DAX, DAX, DAX, DAX, DAX!
Speed, tactics, addictiveness!
DAX! is a party game that is particularly suitable for playing at demo scene events and with friends. Everything is about smooth gameplay and frantic fun! As a bouncing ball, you need to roll and jump over blocks on a horizontally scrolling screen as quickly as you can to beat the best times. To achieve that, you can accelerate, slow down and jump at different heights. DAX! is usually played by two players on a split-screen, but there is also a single-player option; against a ghost-record of the current best time of that level. An IRQ routine loads the different levels, a list of the best players and the in-game music tunes. It also saves the rankings per level and a ghost recording of the best time. Also, the game will have a dedicated website that contains a hall of fame with the fastest time per level and the player's name. If you beat a time, you can enter it on the website that is published post validation. A D64 image containing the fastest time and ghost recording of each level will be downloadable from the website to challenge the current level champions.
How did DAX! get started and why? Thundax (the developer) writes: “I always wanted to create games on the C64. My favourite games are racing games which are fun to play with friends on a split-screen. Next to that, I always liked screenscrolling in platform games. When I was brainstorming about a new game to develop, I combined those two concepts into DAX! — speedy screen-scrolling with tactical movements like accelerating and slowing down as in a racing game.
Some people who saw DAX! first thought that I might have been inspired by the game Flappy Bird. However, I didn't even know that game and in my opinion DAX! is different: the left and right acceleration of the ball and the duration of the fire button presses, resulting in a smooth and tactical game with a concept I haven't seen before. At first, I started programming DAX! on a real C64 with an assembler, but after a while, it became pretty hard due to the memory usage while programming. At that point, I decided to
start C64 programming on the PC. I transferred my DAX! project to my PC to continue the development in Notepad++ with a C64 compiler and run it in the VICE C64-emulator. For the design, I contacted Nyke and Sounx who are, like me, members of the demo group Xenon. They both were very enthusiastic to create graphics for DAX! and after that, especially Nyke has made some amazing graphics such as the DAX! logo and some great game icons.
In my opinion, well-styled and matching music is VERY essential in a game: without it, a game is pretty boring, I'd say.
DAX! couldn't lack such music either so at first, I started searching for some existing music tracks which gave me the DAX!-feeling. But then I coincidentally got in contact with Magnar of Censor Design and he wanted to compose some exclusive DAX! music tracks. He composed a killer intro and in-game music, which helped to improve the overall experience. Furthermore, I also kept the existing music from other composers so that players can also choose which track they like to hear in the in-game. DAX! not only loads but also saves frequently, so to prevent the flow of the game from being disrupted, I not only needed an IRQ-loader but also an IRQ-saver. Krill of Plush provided me with those which has been very important to make the concept of DAX! work.”
The game is already complete (functionally), including the code, music, graphics and the loader/ saver. The current focus is on the laborious level design and general finetuning. Whilst DAX! has not been published, a private beta-version was featured in the official game competition of the X-2018 demo party (a famous
C64 event in Holland that takes place biennially). The publication has since been delayed due to various projects coming up as well as the planned release at X-2020 being cancelled. However, there is some good news! Get ready to break those time records and test yourself as you can expect DAX! in early 2022 as a covermount exclusive in ZZAP! 64.