Yes. But OP will learn (hopefully) and that's the fun of it. Anyway, for the C64 many of your "APIs" -- especially for games -- are accessed by peeking and pok

Yes. But OP will learn (hopefully) and that's the fun of it. Anyway, for the C64 many of your "APIs" -- especially for games -- are accessed by peeking and poking memory-mapped locations, careful usage of the zero-page, etc. C doesn't help you with that stuff but assembly loves it. If you aren't in there counting cycles you are leaving so much on the table, and there just isn't that much table!