In 2000 I programmed a clone of Arkanoid for the VZ200/300 computers called Arkaball. This was done with the help of the Z88DK devkit which lets you code in C for Z80 microcomputers.
Since then Z88DK has moved ahead in leaps and bounds and is even better than before.
I wanted to be able to easily create fonts and display them on the VZ screens. I saw the Flappybird clone for VZ used monochrome sprites and with some research discovered these are supported by Z88DK.
I had an idea I could use the same editor which creates these — called SpEdito and make fonts which could be displayed using some code I wrote for Z88DK. Technically, this code could display fonts on any Z88DK-supported platform which should all support monochrome sprites.
I also wanted a graphics/gaming engine to use on the VZ computers so I came up with Foxglovz:
It basically stands for Fox Graphics Library On VZ. Catchy, no? 🙂
At this stage, Foxglovz supports all Z88DK platforms, but due to the way the VZ does graphics in hires I will have to pivot to making it VZ-only since no other Z88DK platform uses 4-pixels-per-byte graphics and making a game using the monochrome sprites would be way too slow to be usable.
The first version of Foxglovz only supported fixed-width fonts, but the new one supports proportional fonts as you can see from the demo image above. It also can automatically underline text if you wish and has the ability to inverse the font letters.
0 Comments.