The “Camera”

No, I’m not going to describe how to become a professional photographer, but I am going to run through one of the most important elements of Sir Lamorak’s Quest—the camera. By camera, I mean the process by which Sir Lamorak is rendered in the middle of the screen, and how the map scrolls around in relation to Sir Lamorak’s position.

How a camera is implemented really depends on the game. For Sir Lamorak’s Quest, I chose to keep the knight in the middle of the screen at all times. Another approach could have been to let the knight move to the edge of the screen when he reached the edge of the tile map, causing the tile map to never scroll beyond its bounds.