Until Next Time...Yet another article is complete. I really do hope that you aren't just reading these things. Programming is just that, programming. Without practice no amount of reading is going to help you. As always, let me remind you, this code is sample code. Meant to illustrate beginning/intermediate techniques. It isn't fully optimized. Although, since it is in pure assembly, it is already smaller and faster than any compiler could produce on its own. What I am getting at is ... IMPROVE THE CODE! With time, and practice, you will start understanding these concepts and then you WILL be able to produce optimum code. Most importantly, take the time to sit back and savor what we have accomplished so far. In about a week and a half of coding time, which, is what I estimate I have actually spent programming this game, we have the following. An executable under 30 KBytes, a fully working game, a few bells and whistles, and we learned many new things. If you were somebody who was hesitant about assembly language before the series, these things should definitely make up your mind for you. I would really love to see a C/C++ implementation obtain that size in that amount of time. My point is simple: Assembly language is still quite useful, and should still be considered a viable language for producing programs. Next time, we will be adding in a scoring system, and save/load game features. These additions will make a fully complete game. However, in the last article, I will be covering some more additions that are a little bit more on the advanced side and should make the game quite a bit better. I am going to keep what I have in mind a secret for now, but be watching! Finally, take note of the totally awesome sounds that are in the game. After I threw together a few, I decided that you guys needed something much better than my boring crap. So, I contacted Jason Pitt of EvilX Systems -- http://www.evilx.com -- who, aside from making totally unique games, has an amazing musical talent. If any of you are looking for a sound guy to hire for your project, I can recommend him without hesitation. His services are for hire and he can be contacted at the following address: jason@evilx.com . If you are a musically challenged programmer, or even just want to take the music in your game to the next level, contact him ... you might be surprised at what he can do ... I was. As always ... young grasshoppers, until next time ... happy coding.
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