finish it and all I think is that I don't want it to end, such good stuff. Highly informative, very well written and of course entertaining, I feel like a young kid again, that's what matters the most, it's very exciting to see new stuff coming out for our beloved MSX, and I can relate to everything you say, I've been waiting for stuff like this for 30 years.

I've been posting my questions on FB groups and others here, maybe you can get to one or two personally, it would be a honor to read you.

Will you do part 2? will you do a machine code one? I bet that one would take several volumes...
Thank you for the book.

By Manuel

Ascended (19811)

22-09-2021, 23:14

Just wondering: what are typically the new things you've learned from this book?

By shalafi

Master (191)

22-10-2021, 14:16

Code Witcher wrote:

I've been posting my questions on FB groups and others here, maybe you can get to one or two personally, it would be a honor to read you.

Will you do part 2? will you do a machine code one? I bet that one would take several volumes...
Thank you for the book.

Happy to read that people are enjoying it (I just got back to this thread today)

I definitely can answer questions, either here or in twitter, please make sure to mention me so I get a notification.

I am considering a second part with "Game Blueprints" like how to make a platformer (like LOGIC), a breakout (like Raftoid) and other similar type of games. But in any case, it might take a while (this one took me a whole year to write)

Not much of a fun of assembly, and AFAIK there are a few really good youtube tutorials already.

By dracul

Master (171)

23-07-2023, 19:05

Due to several private reasons I just have now some time to pick up this book ... 2 years later... I've read comments about 'whish I would have known this... [...]' ... but I'm wondering: who has actually finished a game using this book?

For the critics: I already own this book. Bought it right away.. I'm curious to find about about the new games that were developed.... And, if not... what where the problems???

By dracul

Master (171)

24-07-2023, 17:28

excuse me... 'what WAS the problem???' ... apparently I had one too many drinks before posting ;-)

New Book - Modern MSX BASIC Game Development

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