Microhobby Semanal 33-36

General software. From trouble with the Banyan Tree to OCP Art Studio, post any general software chat here. Could include game challenges...
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

El Bombero (The Firefighter) by Arturo Pérez

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As a firefighter, you must take all the water drums, avoiding fire. If you step on the blue ground fire will appear behind you.

The keys are:

7 - go upstairs and jump
5 - left
6 - go down satirs
8 - right

That's the theory. On the contrary, the practice is it's very difficult to control the character. I can't hardly go upstairs, sometimes keys are late to respond... exasperating!
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

El Ídolo de Oro (The Golden Idol) by Juan J. Sánchez

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This is one of the most enjoyable BASIC games I've ever come across, a nice adventure in which you take the role of the intrepid adventurer Indiana Jones in his search for the Golden Idol. A deserved 'Seal of Approval' game.

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The three-gates chamber

It's a very looong BASIC list that was published in the issue 33, pages 8, 9 & 10. It took me many days to type it up, but it was worth doing it.

After a nice music intro and nice animations, the game starts. He's inside an ancient temple and must overcome five challenges till reaching his desired treasure: The Golden Idol.

- The three-gates chamber: press a key in the precise moment to avoid the three moving gates crush Indi.
- The liana chamber: similar to the Hunchback liana screen, press a key and grab the liana to reach next chamber.
- The weighing-scales chamber: put the correct weight in kilos (100 kg per weight character) to escape.
- The arrow chamber: press a key in the precise moment to kill the monster and reach the final chamber.
- The final chamber: The Idol chamber. Step on avoiding ember and collect the three keys.

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The weighing-scales chamber

As the magazine says in the description, it's "a really spectacular adventure that will thrill you, we assure you". And that's right. This program is an example of how a limited programming language and a lot of inventiveness can go so far. Enjoyable.

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At last, we got the precious treasure!

A highly recommended game. Try it and share your comments.
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djnzx48
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by djnzx48 »

That Las Llaves is a great idea for a game, and nicely executed too. Although I did find it annoying ending up stuck in the same dead end room again and having to reRUN the program, even when trying to avoid it! I'm sure it would be possible to make a random level generator for it and maybe even add some multicolour.
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

djnzx48 wrote: Thu Nov 29, 2018 9:04 am I'm sure it would be possible to make a random level generator for it and maybe even add some multicolour.
I had thought the same.

There's a cool challenge for you coders! ;)
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Curvas Hipocicloides (Hypocycloid Curves) by Francisco Vila

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Hypocycloid curves were used in an old toy, Spirograph, that maybe some of you remember. So this program is about drawing these kind of curves.

11 parameters (0-10) are displayed on screen (radius, initial X, resolution, ring teeth, wheel teeth, etc). With the keys 6 (down) & 7 (up) you select the parameter and 0 changes it. ENTER starts the drawing. C erase and draw. S saves on tape and Z copy on printer.

Once the drawing is displayed and finished, CAPS + M save and return to menu whereas CAPS + R ignore drawing and return to menu.

You can draw a marvel like this:

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Cute, isn't it?
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

En Busca del Tesoro (In the search of the treasure) by Gregorio Morel

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Simple game in which you must find a treasure, hidden in an unknown island, by typing the (column,line) coordinates in the map. First of all, you must enter your name.

Certain messages are displayed depending on the distance of your input from the treasure:

Te alejas (you get away)
Vas bien (you go ok)
Templado (mild)
Caliente (hot)
Te quemas (you're burning)

You can also came across cannibals and you are asked for fighting or run ('peleo' o 'corro' should be the answers). There's also a dangeous volcan in eruption or quicksands so in these cases you'll be asked whether go east ('este') or west ('oeste').

Depending on all these answers you could finish the game or continue.

You have 8 attemps to find the treasure.

In general, not a bad game based on a simple concept.
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Dominó (Dominoes) by Amador Tenreiro

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A simple dominoes game vs the Spectrum. At first, you'll be asked how many games to play (recommended 5). Then, all your dominoes are displayed and you must select the number of the domino you want to use (0=pass).

Bigger dominoes displayed on screen would have been great, but in the absence of good commercial games (now I don't remember any interesting one) this is what BASIC games are for.
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Aeromash by Antonio Torregrosa

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This is a modest try to make a Missile Command clone. You control a sight to shoot planes and destroy their bombs before they reach the land. The keys are I, P, Q, Z and O fire. The program warns you that the cursor must be in L mode. In C mode the controls won't work. A very nice WTF feature. Also, Control your energy and time levels.

It's hard (and strongly slow) to move the sight. The on-screen instructions says if you press the controls + caps shift, they'll go faster (second nice WTF feature).

A hard game that probably will get on your nerves.
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by PeterJ »

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: Wed Nov 28, 2018 7:01 am
That's the theory. On the contrary, the practice is it's very difficult to control the character. I can't hardly go upstairs, sometimes keys are late to respond... exasperating!
You are right [mention]Juan F. Ramirez[/mention], this is very frustrating. Sometimes you stand under the stair press '7' and you jump rather than climb. Also you can't see yourself when you are on the stairs!

Thank you for continuing to bring MicroHobby to the English audience though. Its a great read.
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Air Attack by Francisco Villalba

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This is very similar game to Aeromash, reviewed above.

You must destroy an enemy plane that flies from left to right at random heights by controlling a sight with the cursor keys and 0 fire. They're hard keys (5-6-7-8) to be used in this game (at least in a PC keyboard) what makes the game hard and exasperating.
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by Morkin »

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: Thu Dec 06, 2018 10:11 pm Air Attack by Francisco Villalba

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That looks as if it would fit right in on Cassette 50...
My Speccy site: thirdharmoniser.com
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

La Escoba Espacial (The Space Broom) by J. J. Valencia

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Under this weird name we have a weird game. You control a space broom (yes, a space broom!) to remove every flying object thrown by the martians, who are trying to invade our planet.

In a looooong and slow intro, we are warned to avoid the clouds and told that the keys are 5-8 left/right, 7 up and 0 shoot lazer.

But the bizarreness doesn't end here. Once the game starts, we lose every life and cannot control the ship (I mean, the broom!). There's something wrong with the program, definitely. I tried it on SpecEmu, Fuse and ZX Spin and the same issue.

Ironically, once you've lost all the lives, a message says 'YOU'VE BEEN KILLED, DUDE! ANOTHER GAME?'
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Olimpiadas (Olympics) by M. Javier Reyes

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Who needs Ocean's Daley Thompson's Decathlon when you can have your own 100m game just by typing up this BASIC list? That's what anyone would have thought when finding this game among the pages of the issue 36 of Microhobby magazine, in july 1985. The mag said the program was a mix of BASIC and M/C.

After a long evening typing hopefully the program, I typed RUN and I came across a monstruous keyboard killer, even worse than the Daley game itself.

You are asked for the key for right, then for left. They are the only two keys you need. You must press them alternatively with the enough speed and constant rate to win the race. You run on lane 2, by the way.

You can choose three levels:

1 - For snails
2. For athletes
3. Beware! Carl Lewis is running!

Original, isn't it?

There's a WTF message that says that the record is 9E+10 seg. in level 3.

Once the race starts (on your marks, set, ... GO!) the nightmare starts too (in level 1!!!). You press and press and press... but most your opponents are leading and you press and press and press... till you get on your nerves, stop pressing the controls and reset the game (I was lucky as I had a Spectrum Plus with its own reset button, 48K owners couldn't do that! Mwhahahaha!)
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Lissajous by Fina Valero

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This is an educational program (hurraaahh! - Ed) that helps you draw Lissajous curves, studied by Jules Antoine Lissajous.

After a starting screen that shows you some examples of these curves you must press S to start the program.

Then, the program tells you that the units will be: frecuency in Hz, phases in sexagesimal degrees and the period of study will be in multiples of the higher period. After reading that, please, don't reset. Give it an opportunity. Monsieur Lissajous would be proud of you.

Pressing any key takes you to the next screen, where you must fix each parameter with the letters O and P (decrease, increase), selecting with ENTER:

- vertical frecuency
-vertical amplitude
-vertical phase angle
-horizontal frecuency
-horizontal amplitude
-horizontal phase angle
- length of study 0:5 PI (WTF?)

And the corresponding curve is shown. Press S to start a new curve.

Cool, isn't it?
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by R-Tape »

If push came to shove, I'd say that one is my favourite of all the Lissajous curve generators.

And I might be wrong, but I gather that Zynaps used this utility for those little wobbly things in the bottom corners.

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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Amazing find! :lol:
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Rosas (Roses) by Pedro Silos

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"The rose is red, the violet's blue,
The honey's sweet, and so are you
"

Yeah. We're reaching the most exciting and thrilling moment of the thread. What you're expecting for: a program that draws roses. Beautiful roses.

Just introduce the number of petals you want and the program starts to draw. The number must be 'second power' (power of 2, maybe? I can't express it properly in english, I mean: 2,4,8,16,32,...).

You must be patient, as it's a complex process to produce the required rose (remember, it's BASIC!).

The program suggests to introduce 64 or 128 to get excellent results. But you must be extremelly patient!

Along with the rose, the program draws the curves of the coordinates (X=red, Y=blue).

With number 8 I got this:

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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by MatGubbins »

R-Tape wrote: Sat Dec 08, 2018 8:16 pm If push came to shove, I'd say that one is my favourite of all the Lissajous curve generators.

And I might be wrong, but I gather that Zynaps used this utility for those little wobbly things in the bottom corners.

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They are graphics though, so no real time rendering in the game.
Find them at 43305.

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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

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Gadget by Ricardo Martínez

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This is a very cool game starring cartoon star Inspector Gadget in a new adventure against evil Dr. Gan.

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The game consists of three levels. In the first one, you must take the keys and reach your car to go to Dr. Gan's castle. But a terrible monster (a Pac-Man to be precise) will chase you. It's not as easy as it seems.

Once in the car, you arrive at Dr. Gan's Castle. In the second level you must enter avoiding obstacles and getting three objects for the guardians .

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The evil Doctor knows you're arriving, so he tries to scape!

Dr. Gan has scaped in his spaceship, so in the last level you chase him through space in your sophisticated gadget-o-car and try to shoot his spaceship.

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Shoot before it's too late!

After a long fight, you reach your objective and evil Dr. Gan is back to jail!

Another deserved 'Seal of Approval' game, definitely, with original levels and nice tunes. A game that was worth typing it up, in spite of its long BASIC list.
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

And now the last game of the thread:

Tabla Periódica (Periodic Table) by J. Pedro Sánchez

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As you may guess, it's about chemistry.

The program has three options:

- Índice (Index): a list of elements sorted by atomic number (with the crappy 'scroll?' feature at the end of the screen.
- Estudio (Study): The classic Mendeleev table that can be checked element to element with keys 5 & 8, ENTER gets into the element entry, where you can see the symbol, atomic number, period, group/family, electronic configuration, valences, etc. 0 returns to the main menu. The game starts after loading in this option.
- Gráficas (Graphics)

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The periodic table

Obviously it shows all the chemical elements discovered up to 1985, as it seems the current table is slightly different nowadays, with new discovered elements.
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

So that's all folks!

https://youtu.be/Q3bbsDJWlXQ

In this thread we have learnt to solve derivatives, learn more about chemical elements, play hidden gems like the Space Broom, who was Lissajous and what's most important, how to draw roses with your Spectrum!

See you in the next MH thread! Cheers!
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Re: Microhobby Semanal 33-36

Post by PeterJ »

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: Wed Dec 12, 2018 7:16 am See you in the next MH thread! Cheers!
I'm looking forward to it.
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