[vcf-midatlantic] Game up, something to show

[Evan Koblentz]

Someone on VCForum joked that I should make it "Find the kitten" -- 
apparently that's a thing on the internet -- so I did:

https://tinyurl.com/kwalvsy

It's silly but it uses everything I learned so far: how to move a 
sprite, how to make the joystick's 256 increments match the lores 
screen's 40 increments, how to combine static images with the moving 
image, how to generate random(ish) numbers, how to do collision 
detection, how to animate an image (by primitive method of redrawing 
over old image in background color, etc.), and how to restart by using 
the joystick button (already learned from previous Lego robot experiment).

The real game will be a bigger challenge. Have to merge the robot code 
into the game framework (hey Brace and Dan, yes the main program is all 
subroutines), make additional collision detection for when you drive the 
robot over the screen boundaries, make obstacles, make a scoring system, 
improve the graphics, and optimize the code (even I understand it WILL 
get slow as it grows).

Tools I learned to use in the robot + game process so far -- ADTpro, 
Cidepress. (Dan: turns out using Ciderpress is easier than you and I 
both thought. Just open the .dsk image, select your .txt file with the 
"convert to .BAS" option, and that's it -- it automatically adds it to 
your disk image; you don't have to re-save the image or use any 
compression formats. Discovered this by accident when I reloaded the 
program, but I forgot to re-save the image, and yet the new code was 
magically on the disk already.)


________________________________
Evan Koblentz, director
Vintage Computer Federation
a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit

evan at vcfed.org
(646) 546-9999

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