Bot Attack

[CalcKing]

One week ago, I finally decided on an idea for an assembly language game for the TI-83(+). That came after more than a year of wanting to write in Z80, but not having any ideas. What I finally came up with, I call "Bot Attack". It resembles many other games that can be found out there, but I have attempted to add more features than are in other games. Here's a screen shot of the game in its current form:



As usual, the quality is much better on an actual calculator, or even VTI. The objective is to avoid contact with the Xs (You are the large dot) while causing them to collide with themselves or the remains of other collisions. You may move in 8 different directions, or teleport to a random location on the screen.

There are three settings at this time: Maximum X width, maximum Y height and the number of bots. Lines are drawn to show the area which can be played in.

Considering how simple this game is, and how few external routines it uses, I might be able to port it to other Z80 calculators. I'm not yet sure when/if that will happen. The size on a calculator is about 910 bytes.

I appreciate any suggestions for how to improve this game. I'm happy that I FINALLY have a game written in Z80 after all this time.

[the_unknown_one]

Sweet man Why didnt i come up with that idea! :'(

[kv83]

hey that's a nice start for a first game... I couldn't think of any feature's for that kind of game... srry

[leofox]

This reminds me very much of a neopets game, but that game had coins you had to pick if for points (or NeoDollars or something). That might be something you can add, coins or fruits or something that give you a bonus.

[the_unknown_one]

Leofox: I've played Neopets for a long while, and i think you mean that snake game in which u were a neopet and u had to avoid the red neggs, and take other neggs for points. And its Neopoints

[DarkAuron]

Meerca Chase.. I played that game a lot when I was on neopets. Someone hacked my account though.. *sigh* bye-bye 780,000 neopoints :/

[CalcKing]

Well, I do have a couple ideas for this game. I could add an option for automatic level progression and difficulty increasing. Having a standard "story" for gameplay would allow a highscore to be kept. I suppose the game could then be split into practice mode and scoring mode...

Another idea I had was to allow 2 players to take turns playing in the exact same levels with the same locations for the two games. Then you could have competitions to see who could last the longest.

[shadowing]

I've played a game like this on a Linux distro... called Ubuntu with GNOME.

[CalcKing]

I've played a game like this on a Linux distro... called Ubuntu with GNOME.

The funny thing is, I first played a version of this game in Linux about 5 years ago... Half a year ago I considered writing it in BASIC, possibly assembly, but I lost interest too soon. What reminded me of this game was a post on ticalc about a version written in C for the 83+. I downloaded the game and found that it was somewhat disappointing. I remember many hours of playing this game when I was younger. Currently, my version is less than 1/3 of the size of that game, with more features.

Of course, it is to be expected that such differences in size will be found between a true assembly game and one written in C for the Z80. The controls in my game are roughly the same, except that I have chosen [Clear] as the most logical key to return to the menu.

I am currently working on adding alternate modes of play to my game. Although I doubt the completion of them will merit a second screen shot, I may decide to release my game when I am finished with this step.

[the_unknown_one]

DarkAuron: Thats sad, i've been hacked too long ago...

[tr1p1ea]

Hey CalcKing this game looks sweet. I love how you can go crazy with the number of bots lol! .

Have you thought about adding powerups or something that like slow down the bots, or make you invincible for a bit etc?

what about being able to shott? ... OK Now maybe im asking too much ... .

Anyway great work as usual, id better start coding more often or i am going to fall behind! .

[DarkAuron]

What about pitholes to fall into, that the player can also fall into and die from?

[CalcKing]

Hmmmm... I'm beginning to think I should just finish this game with my current ideas, upload it to a calc site, then write a new game with some -- interesting -- features. I'm not really sure what I'll end up doing at this point.

I think I'm terrible at being creative with game ideas. After all, it took me a whole year to come up with this one! I just hope I can continue to have something to work on... If I go back to not coding, I may lose some of the experience I have just gained.

[CalcKing]

Well, Bot Attack v.92 is now in the ticalc.org archives. You can get it here.

I'm quite proud of my first assembly game. Sadly, I can't say the same about the BASIC game which I uploaded nearly a year ago. Hopefully this project is good enough that I will not try to avoid looking at its page after a few months.

[Shawshank87]

Very, very well done. I wish my first game was as good. Simple, yet complete; and fun on top of that. Be content with it. Congradulations.