Tools for developing C64 Games

Question

Just wondering what people nowadays use for developing Commodore 64 Games?

I've got the Programmer's Reference Guide which goes into all the details, but in the modern Age I assume I won't have to do development on an actual C64 itself?

Are there tools that run on Windows or Mac OS X that are a bit like an IDE that offers some help and some debugging facilities (e.g., by hooking into an Emulator) or easy packaging into .d64 disk images?

Is 6502 Assembler the one chosen language, or is C development feasible? (Ignoring BASIC here)

(Don't have enough reputation to create new tags, otherwise I'd have it tagged [commodore-64] and [assembler] — Michael Stum, Oct 25 '10 at 02:29
I think that your tags are appropriate and have added them for you. — Christopher Horenstein, Oct 25 '10 at 02:32
What is the point? (not to be snarky, I'm genuinely curious). — Nate, Oct 25 '10 at 15:36
@Nate Part Nostalgia, but also an interesting challenge: With a machine that's limited (but whose limitations are well known), how far can one push it with the knowledge, tools and resources we have available today? — Michael Stum, Oct 25 '10 at 16:24
Gee cant remember what those assemblers where called back then in the late eighties, but I am kinda curious to what you might be developing or why. — BerggreenDK, Nov 20 '10 at 02:28
If you're interested in challenges, there's stuff like Java's 4k (or was it 64k) game development challenge. — ashes999, Aug 23 '13 at 00:13

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 25 '10 at 05:50

I'm far from being an expert on this, since I'm just picking c64 stuff up again as well, but I'm really liking Kick Assembler.

It has a nice macro syntax, which makes things feel a bit higher-level. eg. 6510 assembler with lists, loops, hash tables, easy import of image/sound data...

Written in java, so it should run fairly painlessly on windows & OS X ("works for me" on windows & linux).

There are a bunch of other tools listed over at the C64 Codebase site, including a c compiler, and some other useful cross-platform dev info (debugging via emulator, putting your PRG's into a D64 file, etc).

The c compiler looks really cool, but I haven't tried it yet. Just about all the sample code "out there" tends to be in one of the assembly flavours, so for me it's easier to go with the flow for now. If you're already well versed, it might be an easy switch for you.

Tools for developing C64 Games

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