THE GENERATION GAME

Games creators aren't new exactly but they're still the best and quickest way for even the duffest programmer to knock out some ace arcade action. And talking of duffers, we've asked Tony Samuels to create a couple of classics while Peter Shaw looked over his shoulder and took notes.

What's all this then? An in-depth review of two programs that have been around long enough to qualify as golden oldies? That's true but it's really only now that everyone's caught up with what the programs were originally trying to do. New computers like the Macintosh have shown that you don't have to be a machine code whizz to use a computer to the full and this attitude is filtering through to the Spectrum. Look at The program we reviewed a couple of issues ago - simple to use but producing some spectacular visual results. Well, these two games creators really set the trend and it's worth taking a look at how they've stood the test of time and whether they'll help you transfer all your brilliant ideas into code.

So, what do they have to offer? Well, that's easily answered - they both allow you to create machine code style games without having to learn a programming language first. But let's not pretend, the games you write won't be as good as the ones you could write in machine code. But they will be quicker to bash out and they'll be a whole lot better than anything you could knock up in Basic - and a whole lot simpler too.

If this sounds like just what you've been looking for, the big question is will you be able to create the sort of games you've always dreamed of writing? Well, life isn't all a bed of ROM chips and it's unlikely that you'll get precisely what you're after.

Of the two programs, Games Designer is the less flexible as it only allows you to create shoot 'em ups. But on the plus side, you can produce games more quickly and easily with this package. With HURG you can also have a go at platform and pacman type games but its animation and sprite handling trip it up when it comes to final presentation.

The most appealing aspect of both programs - is that they're menu-driven. This is what sets them apart from other games designers like White Lightning.

Brilliant as that program undoubtedly is, you still have to become proficient at a programming language - Forth in this case - and that can require the skills of a brain surgeon. No, with Games Designer and HURG the menus guide you as you create your sprites, move them and animate them. The program then puts this information into a game buffer that's looked at by the executive routines when your game's running.

One area where White Lightning, say, scores heavily over these two, is its ability to save a game off independently of the main program. This could be done by having an editor in the low part of memory that would affect the game database in the top of memory. Then the sprite routines and so on would come somewhere in the middle and look at info in the database. This way it would be a doddle to save off the middle to top parts of memory as a stand alone game with a short bit of code to tie it all together.

As often happens in a comparative review like this, my choice falls somewhere between the two programs. If only the smoothness and slickness of Games Designer could be combined with the flexibility of HURG. As you can only plump for one, you must decide what sort of games you're after. If it's just shoot 'em ups then go for Quicksilva's but if you're willing to sacrifice a certain amount of smoothness in favour of a wider range of games, go for HURG. One word of advice if you're veering towards Games Designer - it might be worth your while looking out for the version that Marks and Spencer brought out at the end of last year.

Finally, let's do a bit of dreaming - what would the perfect games creator package look like? Well , it's going to have to incorporate all the wham-bam-pow features of the new software. Alien 8-type 3 D graphics would obviously be a plus as would a larger range of game formats to choose from. Also a graphics editor such as the one on The Artist would be a big help - even better if it were completely icon-driven. It's going to take a lot of work to come up with something with all those features, so it'll be interesting to see if any software house takes up the challenge. Of course, if you've written a program like that or you reckon you could, we'd love to talk to you at YS. Now there's something to think about!

HURG really does have all the goodies you could wish for - if only the rough edges had been tidied up in the rush to get it on the shelves. True, it's much more flexible than Games Designer and offers a greater range of possibilities but it's really not all it could have been.

Overall rating: 6/10
Completion Time: 4 hours including time on Melbourne Draw.

SPRITES PUT LIFE INTO THE GAMES OF YOUR COICE

John Gilbert looks at some of the new designer packages on the market.

Creation and programming of games on the Spectrum has always been left to the imagination of those who had the nerve to enter the world of machine code and had the creative talent to produce such products as Manic Miner and The Corridors of Genon.

That elite club has been broken by some software companies which have produced packages to allow even a beginner to produce competent arcade and adventure games. Those packages contain machine code routines which can be manipulated to produce the sound and vision necessary for games play.

The first company to produce such a utility package for the creation of arcade games was Quicksilva, with Games Designer in 1983.

The user can create up to eight games in the package, each with varying formats and characters. For instance, you could create a mixture of all the classic arcade games using Space Invaders Defender and even Pacman. Those characters are limited only to what the imagination of the users can produce.

Quicksilva produced eight example games in the package to show what kind of effects can be obtained. They include mutant hamburgers, flying tanks and jet-propelled spiders. All of those characters are created using a sprite technique.

Sprites are graphics characters, like user-defined graphics on the Spectrum, which are four times the size of one character square. A sprite can be anything which moves in those pre-defined squares and the sprite editor in Games Designer will allow you to set up several of those characters. Most of them have already been used to create aliens for the example games but you can alter them for your own programs. There are also two spare sprites which have not been used for design and you can use them if you wish to start building from scratch.

When you have selected the 'alter sprite' option from the main menu, the computer will display a 12 x 12 grid on the screen with the current shape of the sprite displayed in it. Using the cursor keys you can alter the places in which ink is inserted and omit pieces of the design you do not want.

There are various types of sprite characters you can use and they include aliens spaceships and explosion sequences. When you have finished altering one of the sprites you can change the colour of the object if necessary by using the 'alter attributes' option on the sprite editor page.

Aliens and explosions can be animated by using several sprites which show progressively the course of the action - like stop-frame photography. When each of the sprites is switched on to the screen in sequence, the characters taking part in the game seem to move. You can change the colour of each individual sprite so that it is possible to make an animated figure, or explosion, flash after each movement.

The movement of the sprites round the screen can be achieved by using another main menu option. For movement you must form a pattern of numbers which represent the movement of an individual sprite into an attack wave. Sprites can be made to dive-bomb, swoop on the player-figure, or even to loop the loop. It is possible to change the concept of a game by changing only a few numbers in the movement patter-n.

Another important feature of the package, listed on the main menu, is the 'configuration' option. It will allow you to change one game into another and one of its functions is to create the format of the game you are designing.

The format will decide whether the game has the movement patterns of Galaxians, invaders, defenders or asteroids and whether your laser base or spaceship moves vertically or horizontally across the screen.

To add to the excitement you can also introduce special effects on to the screen. They include stars if you want your game in space, shields for the defence of spaceships, and a factor which will determine whether the aliens appeal individually or in groups.

The other features in Games Designer include a sound generator with which laser zaps can be created. A high score table, like the one Quicksilva uses in its other games, is also included at the end of each of the games created.

When the package is used initially it is novel in concept and many entertaining games can be created using it. Unfortunately there are some snags with the package. You can load and save new games which you have created but they can be used only when the creator program is running. You will also find that after you have created several games they will all seem similar in movement and content. All you can create is one type of game - zap the objects or be zapped.

Apart from that small criticism the series of routines provided in Games Designer should provide a great deal of entertainment and its use is limited only by the creator's ingenuity.

Melbourne House, publisher of The Hobbit, announced a similar product at the same time as Quicksilva. The package, the HURG, reached the market later than Games Designer. Its purpose is the same and with it you should be able to create some imaginative arcade games.

The HURG is slightly different from Games Designer as it asks the user questions for the construction of the player shapes which are to be manipulated on the screen.

The package also provides subroutines for creating graphics and sound explosion effects. Like Games Designer, the software created using it can be played only with the HURG control program. That makes the two packages alike, the only major difference in concept and design being that Melbourne House has only three example programs in its package as opposed to the Quicksilva eight.

If you do not like arcade games, or become disenchanted with them, you might like to try writing adventure games in machine code without the trouble of writing the code. The Quill, from Gilsoft, will set up a database for your own textual adventure and all you have to do is enter the text and directions of the locations through which you want the player to move. You can then enter the items which can be found in the adventure scenario and the locations into which they should be situated.

Provided with the program is an excellent manual which takes the user through the setting-up procedure of a simple adventure scenario, as well as showing the meaning of all the options on the main menu.

The adventures need not consist only of picking up objects or moving around locations. The machine code routines in The Quill will allow complex adventure actions, including switching torches on and off and providing specific actions for players to perform, such as eating apples, shaking leaves from a tree, or wearing a hat.

Once you have finished setting up the options you want to enter into your adventure you can test it by using the demonstration mode. You can go through the locations and test all the traps without destroying the main database creator.

If there is something which is incorrect in the scenarios you can change them by using the database editor. When finally you are pleased with the adventure you have created you can SAVE it to tape. Unlike the two arcade games designers, the adventures you create using The Quill can be run independently from the control and creator program. Gilsoft will permit users to market games which have been created using it so long as its name is displayed prominently on all labelling.

It has also gone to the lengths of describing The Quill program and how it produces an adventure game. That means you have complete control over what you produce and an interesting insight into a program which should keep adventure players happy for a long time.

Unlike the arcade games designers there are virtually no limits to what type of adventure scenario you produce. Program generators provide an excellent opportunity for users of the Spectrum to produce games and not to rely so much on professional manufacturers. It must be said, however, that the arcade and adventure games which you produce will provide few surprises when you play them. The packages available allow you to write games for other people to play. There is nothing more uninteresting than playing your own adventure games.

The generators will provide a good deal of fun but are more likely to be used as utilities and not as a replacement for professional software.

Professional manufacturers will still provide the quality and originality in software. No package, even if it is brilliant in the production of games using the sausage machine technique, will provide an answer to properly machine-coded and original games.

Quicksilva Ltd. Palmerston Park House, 13 Palmerston Road, Southampton, Hampshire SO1 1LL.

Melbourne House, 131 Trafalgar Road, Greenwich, London SE10.

Gilsoft, 30 Hawthorn Road, Barry, South Glamorgan

Memory: 48K
Price: £14.95
Joystick: Kempston, Interface II

HURG is not a game but a games designer. Melbourne House claims it is the most powerful game design program ever presented on any microcomputer. That may be so, and it may not. It is certainly a competent program to help you design arcade games but it necessarily limits the scope you have. You will not be able to create a new version of Manic Miner or Atic Atac. You will not even be able to emulate the Melbourne House Penetrator. You will, however, after many hours of practice, be able to create your own version of Donkey Kong or Galaxians without too much difficulty.

There are several impressive features to the program. First, it is menu-driven, like the Quicksilva Games Designer. On loading, you are presented with a series of choices on the screen. Choosing 'Play Game' allows you to test whatever game on which you are working. Choosing 'Edit Game' will take you to a new menu with more choices, like writing a title page or specifying conditions for proceeding to a new stage of the game - e.g., when all the space invaders are destroyed.

The most striking feature of the program is that it can be controlled almost exclusively by a joystick. All you have to do is use a Kempston and shift the cursor round the screen until you find the option you want. Then you hit the fire button and the choice is made. It sounds simple, doesn't it? it is - and it is not.

There is a fundamental problem with such a program. That is not the fault of Melbourne House, which has produced as good an arcade game designer as any on the market. The problem is that such a program can be only an idiot slave.

If you do not have a clear, detailed concept of the game you want to create you will have an unplayable mess. Good games do not depend on good programming but in the first instance on good ideas. At some stage or other we all buy a turkey. It may have wonderful graphics, be very fast and all the rest of it, but if the idea is not good, the program cannot save it. A turkey may have beautiful plumage but it remains a turkey.

What HURG can do is eliminate much of the tedium of programming - it still takes a long time to create a game but nowhere as long as it would starting from scratch - but what it will never do by itself is give you the originality and inspiration of top games designers.

If you want to get to grips with the problems facing designers, HURG will help you by removing the drudgery from programming.

You may even make money. Melbourne House is offering cash prizes for the best games created with HURG but if you want a game up and running in two hours, forget it. HURG is good but as yet there is no commercial substitute for inspiration.

The program is fully-documented with a 36-page booklet and three example games showing some of the features of the program.

Once upon a time if you wanted to write a good game then you needed to be a good programmer. But not any more. Programs are appearing which allow you to create games without knowing anything about the computer. Robert Schifreen tested the two latest offerings.

Melbourne House have a similar program on offer for Spectrum owners.

It's called the high resolution user friendly real time games designer, or HURG for short!

Unfortunately there's only one copy of the program in the world at the moment, and that's in Australia. However, Computer and Video Games has discovered information about the program and it sounds very similar to the Quicksilva offering.

Again it is driven by a series of question and answer routines. It has the facility for creating various graphics characters and these can be animated. You can also speed up the game or make the aliens more vicious.

Any game can be saved on cassette, but you will still need the games designer loaded as the control program.

The Hurg comes with three demo games as opposed to Quicksilva's eight. There is also a monthly competition which Melbourne House will be running for the next few months to find the best game created with the Hurg. All the finalists will then be judged to produce a grand winner, with a prize of £1,000.

The Hurg should be available from you local W. H. Smith soon, and it also costs £14.95.

With the introduction of these programs, it now seems possible that games written with such systems will be offered for sale on cassette. As for the quality of this software we shall have to wait and see. As for the question of copyright I think that an interesting situation could develop.

Reviewer: Robert Schifreen

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
JOYSTICK: Optional
SUPPLIER: Melbourne House
PRICE: £14.95

Own up to it, wouldn't you like to write a superb game for your Spectrum? The type that will keep you in pocket money for the rest of your life? Melbourne House have tried to make this easier for you with their 'High-level User-friendly Real-time Games designer', more lovingly known as HURG.

HURG is totally menu-driven. Melbourne House describe this as being like a menu in a restaurant with different parts for food and drink. When you ask for food the menu listing the meals is brought. For example if you choose ice-cream then the list giving the different types available is presented.

Unfortunately this means that HURG isn't as simple to use as Melbourne House would have us believe. Not only do you have to choose the type of ice-cream you want, you must then go on to choose what size it should be and then go on to choose the sauce.

As you've probably decided for yourself, all these menus do tend to lead to a bad case of 'Help I'm lost' or 'Which menu do I choose now?'.

To be fair to Melbourne House they've tried to make it easy to use: all commands can be entered by using either the up, down, left, right and fire keys or the joystick.

Three example games are included on the reverse side of the /HMG tape. None of the games will hold your attention for more than a couple of minutes but they may give you an idea of how to go about designing your own games. Incidentally, if you ever wondered what a drunken blue koala looks like, try playing Manic Koala.

HURG allows you to design characters of a size up to 4 x 2 character squares. This means that you can have quite detailed alien/player graphics. It also allows you to link together a number of these sprites giving you the animation that your character may require.

For a program that is supposed to help you to design games there is one very big omission - sound. HURG offers no sound facilities at all to the user, but if you happen to like nice quiet games this won't worry you, will it?

HURG tries to offer the user too many facilities, making it difficult to use, and the games can be very slow to play. Given a few hours (it took me three) you should be able to get something of your own design working - but don't expect anything too wonderful.

It's a shame that HURG doesn't live up to expectations.

48K Spectrum
£14.94
Melbourne House
131 Trafalgar Road
London SE10

Producing fast-action games without the need to learn machine-code programming - Simon Beesley reviews a crop of games designers including the newly-released Hurtg.

There are few more dismal experiences than playing a version of Space Invaders written in Basic. The invading aliens dawdle across the screen while your missiles take an age to reach them. The fact is that Basic is usually too slow for writing adequate arcade games. For best effects you need the speed and flexibility of machine code. But for most of us learning machine code is a daunting task.

As an alternative there are now a number of programs which offer a more painless way of writing arcade quality games. These are either extensions to Basic or full-blown games designers.

Melbourne Houses's Hurg is such a program. Hurg, incidentally, stands for High-Level, User-Friendly, Real Time, Games Designer. The terms High-Level and User-Friendly refer to the fact that by using Hurg you can design a game without writing a line of code - the entire system is menu driven. It offers, in fact, an extensive hierarchy of menus and sub-menus which between them cater for almost every aspect of designing a game.

DEFINE EIGHT OBJECTS

Not only, for example, can you define up to eight different objects but you can also animate each in a different way and determine how it is to move. Movement can be described in considerable detail. You could instruct an object to mimic the movement of another object or give a weighting to movement in certain directions. Alternatively you could define eight paths and link four of them together.

The animation facility is extremely impressive. Each object can be given up to eight animation sequences. It can either be allotted two different shapes for each direction or be made to pass through an entire eight shape cycle in every direction. Once you have defined its shapes you can set the speed at which animation occurs as well as the speed with which the object moves across the screen. Two Shape Generator is one of the most enjoyable features of Hurg. In effect it lets you construct the frames for a cartoon. As soon as you have defined at least two different shapes you can see tour cartoon character in motion.

There are a host of other options such as a regeneration menu, a collision table, and a games variation menu. To take just one of these, the games variation menu allows you to alter the pattern of a game after a specified event. Thus you could instruct the ghosts in a PacMan-type game to move away from the player when a power pill has been eaten.

Although there is no facility for designing a background you can load in a predefined screen. This means that an assortment of different games can be designed. Two of the demonstration games included with Hurg show its range. Manic Koala is a creditable Manic Miner type game - with only one screen - while Ms Hortense is a Pac-Man variation.

Designing a complete game with Hurg is quite a complicated business. The program's facilities are so extensive that they need much fuller explanations than are given in the manual. More examples are needed. The manual gives an example of how to write a simple game but this is rather sketchy. When I came to design an Invaders type game I was unable to make my missile leave its silo. Doubtless I had made an elementary mistake but detailed step by step instruction would have been handy.

Quicksilva's Games Designer is easier to use bin more limited in its scope. Essentially it is an instant shoot em up kit. Seven game formats are open to you - Invaders, Asteroids, Scramble and so on - but these are really a matter of fixing the directions the aliens come from and how your character moves. The program does not allow you to design a game at the same level of detail as Hurg. So you are confined to producing variations on the same shoot-em-up theme: aliens approach and you blast them out of the skies.

Again it is menu driven. There are eight options on the main menu; Play Game, Select New Game. Alter Sprites, Configuration, Movement, Attack Waves, Load from Tape, and Save to Tape. Selecting any one takes you to you to another section. The sprite option, for example, takes you to a character definer where you can define either your own player and missiles or the enemy characters and their missiles.

Included in the configuration sub-menu is quite a sophisticated sound editor - a feature lacking in Hurg. By moving a slide up and down on five scales you can create he sound of your choice for explosions or missiles. Given the range of different sounds that can be produced this is particularly simple to use as well as being fun to play with.

Although you can give the aliens a limited degree of animation and set their flight path you cannot animate your own character. This feature does not begin to compare with Hurg's extensive facilities for defining animation and movement. Only one set of aliens can appear on the screen at any one time and all move in the same way.

Nor is it possible to define the background. The background option reduces to a choice of colours and the decision to include stars or not.

But for all its limitations Games Designer is a highly effective package. The eight are predefined games which are included with it show that you can certainly design games of commercial quality. If shoot-em-ups are your taste then this program will allow you to indulge yourself to the full.

Games Designer programs, however, have their frustrations. They restrict you to a set course menu. With Hurg, for example, it is possible to design a Pac-Man game but you could not instruct the ghosts to move intelligently. As the blurb for Interactive Software's puts it, such programs cannot satisfy those who enjoy the challenge of true programming.

Scope is a computer graphics language. It has 31 command words which are tagged onto Basic Rem statements. They cannot, however, be intermingled with Basic. Once you have written a Scope routine it needs to be compiled into object code in another area of memory. The idea is that once compiled your graphics routine can be called from Basic.

ENTIRE GAME IN SCOPE

You could also write an entire game in Scope: although with only 31 commands on hand this would be a daunting task. Scope does not allow floating point variables so the sine and cosine functions cannot be used. Nor are there commands for multiplication and division. User-defined graphics need to be set up in Basic.

At first glance Scope's syntax seems rather complex. To set up the equivalent of the empty loop FOR A = 0 to 100 NEXT requires the following commands:

10 REM Var,a,0;
20 REM Label; A;
30 REM Inc;a,1;
40 REM Test,194,a,100,A;

But the language's graphics commands like Plot, Draw and Attr are familiar enough; while Fscr is a useful addition which scrolls the screen pixel in any direction.

By using Scope to build up graphics routines you could undoubtedly speed up your Basic programs considerably. It is also an interesting introduction to lower-level languages - a compromise between Basic and assembly language. As an alternative to Scope one could use a fully-fledged Basic compiler or Forth.

Richard Taylor's Fifth is a more accessible aid to writing fast games and, arguably, just as effective. One of Your Computer's regular contributors Richard Taylor needs, as they say, no introduction. In an interview he once said that he like to make machine do thing they are not designed to do. Having given the ZX-81 high resolution and speeded up its loading rate, he is now doing amazing things for the Spectrum.Fifth is a 4K extension to Basic which lets you harness effects normally only available through machine code. It supplies 25 new commands and a further 13 functions. To use them you simply enter the commands and their parameters after Rem statements.

The largest group of commands provide the Spectrum with a sprite facility. The beauty of this is that since the sprites are interrupt driven they move independently of your program. You can specify the direction of one of up to 255 sprites and then set the speed and number of pixels un;p at a time. Once set in motion the sprites carry on moving while the program attends to something else. If a sprite collides with another object or veers off the screen control returns to Basic whereupon you can redirect it.

Along with the spite facility Fifth offers a number of other new commands. Among them are Sound, a far more powerful instruction than Beep, and Replace which changes colours on screen in a similar way to the BBC's VDU 19 command. With Get and Put you can store away any rectangular section of the screen and then reprint it at a new position.

Put together these facilities make up a hugely useful tool for writing games without dipping into machine code. The sprites are particularly impressive. As they can be set to move pixel by pixel at a rate of 50 jumps per second they are both fast and smooth.

The Commodore 64 already has sprites but using them in Basic is a slow and tedious business. Almost unchanged since the days of the PET Commodore's Basic now looks a little long in the tooth. It has no specific commands to handle sprites, high resolution graphics or the 64's sophisticated sound chip. To access these facilities you must instead rummage through the manual in search of the requisite Pokes.

Simon's Basic remedies this state of affairs. It is an extension to Basic which makes good the resident Basic's shortcomings with a further 114 commands.

NUMBER OF NOVELTIES

With the Simon's Basic cartridge in place Commodore's Basic can hold its own and indeed feel superior to any other versions of the language on the market. Before writing it David Simons drew up a shopping list of all the commands and features he would like to see in his idea of Basic. And here they all are: structured programming features such as Repeat Until and local variables; programming aids such Auto, Trace and Remember; error trapping commands, extra string handling commands, scroll commands for any direction; and, of course, an extensive range of instructions to deal with sound, high-resolution graphics and sprites. There are also a number of novelties like Delay which varies the rate at which a listing is printed and Disapa which hides a program line as a security aid.

The graphics commands, in particular, do all you could hope for. To mention just a few, Paint fills in an enclosed area, Rec draws a rectangle, while Rot will rotate and expand a predefined shape.

In return for 8K of your RAM Simon's Basic gives you a remarkable number of new software features. Some were sorely needed, other cans be considered bonus extras.The pity is that Commodore did not think to rewrite its Basic at the outset incorporating some of these features in the ROM.

GRAPHICS '85

A comprehensive review of the state of the art by Colin Christmas.

As we see this old year out and welcome the new one in, it's a better time than most to stand back and take stock. Looking back land leaving the prophecies and predictions to others! It must surely be agreed that for Spectrum users with an eye on Graphics it has been a most exciting year. I can't speak for other departments but for me, it has been Christmas every issue.

In this issue I want to do something special take a look at the goodies that have come our way. Our way? Who are We? We are the Graphics Grabbers, Artwork Addicts, Design Doodlers. For us the screen is a window on a world of colour, images, line, shape, pattern, design, texture, light and shade. And like a window it opens out into an exciting new visual world. For business, for profit, for learning for discovering or for pleasure. From the weekend dabbler or doodler to the serious professional, from the games enthusiast to the educational user, from beginner to experienced programmer and right across the age range, you will find Spectrum owners who are hooked on graphics.

It's fairly formidable task - covering the range of Graphics Hardware and Software now available lo Spectrum owners but let's get started.

LIGHTPENS

I've had most success to date, with the package from Dk'tronics. The pen itself is rather like a biro or felt tip pen. It is attached by a wire to a control interface which of course comes with the package. The interface is plugged into the back of the Spectrum. A program on cassette is included.

The glass screen of your monitor is the working area and drawing surface, so some consideration has to be given as to whether this is the way you want to work. Then there are practical aspects such as the distance of your screen from your keyboard, and the fact that you have to work on a perpendicular 'face'. The height of the screen is therefore important if you do not want to suffer from muscle fatigue in your drawing arm.

Lightpens give you a physical contact and interaction with your drawing surface if that is important. Calibrating the pen each time may prove a chore, but after that it's plainsailing - within the limitations of the power of the program. Again it's a good way of getting started or the very basics of graphics, of getting into the picture as it were. Sensibly introduced in the classroom it could be useful aid and introduction for children in an educational context. It is limited though in its potential for advanced or complex screen designs. Graphics Tablets give you similar physical point of con tact with your drawing-surface. This time it is horizontal and again a 'pen' is used. There's a review of the Saga Graphics Pad in this issue. So when you are ready look it up. They certainly take you further than the lightpen. But then you pay a lot more for the facilities they offer.

Now for something almost completely different, the Sinclair LOGO pack. Another excellent starter, but as I have hinted, quite different.

This pack has very obvious educational applications and for very young children. The founding father of the LOGO language intended it as a language for children which would develop logical thinking, introduce young minds to computer programming and have very definite terms of reference for the teaching and development of mathematical concepts. Drawing is achieved by moving a small graphics 'turtle' - a triangle - around the screen. This is done by sending through the computer commands known as Primitive Procedures (mostly single words and abbreviations of those words). Your sense of direction needs to be accurate and formulated mathematically. Once you have established procedures for drawing, say, a square, this group of procedures can be assigned a single word or name which LOGO will then understand as a command to repeat the whole set of procedures.

The emphasis or bias is fundamentally mathematical, arithmetical or geometric. You do not just learn to draw a square, you also learn what makes a square what it is and from there the difference bet ween a square and a rectangle or a parallelogram.

It is a language itself, apart from BASIC. Hence learning to use it is learning to program a computer in another language. The graphic aspect being displayed on the screen is part of the incentive and motivation for progressing with the new language.

Two fairly weighty and comprehensive books or manuals are part of the pack. The first book deals exclusively with Turtle Graphics and is an absorbing and refreshingly different kind of programming experience. The second book acts as a reference manual for Sinclair LOGO, The growth, use and development of LOGO by Spectrum owners, especially in schools will, I think, be affected by the cost factor.

When DREAM SOFTWARE released Computer Aided Designer, my own children had not had their Spectrum for long. They, like me were exploring the full graphics potential of the machine when C.A.D. turned up and kept us enthralled for days. Now, still an old favourite, I would recommend it as another in the 'Starter' category. With very obvious educational values and as a springboard for more ambitious projects later in Design.

The manual is simple and very straightforward - alphabetically leading you through the twenty seven commands available in the program. Some forty custom shaped graphics, UDGs can be designed. By giving precise measurements most geometric shapes can be drawn, filled and so on. It remains impressive after all this time, and the potential for drawing in 3D is considerable.

Similarly, another old favourite, VU-3D from PSION.
This has the added and appeal of enabling the viewer to move around the object in 3D. Graphics and Design, pure and simple. High resolution colour and an incredible understanding of perspectives are real bonuses with this program.

Future designers in the Aircraft or for that matter almost any other industry, may have started young with something like C.A.D. or VU-3D.

I doubt if they would have been able to afford the RD Digital Tracer, from RD Laboratories. This is closer to an instrument than anything else I've come across in graphics and design hardware and software for the Spectrum.

It comes in two versions, the Standard and the Professional. Both are fairly highly technical and sophisticated tools. The Tracer consists of a short fixed arm and pivot from which extends a drawing arm hinged at the centre with another floating pivot which moves across your drawing surface area.

The arm is connected to the computer by a length of cable via an interface plugged into the rear port of the Spectrum. A cardboard template and transparent grid overlay are included for calibration purposes, the tracer is a precision instrument. The software cassette contains five programs. The usual options are offered in the first, plotting single points, construction of basic geometric figures, filling, hatching, change of ink, border, paper colour, adding text, UDGs and so on.

The display image can be moved up, down, and from side to side, scaled up and down, and reversed. Multiple screen images including images at different scales and at different positions can be achieved. By adding other BASIC routines and software, the Tracer's capabilities can be extended into the field of statistical analysis. This immediately puts the Tracer into a specialist Graphics and Display category. Although the Tracer can be used with the ZX81 and 16K Spectrum, its full potential can only really be developed on the 48K and then only by competent programmers. It's a versatile instrument for the specialist.

It's the season of Good will and all that, so why not give a last mention for all whose speciality is Games Designing. It's been around for a while, but standing the test of time in lots of ways. I'm referring of course to the High level User Friendly Realtime Games Designer from Melbourne House. Or as it is more commonly known, HURG.

Still a powerful program and a very good manual. How did they do it in those all time greats like Pacman, Donkey Kong and Space invaders? H.U.R.G. will tell you how.

It's a pretty good list of graphics goodies and that other seasonal expression comes to mind. 'There's something here for everyone.' You have no excuse for not knowing how and from whom in Spectrum Graphics, just how to enjoy the graphics power behind those buttons.

HELP UNEXPERIENCED RARING TO GO GAMES DESIGNERS

Ever thought you were born to become the million-making, hyped and idolised games author of all times, but unfortunately lacking in the small detail of not comprehending black machine code magic, well, what the hex, here's your chance to join the small elite world of binary and mnemonic whiz-kids who light up the vast Spectrum of our games universe.

The magic potion doesn't come in a six pack, but consists of a single cassette and extensive manual. As the doctor would say, 'take in small dosages and the medicine will remedy your handicap and change your lifestyle as a side effect.'

THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA

All stars have humble beginnings and you will be no exception to the rule. After loading HURG your best option will be to load via HURG main menu one of the three sample games programs supplied with the cassette. MANICKOALA is a scaled down version of Manic you know who and demonstrates the abilities of HURG to the hilt.

If you can unhook yourself from this addictive game, you will be able to explore the edit menu, which at first glance may resemble your regular adventure game. Have no fear, intrepid explorer, as absolutely every single facility is menu driven and your intelligence is only tested with simple yes/no and quantity questions. In fact HURG can be manipulated by Kempston joystick if so desired.

As you change each individual feature of the game, you may return to main menu and select to play game to inspect immediately the effect of the particular modification. Eventually you will not recognise the original MANICKOALA for all the radical and devastating changes and this will mean that you are very near to knowing HURG as intimately as your pocket. In fact you will already have transformed yourself into Prince Charming and are ready to kiss to life the most lovely creatures and creations of software land.

THE CREATIVE PERIOD

Develop in your mind the scenario of your first masterpiece taking into account the player, the objects, the screen and background details and special effects. In effect you should end up with a script for your new creation.

Next prepare the background screen to the game using one of the many screen drawings utilities such as the Trojan Lightpen (reviewed this month), Paintbox (reviewed last month) or Melbourne Draw with its excellent detail magnification facility. Whatever way you develop your background, it should end up as a screen dump on tape for later use.

Load HURG and enter edit mode. Select load background and load the earlier prepared screen file from tape. The action can now be programmed.

HURG allows up to four games variations or stages, where the background remains the same, but the movement and actions of player and objects may vary. Select normal game. The size, shape and animation of the player will have to be designed and to this purpose you select the player menu. Up to eight frames (or sprites) are available and can be used for one movement direction only or split up into up to four directions.

The shape generator is excellent and displays the player magnified and in original size, caters for mirror image and animation sequencing of the frames. The animation to displacement ratio may easily be adjusted visually during the movement display and can thus be optimised. There is even the option of continuous movement of the player (runaway robot).

Next the collision table has to be programmed: No go, go, eat and crash are programmed according to the ink and paper values of the character to be occupied by the player. This sets the relation of the player to the surroundings and the moving objects.

Next game start and stop conditions have to be programmed: Decide on initial position and moving direction of the player during regeneration delay time, existence of objects amount of lives and limited duration are further variables. The movement of the player may be restricted in any of the four directions and the player may be subjected to gravity in any of four directions.

Boundaries may be set up for restricting the movement of the play er within a specified area of the screen and wrap around movement may be selected within these restricted areas. The selection is facilitated by the display of the movement grid over the existing background screen.

Up to three different sized explosions and their colour and relative positions to the players can be selected for when a crash or collision occurs.

Special events may be considered by indicating the collision condition, what the effect of the event is (eat, crash, special score) and whether the change is permanent or of limited duration. The player's way of life is now established. But the player may well find life boring in the set surroundings. To prevent him or her from dozing off to sleep up to eight different objects (friends or foes) will have to be created. The objects are treated similar to the player: the object menu follows the same pattern as the player menu, but has in addition a movement pattern selection, as the objects are not under the control of the games player. The objects may be programmed to mimmick the player or one of the other objects, move randomly, in a straight line (four directions) move towards or away from the player or other objects or along a user defined path. There are eight possible paths which may be accessed and programmed directly from the edit menu and can be made very complex. Up to four paths may be linked up in sequence to create extremely complicated routes.

So far the background, the player and objects and all their movements have been programmed. To help with the odds and to make the game attractive obviously our player must be given a special weapon, which is under the control of the games player's fire button: The fire button action menu caters for three different options: No fire action, player shoot and player jump action. Selection of the shoot action calls up the player bullet generation program, which is an exact copy of the object generator.

The player jump facility consists of a jump path generator which works similar to the user defined path of the objects. A maximum character fall height may be specified.

Once happy with the normal game stage you should proceed to the other three variations or stages of the game, which require the same programming procedure. The main body of the game will then be completed.

Returning to the edit menu there are still three unused facilities for completing the games design:

The new frame conditions: A new frame may occur if either all objects are non existent (after a shoot out) or after a definable delay (Countdown).

Scoring: A game without a point system is like a fruit machine without a pay out. Points for eating, object deaths and new frames start bonuses should cater for the most mathematical of games players.

Title page: Probably the most restrictive feature of HURG is the title page, which will only allow for text display. It would have been a nice feature to be able to load a screen title picture in a similar manner as with the background. As a bonus though the animated player and objects may be positioned selectively on the title page and will give a hint of things to come.

THE AFTERMATH

It is difficult to find fault with such a complete games generation program. Nonetheless two major handicaps become apparent: No provision has been made for music lovers and noise addicts. This is obviously a move back to the classic silent era. A set of standard noises and tunes could have filled the apparent audio gap.

The other handicap became apparent when trying to load one of the sample games programs without having loaded HURG first. The games produced by HURG cannot be run independently without HURG. This destroys any idea of making fame and fortune with the resulting masterpiece. Big commercial software successes are best left to the professional machine coder...

SOFTWARE SCENE

While some software houses are taking the Spectrum to its limits and beyond others doggedly continue to churn out ever more diabolical pieces of programmed junk. John Gilbert present a personal pick of the bunch, and Chris Bourne take an irreverent look at the dwindling ZX-81 software scene. Their talents are combinedd in listing the Top Ten Turkeys of 1984. Let the reader be warned.

SPECTRUM SOFTWARE

A cynic may argue that development within the software market in 1984 was non-existent. The same type of game appeared as those which took the lead in 1983, the most popular being of the arcade variety. The programs were written in the same style and to please the same type of customers.

That is only a superficial view, however, and if you look at the games market as a whole, dividing it up into sectors such as strategy, arcade and adventure, you will see that substantial and sophisticated changes have taken place. Despite what some pundits have said you will find that the world of computer games is still buzzing with life.

£14.95
Melbourne House

A new concept in software, the arcade games designer package, was also launched last year. The first onto the market was the Quicksilva Games Designer, released in 1983, and Melbourne House followed with HURG in the spring of 1984.

HURG is a competent program to help you design arcade games but it necessarily limits the scope you have. You will not be able to create a new version of Manic Miner or Atic Atac. You will not even be able to emulate the Melbourne House Penetrator. You will, however, after many hours of practice, be able to create your own version of Donkey Kong or Galaxians without too much difficulty.

There are several impressive features to the program. First, it is menu-driven, like the Quicksilva Games Designer. On loading, you are presented with a series of choices on the screen. Choosing 'Play Game' allows you to test whatever game on which you are working. Choosing 'Edit Game' will take you to a new menu with more choices, like writing a title page or specifying conditions for proceeding to a new stage of the game - e.g., when all the space invaders are destroyed.

What HURG does is eliminate much of the tedium of programming - it still takes a long time to create a game but nowhere as long as it would starting from scratch - but what it will never do by itself is give you the originality and inspiration of top games designers.

Although the software market has tended to stay with arcade games in 1984 the standard of those programs and the new ideas which have been generated prove there is life after Space invaders. Looking through the games, however, one wonders whether the 16K Spectrum is worth buying any more as few software companies are producing anything for it.

Software houses did well in 1984 but there is room for improvement in all areas. Lets hope 1985 will see it.