935: CJ Made A Sega Game In 2025

CJ takes us behind the scenes of Hackweek to share how he built a custom Sega Genesis game from scratch, complete with assembly code, level loading, and retro hardware tricks. From SGDK to parallax faking, this episode is a deep dive into old-school game dev with a modern twist.

Show Notes

• 00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
• 00:44 Why a Sega game?
  • Sega Genesis.
  • Sega Master System.
  • MKBHD Retro Tech: Sega.
• 06:55 What is it running on?
• 07:49 Working with assembly code.
• 10:11 Sega Genesis Development Kit.
  • Stephane-D GitHub.
• 10:54 Awesome Megadrive.
• 12:02 Booting on an emulator.
• 13:07 Gens and KMod.
• 15:54 Compiling stage.
• 17:44 Genesis Code VS Code Extension.
• 18:22 Images and Assets.
• 19:46 Loading images with bitmap.
• 23:50 Megacat Studios.
• 25:21 Z index?
  • Faking Parallax.
• 27:34 Specific code examples.
• 27:51 Platformer Engine.
• 30:01 Platformer Sample Game.
• 30:44 LDTK (Level Designer Toolkit).
• 33:13 Tiled Collision mapping.
• 37:42 What about debugging?
• 39:37 Loading in levels.
  • RetroGameMechanicsExplained.
  • Sega Mega-CD Development Unit.
• 43:56 Challenges with graphics.
• 49:56 Adding music.
  • Super Cartridge.
  • Flahskit Programmer MD.
  • Flashkit Cart MD.

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