TIER 4: POLISH & PERFORMANCE

Phase 0 - BASIC Gateway

Complete your BASIC mastery with professional polish, optimization, and understanding BASIC's limits. These final 16 lessons teach libraries, menus, cutscenes, debugging, performance tuning, and bridging to assembly. Graduate ready for pure machine code.

16
Lessons
15–20
Minutes Each
1
Complete Game
← Back to Phase 0

What You'll Learn This Tier

Tier 4 brings professional polish and prepares you for assembly programming. You'll learn:

  • Code libraries - Reusable routines for drawing, sound, and utilities
  • Title screens & menus - Attract modes, navigation, and options
  • Multi-level systems - Stage progression with data-driven design
  • Narrative cutscenes - Timed, skippable story beats
  • Debugging techniques - Variable tracing, pause loops, debug HUDs
  • Performance optimization - Profiling hotspots, caching, loop unrolling
  • Error handling - Graceful failures for DATA, memory, input
  • Memory inspection - Understanding BASIC pointers and RAM layout
  • Machine code integration - Installing and calling assembly helpers with SYS
  • Frame budgets - Monitoring performance limits and deciding what to port
Tier 4 Goal: Build "Galactic Miner" (complete game with menus, cutscenes, multiple levels) and understand BASIC's performance boundaries. Graduate ready to tackle assembly programming in Phase 1.

Prerequisites: Complete Tiers 1-3 (lessons 1-48). You'll build on all prior techniques and push BASIC to its limits.

Lessons

49

Libraries in BASIC

Build a reusable toolkit of drawing and sound routines

Start →
50

Title Screens

Animate attract-mode banners while waiting for start

Start →
51

Menus & Options

Navigate choices with keyboard or joystick dispatch

Start →
52

Multiple Levels

Load stages from structured DATA blocks on demand

Start →
53

Cutscenes in BASIC

Script story beats with timed, skippable dialogue

Start →
54

Debugging Retro-Style

Trace variables, pause loops, and build a debug HUD

Start →
55

Optimising for Speed

Measure and precompute to keep BASIC loops responsive

Start →
56

Galactic Miner

Mini-game weaving states, AI, cutscenes, and scores

Start →
57

Making It Feel Right

Tune controls with fixed steps, easing, and trace HUDs

Start →
58

Squeezing Speed

Profile hotspots, cache data, and unroll loops for speed

Start →
59

When BASIC Breaks

Handle DATA, memory, and input failures gracefully

Start →
60

Under the Skin

Inspect BASIC pointers, screen RAM, and colour memory

Start →
61

POKE the Future

Install machine code helpers and call them with SYS

Start →
62

Looking Below

Compare BASIC routines with their assembly equivalents

Start →
63

The Threshold

Monitor frame budgets and decide what to port next

Start →
64

Retrospective: The Journey So Far

Celebrate the course and prepare for assembly programming

Start →

Ready to Polish?

You've built complete games. Now let's add professional polish, optimize performance, and understand BASIC's limits before moving to pure assembly!

Start Lesson 49: Libraries in BASIC