Introduction

This book puts the Glimmer model to work on complete games. In Book 1 the constructs arrived one at a time; here they earn their keep together, under the pressures a real game brings — size, timing, and the particular demands of real display hardware.

The games

Three games carry the book. Skyfall we build from first declaration to playable matrix game, watching each decision as it is made. Tetro we read rather than build: a larger, finished codebase that shows how the same ideas hold up at scale. Rushlight carries the model to different hardware entirely — the TMS9918 video display processor — and the final chapter weighs what changed and what held when one language drove two displays.

The intended reader

Book 1's material is assumed working knowledge here: facts, moments, rules, phases, timers, resources, parts and cards, along with the ability to read Z80 assembly. If a chapter's declarations feel foreign, the corresponding Book 1 chapter is the remedy, and the reference appendices keep the exact rules at hand.

The book's method

Building and reading are different skills, and the book exercises both. Skyfall's chapter proceeds decision by decision, the way you will work on your own games. Tetro's chapter teaches code reading: finding your way in declarations you did not write, guided by the structure Glimmer imposes. The TMS9918 chapters show a port in practice — which parts of a game are the display's and which are the game's own. Exercises continue throughout, with notes at the end.

The first chapter opens with Skyfall's empty sky.