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- Mark Vergeer
Resembles Centipede... Tribute Video
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It shows that you don't need pretty graphics for Centipede - its all about speed and control. Some of the prettier examples look quite slow and wouldn't be much fun. My favourite version is on 7800 - it even has a neat co-op mode.
It's also frightening to think people got away with selling commercial software written in interpreted Commodore BASIC. I say got away - if there's any justice they went out of business fairly quick - BASIC games were just too slow back then. You can push out pretty professional jobs in BlitzBasic - but that's becuase it compiles really well and has built-in graphics features such as screen buffering and collision detection.
It's also frightening to think people got away with selling commercial software written in interpreted Commodore BASIC. I say got away - if there's any justice they went out of business fairly quick - BASIC games were just too slow back then. You can push out pretty professional jobs in BlitzBasic - but that's becuase it compiles really well and has built-in graphics features such as screen buffering and collision detection.
In some cases I would say "got away with", in others, I would just say "sign of the times". I remember Avalon Hill selling BASIC games and reviewers of the time saying essentially along the lines that Avalon Hill allowed editing of the game's "source code" so the user could make their own modifications to the program. It's surely sugar coating, but there is something of a point to that, particularly as late as the early 80's. Many publishers - including Adventure International - would often advertise whether their program was BASIC or Machine Language. BASIC often meant an inferior program, but not always, and many top games - including some of the Ultimas - were mixed languages, including BASIC.
In some cases I would say "got away with", in others, I would just say "sign of the times". I remember Avalon Hill selling BASIC games and reviewers of the time saying essentially along the lines that Avalon Hill allowed editing of the game's "source code" so the user could make their own modifications to the program. It's surely sugar coating, but there is something of a point to that, particularly as late as the early 80's. Many publishers - including Adventure International - would often advertise whether their program was BASIC or Machine Language. BASIC often meant an inferior program, but not always, and many top games - including some of the Ultimas - were mixed languages, including BASIC.
Fascinating. That's really interesting because it shows that they thought at least some of their audience had the ingenuity to make such modifications. Of course, it also made it ridiculously easy for the competition to "borrow" their code. I've heard a few programmers suggest that machine code (and compiling in general) had the advantage that it was now more difficult for the competition to both "borrow" your code as well as prove that you had borrowed theirs. Trade secrets...
Nice work, Mark. I had no idea there were so many. I think it's funny how these same guys who were clearly ripping off games like Centipede tried to enforce copyrights, shareware fees, etc. Makes you wonder whether it's worse to "copy that floppy" or copy someone else's game design and sell it. :)
I must admit to never liking Centipede. I never really liked the trackball controller (had a knack for getting pinched by it), and the ambiance didn't work for me. Some of the games Mark plays above actually look a bit nicer to me; perhaps because they're a bit slower and less frantic.
I must admit to never liking Centipede. I never really liked the trackball controller (had a knack for getting pinched by it), and the ambiance didn't work for me. Some of the games Mark plays above actually look a bit nicer to me; perhaps because they're a bit slower and less frantic.
It's a pity you never liked the trackball as a controller, as it - much like the spinner (which functions in a somewhat similar manner at its core) - provides a control mechanism that the modest joystick just is not up to. There are many trackball designs, including "no pinch" designs. The one on my MAME machine is not advertised as such, but it's designed in a way where there's no real possibility of a "pinch".
You should also check out the roller controller on the ColecoVision. It was well implemented and really the only other properly supported trackball controller besides the one for the Atari 5200 (which was superb). The standard Atari home trackball (standard Atari joystick port compatible) only received limited native mode support ("trackball" mode versus "joystick" mode), and really only on the Atari 8-bit line.
Basic doesn't necessarily mean inferior programming. I think even Sword of Fargoal is part basic...
Certainly for the likes of adventure games, BASIC was fine as there was no need for fast animation. There were games that were a mix - using BASIC for intro screen, score display etc and then using assembler for movement. I too remember "100% machine code" as a selling point.
Football Manager in the UK was massively successful - it allowed you to manage a football(OK soccer) team through a season. It was written in BASIC and was a huge success across many platforms for many years. I have no doubt it inspired coders to create the "Football Manager" and "Championship Manager" games of today which are pretty sophisticated now and are massive sellers here. http://www.championshipmanager.co.uk
The main problem with BASIC back then was that it wasn't compiled code - compiled BASIC would have been all right. 8 bit micros had interpreted BASIC which was the problem.
I used to make little games on a SV-328 computer, a predecessor of MSX. The ROM BASIC was really nice, you had access to sprite graphics, the joystick and the sound chip. I think it even had collision detection for the sprites. Some fairly respectable graphical games could be made with just BASIC because of this. Really it's a shame how bad most of the 8-bit BASICs are. I suppose it was a cost-cutting measure to use small ROM chips. The Macintosh had the right idea of putting fast graphics routines in the ROM. (but obviously it cost 10 times more)