Tuesday 17 April 2018

RetroChallenge 2018/04: 3DMCHASE--Faster Yet!

I've been working on speeding up the wall rendering part of the program and a few other speedups.  Renumbered the code at one line increments, because that can also help a little with speed, as the main routines are at the top of the program and switch them from 3 digit line numbers to 2 means one less digit to interpret for GOTO and GOSUBs. You be the judge if you can discern any speed increase from prior versions (maybe turn the music off, as my choices might influence your perceptions:). Here's the latest:


And the prior version (demonstrating the multiple screens):



Also been testing the 3 new screens I added.  I have yet to play three three whole maps to get to the next map. Will have to do a full playthrough without tricks to make absolutely sure everything works. Right now you get a new map after completing the prior map 3 times. The third map/maze has a secret message, which you will be able to see if you get to it, or if you can read the code very carefully. But I think it will be hard to discern using the code reading method. Maybe this will entice someone to try to get to the third screen (i.e. nine successful clearings of the mazes). I won't, however, be offering an MC-10 mug for the first person who does and deciphers the message. But maybe someone out there who might be willing to put up a piece of MC-10 swag to encourage some friendly competition. Who knows...

My plan is still to port the code to Coco. Hopefully with the speedup poke it will be even faster. I'll wait until I've got all the bugs out of the MC-10 version before doing the conversion, as its annoying to then discover bugs and fixes and have to work on both versions simultaneously. I might also try to convert my DigDug program too, if I can find the time. I've been very busy with marking, as it is end of term at the University and I did an overload course. Still, Basic coding is a nice way to wind down after a day of marking exams and papers. Ah the joys of pure logic!

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