Pogo Bot (C64)

A bouncy, joystick-powered platformer for the Commodore 64. It's written entirely in 6502 assembly and fits in about 14 KB.

About

You are Pogo Bot, a little robot on a spring. You can't walk. You bounce. Hop across platforms, squash the local wildlife and collect every diamond on the screen to open the way to the next level.

Eleven worlds are waiting. They go from a sunny meadow to the surface of the Moon, and each has its own look, weather, enemies and music.

Features

• 11 levels: Meadow, Storm, Snow Peaks, Volcano, Jungle, Desert, Underwater, Haunted, Crystal Cave, Future City and Moon.
• Bouncing physics: Hold FIRE for a super bounce. Hold DOWN on landing for a low hop, which gets you under low platforms to reach the hidden diamonds.
• Changing terrain: The levels bring lifts, hills to climb, water with floating logs, and quicksand. Underwater and the Moon have slow-motion, low-gravity physics.
• Live weather: Rain, snow, drifting embers, falling leaves and twinkling stars. Lightning and thunder hit in the storm and haunted levels.
• Lots of enemies: Blobs, bats, frogs, sparks, crabs, scorpions and ghosts. Some can be stomped and some can't.
• Animations: Enemies get destroyed, diamonds sparkle when collected, and the robot has separate death animations for hitting an enemy and falling into a pit.
• Three difficulty levels (so that players of all ages, including the youngest, can enjoy the game, because games should bring joy rather than cause frustration):
  • Easy: no spikies, sparks or ghosts.
  • Normal: the standard game.
  • Hard: a bird flies across the screen, and you can't touch it.
• Music or sound effects: There's a separate tune for every level, played on all three SID voices. Switch to SFX mode for sound effects only.
• A title screen with a hi-score, an instructions page and a hi-res bitmap ending screen.
• Beat the game and it starts over, so you can keep collecting points and go for a higher score.

Controls

Move: Joystick left / right

Super bounce: Fire (hold)

Low hop: Down (on landing)

Menus: Up / down to choose, left / right to change, fire to select

The game uses joystick port 2.

How to play

Download the .prg file. Then:

• Emulator: drag and drop it onto VICE, or use File → Smart attach.
• Real C64: load it from disk, tape or an SD device (Ultimate, SD2IEC and similar) with LOAD "*",8,1 and RUN.

Game is compatible also with:

WARNING: 

This game contains flashing lights and intense visual patterns that may trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy. If you or anyone in your family has an epileptic condition, consult a doctor before playing, and stop immediately if you experience dizziness or vision changes.

Credits

Written in 6502 assembly with AI assist with CBM prg Studio. 

(C)2026 LUKKAL SOFTWARE

If you enjoyed the game and would like to buy me a virtual coffee so I can create more projects, check this out:

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