New game - "Laby"

[bbock]

Hi Andy,

the maze itself needs only one bit per 8x8 character cell; the items are represented by their row and column positions (i.e. 2 Bytes per item). I don't think I can save much here. Even the start screen is compressed (kind of a runlength encoding).

If you understand C (and Assembler), you can see yourself. Here's the source code.

Bernd

[Andy Rea]

Hi Bernd,

Yes i can see how you are storing the mazes, so as you say not much if any to be saved there. only thing i can think it that you try to optimise the assembler more, i have never used 'C' to program zx81, does it compile to assembly listing or directly to binary ? if you get the intermediate assembler you may be able to optimise it a little.

All the best Andy

[bbock]

The z88dk compiles to an intermediate assembly file, then to machine code. The make file contains a line (which is commented out) to compile to assembly only. With my assembly optimisations I refered to the inline assembly you see in many places (#asm ... #endasm). It is not recommended to optimise the C compiler output, because you'd have to do it each time you recompile...

As I said before, the maze is stored in a bitmap, i.e. not one byte per character, but one bit per character. A new level adds 108 Bytes to the .P file altogether.

Bernd

[gus]

Hi Bern !

I love this kind of games for the zx81, I talking about the games that present you a complete screen, some times implemented as a platform game and others in the way of Labyrinths just like you choose.

I think the first 6 levels are a little easy and the last one is very hard, but it is just my opinion.

On the last level the A.I. of the ghosts can lead you to situations like this: I you move you will be killed by a ghost but you can stay where you are forever... I think I agree with bobs: The game will be a lot better with a little work on the A.I.

Thanks for your Work ! It's good to have more games for the ZX81 !

yours,
Gus

[bbock]

Hi everybody,

here's Laby V2.0 (english version) - nine levels, and you can shoot the ghosts now! Well, they won't die, but become paralysed instead for a certain amount of time, then they wake up again.

The game fits into 16k because I dropped the start screen with the Laby logo and avoided the standard i/o library.

@GUS:
Sorry, no a.i. improvements yet...

Bernd

[yerzmyey]

Man, this game is really very good. Addictive, I could say.