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The White Barrows Game

Anobium
2022-06-04
2022-07-03
  • Anobium

    Anobium - 2022-06-04

    I was asked by the school to create a game for a microcontroller. Well... I remembered 'The White Barrows' a game for thee BBC Computer, ZX81 and a few other computers.

    Well - it took only a few hours to convert from BBC Basic to Great Cow BASIC. It did need some clever coding as there is a lot of strings in a game... but, it works.

    The White Barrows
    
    Your mission is to trap the Evil Sorcerer and return the Magic Chalice
    You have been given a Magic Staff with 500 Thaums of magic. Use it to overcome the hazards in the White Barrows
    
    Press any key to begin
    
    
    You are in Chamber 17
    You can choose from Chambers .. 6 16 19
    
    [M]ove, [V]iew, [S]how map, [W]all (you are in Chamber 17) ? $> s
    
                           ____________________________ 1 ____________________________
                          |                             |                             |
                          |                             |                             |
                     -----2-----                   -----3------                  -----4-----
                   /      |      \               /      |       \              /      |     \
                  /       |       \             /       |        \            /       |       \
                 /        |        \           /        |         \          /        |        \
                5         6         7         8         9         10        11        12        13
              / | \     / | \     / | \     / | \     / | \     / | \     / | \     / | \     / | \
             /  |  \   /  |  \   /  |  \   /  |  \   /  |  \   /  |  \   /  |  \   /  |  \   /  |  \
             |  |  |   |  |  |   |  |  |   |  |  |   |  |  |   |  |  |   |  |  |   |  |  |   |  |  |
     (40)<-- 14 |  16--17 |  19--20 |  22--23 |  25--26 |  28--29 |  31--32 |  34--35 |  37--38 |  40 -->(14)
             |  |  |   |  |  |   |  |  |   |  |  |   |  |  |   |  |  |   |  |  |   |  |  |   |  |  |
             \  v  /   \  v  /   \  v  /   \  v  /   \  |  /   \  v  /   \  v  /   \  v  /   \  v  /
              -----     -----     -----     -----      -27-     -----     -----     -----     -----
                ^         ^         ^         ^                   ^         ^         ^         ^
                15        18        21        24                  30        33        36        39
                |         |         |         |                   |         |         |         |
                |         |____ ____|         |                   |         |____ ____|         |
                |             ||              |                   |             ||              |
                |____________ 41______________|                   |____________ 42______________|
    
    You can choose from Chambers .. 6 16 19
    You are in Chamber 17
    
    [M]ove, [V]iew, [S]how map, [W]all (you are in Chamber 17) ? $> v
    Which Chamber do you want to peer into ?
    Chamber number? $> 6
    There is nothing in the Chamber
    You have just used 25 Thaums
    You have 475 Thaums left
    
    [M]ove, [V]iew, [S]how map, [W]all (you are in Chamber 17) ? $> v
    Which Chamber do you want to peer into ?
    Chamber number? $> 16
    There is nothing in the Chamber
    You have just used 26 Thaums
    You have 449 Thaums left
    
    [M]ove, [V]iew, [S]how map, [W]all (you are in Chamber 17) ? $> m
    Move to which Chamber ? $> 16
    You are in Chamber 16
    You can feel that magic is very close!
    You can choose from Chambers .. 5 14 17
    
    [M]ove, [V]iew, [S]how map, [W]all (you are in Chamber 16) ? $>
    

    Once the children have had a play with it - I will post as a demo.


    Anyone else remember this game? :-)

     

    Last edit: Anobium 2022-06-04
  • stan cartwright

    stan cartwright - 2022-06-04

    No.
    adventure text games were imho daft.
    on a pic / avr it would be tables and pointers cos more program mem than ram

     
    • Anobium

      Anobium - 2022-06-04

      Stan, I hoping that you would pickup and GLCD the interface. :-)

       
  • stan cartwright

    stan cartwright - 2022-06-04

    you have a key
    you see a box, a door, a keyboard
    select .
    bored already?
    the key is a note for the keyboard.. and the note says...

    a keyboard would be useful else on glcd one button to rotate limited options like box,door,keyboard then press the button for 5 Sec to select.

    Apart from the academic layout of the text messages and tree structure not really a pic project.
    Could be good for ilitouch. Been thinking for uses for touch screen buttons like up,down,left,right and a maze above. That's why I did rotating sprites but glcddraw subs for shapes is a better, if slower way,

    in a text adventure if that's what the post is about then it's the "plot" and the paths to the end that matters. I remember "The Quill" from the 80's for writing text adventures with simple graphics.
    I preferred manic miner :)

     
  • stan cartwright

    stan cartwright - 2022-06-04

    I downloaded the bbc version as ssd file and spectrum version as zip. but no way they're basic text.
    I'll try rpi400 as it's got emulation station that plays bbc and zxspectrum files.

    don't strings take up ram? text adventures are lots of boring text. Wouldn't tables be better as there's always lots of program memory.

    what made the quill cool was the fill a polygon area that let you draw some images to go with the text

     
    • Anobium

      Anobium - 2022-06-05

      I have already used Strings and a Smart Table for the Map. I think I will change the map to an external file for ease of editing. I would like to this is fit in a 16f but that will take a little more work,

       
  • stan cartwright

    stan cartwright - 2022-06-05

    "I was asked by the school to create a game for a microcontroller"

    What age group?
    What sort of "game"?

    Cool you're doing this but a bit of a vague request.
    Is the idea to get students into pics? Then a certain age group.

    I'm guessing how The Barrows would be implemented with a pic.. the output to a terminal?
    What about input?

    I can't see the point of a glcd pic game when a pc would do better.
    You could try the original character based snake that used string slicing and just printed a new head character and erased the tail character so was quick animation but needs up, down, left, right buttons. There's a char you steer over and it increases the snake length 1 char and another char appears to steer over. Eventually the snake fills the screen and you crash. points for each snake char.

     
    • Anobium

      Anobium - 2022-06-05

      This is part of STEM activities, so, years 7, 8 and 9. I am actively involved with a SATRO and I support STEM education sessions/days.

      The goal is create an experience that shows the potential of microcontrollers. We started with traffic light system. The project will show input and output using a simple terminal for display and keyboard.


      I wrote a Duel Snake game, see here http://bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=2686 maybe this would be better for Glcd.

       
  • stan cartwright

    stan cartwright - 2022-06-05

    snake game I was thinking of was single player with no grid. It seemed fast but not much was happening really.
    I entertained my grandson 7 with a uno and breadboard and him plugging in leds and showing a simple prog to flash 1 led then 2 then 3 etc. He liked it and a year later is using lego robots and some coding but not seen it. I've shown him my robots with ultrasonic and laser range finders
    but the code is not short so not showed it to him.

    7 year olds can't read very well or even say their thoughts so how to inspire them to controlling pics.
    Most stuff needs hardware which at the age intended would be just another thing like anything around them. Good luck.

     
    • Anobium

      Anobium - 2022-06-05

      Year 7 is 11-12 year old.

       
  • stan cartwright

    stan cartwright - 2022-06-05

    When I was 12 I got a board with springs that had a transistor. resistor, transformer etc. and you joined it with wires so 12 year olds are capable.
    How about US or any distance sensor and a tone , pitch represents distance, play a tune with your hand. ... (I must try this)

     
  • Anobium

    Anobium - 2022-07-03

    Posted the game to GitHub.


    Your mission is to trap the Evil Sorcerer and return the Magic Chalice

    You have been given a Magic Staff with 500 Thaums of magic. Use it to overcome the hazards in the White Barrow

    This is a text based game that has elements from a multiple genres dungeon crawl, puzzle, logic challenge, and even resource management. The back story is about a bad Sorcerer who has stolen a magic chalice and you play the plucky adventurer who has to get it back.

    The Sorcerer is hiding in the ancient burial grounds, or barrows.

    The game is based on a map of the barrows in which there are 42 chambers.

    You are dropped randomly into a chamber. In other chamber are gnomes, trolls, dragons etc and in one chamber is the Sorcerer.

    The game is played by moving from chamber to chamber exploring. You may view connecting chamber.

    You may raise a magic wall in chamber. However you have only 500 magic coins and viewing or raising a wall costs coins so it is important to find the Sorcerer before coins run out.

    The game is a text game. There is only one graphic which is the map that shows how the rooms are connected.

    You need a chip with 16kb words of Progmem and ~600 bytes of RAM - so, any decent chip will work.

    Enjoy.

    https://github.com/GreatCowBASIC/Demonstration_Sources/blob/main/game_solutions/the_white_barrows.gcb

     

    Last edit: Anobium 2022-07-04

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