This one is notable as it's the only game I've so far knowingly played on the ZX Spectrum that was written in Forth (That is the 1983 release of "Spectrum Forth" from CP software). The game was apparently supplied with the Forth distribution as a demo program. As we all know, Forth never really took off in a big way on home computers in the eighties. One simple reason may have been the dominance and relative ease-of-use of BASIC. The Jupiter ACE, being the sole notable exception did have Forth built in and does in fact have a selection of impressive games showcasing one of the main advantages of Forth over BASIC - speed. Forth may not be as intuitive to many as BASIC is, but it can certainly run faster.
As for "Spectrum Forth Game", the unimaginitive title doesn't really give anything away and so I was hoping in earnest to see something like an arcade game, perhaps demonstrating the advantages of the Forth language over BASIC, however this game unfortunately does dissapoint.
To start the game, type:-
GAME ;
(must be typed in uppercase and there is a compulsory space before the semicolon)
This puzzle game consists of a yellow and blue grid of squares. It appears that the goal is to repeatedly invert overlapping 3x3 blocks of squares until eventually the whole grid is cleared. To select a 3x3 block, type in the co-ordinates of its centre square as prompted.
If anything, the game highlights the deficiencies of Forth on the speccy when compared to BASIC. For example, the need to display two separate prompts just to get the user to enter a two digit number really looks awkward compared to a BASIC INPUT statement and is hardly convenient for the player. The grid is also arguably too big, taking a very long time to complete the game (which I didn't).
So in summary, this title is very much worth a look just to play something written in Forth on the speccy, but beyond that it's a rather poor game that would have certainly failed in its job to stimulate further interest in the Forth language.
