Text Elite Genesis — Development skill for Claude Code

Text Elite Genesis

Sega Genesis / Mega Drive Port of Text Elite, using Claude to automate the inictial steps. Based on Text Elite 1.5.

Built with SGDK 1.70

Original Text Elite by **Ian Bell** (www.ianbellelite.com), from his 6502 Elite sources, co-authored with David Braben.

Genesis port: adapted from `txtelite.c` v1.5 (2015).

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What it is

A faithful port of the **Elite trading universe engine** to the Sega Genesis. All 8 galaxies, 256 planets each, the authentic market algorithm, Goat Soup planet descriptions, fuel/cash economy – everything from the original source.

The text-parser interface has been replaced with a **joypad-driven menu UI** displayed through the VDP tile plane in 40-column text mode.

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Directory layout

txtelite_md/
  Makefile          ← wraps SGDK makefile.gen
  src/
    main.c          ← SGDK entry point, palette setup, main loop
    elite.c         ← entire game engine (Elite universe + UI logic)
  inc/
    elite.h         ← shared types and prototypes
  res/              ← (empty – no bitmaps needed, pure text game)
  README.md         ← this file

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Build requirements

Tool	Version
SGDK	1.70 (set GDK=/path/to/sgdk)
GCC	m68k-elf cross-compiler (bundled with SGDK)
Make	GNU make 4.x

Quick build

export GDK=/opt/sgdk          # adjust to your SGDK install path
cd txtelite_md
make

Output: `out/rom.bin`

Docker build (recommended on non-Linux)

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/src -w /src \
    ghcr.io/stephane-d/sgdk:1.70 \
    make GDK=/sgdk

Clean

make clean

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Running

Load `out/rom.bin` in any Genesis emulator that supports 6-button pads (BlastEm, Gens/GS, Genesis Plus GX). A real console with a flash cart works too.

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Controls (6-button pad recommended)

Title screen
  START           – start game (Lave, 100 CR, full tank)

Market screen  (default)
  UP / DOWN       – move cursor between com