Signal

What You’re Building

Cross the road. Ride the logs. Reach home. Don’t die.

Signal is a Frogger-style game where you guide a frog across busy roads and treacherous rivers to reach safety. Simple concept, but it touches every part of the Amiga’s custom chipset:

• Copper paints the coloured zones
• Sprites draw the frog
• Blitter draws cars and logs
• Paula plays the sounds

Why This Game?

The Amiga wasn’t about one killer feature — it was about the custom chips working in harmony. Signal naturally exercises them all without going deep on any single one. You’ll see the chipset symphony from day one.

Four Phases

Each phase builds on the previous. By Phase 4, you’ll have a polished game worthy of a disk release.

What You’ll Learn

Phase 1 (Available Now):

• Copper lists — programming the display
• Hardware sprites — drawing the frog
• Blitter basics — drawing cars
• Paula audio — sound effects
• Joystick input — controls
• Collision detection

Phases 2-4 (Coming Soon):

• Advanced Blitter (masking, BOBs)
• River mechanics and log riding
• MOD music playback
• Visual effects and polish
• Two-player modes
• Distribution packaging

Prerequisites

This is Game 1. No prerequisites — just enthusiasm and a willingness to learn 68000 assembly.

You’ll need an emulator (FS-UAE), an assembler (vasm), and disk tools (amitools).

Time Investment

Each unit takes 60-90 minutes. The full game is 64 units across 4 phases:

• Phase 1: ~16-24 hours
• Full game: ~64-96 hours

Every unit produces something that works. By the end of Unit 1, you’ll have a display showing the game’s coloured zones with a frog sprite visible.

Ready?

The road is busy. The river is flowing. Time to cross.