Pitfall ZX

In this version of the famous Activision's Piftfall II you might control a
intrepid explorer to cross a forest full of traps and dangers, and after that y
ms tarde enter to a deep cavern until find the Royal crown wich has been
stolen.
The way is full of traps and dangers whose will make this work so difficult, so
be careful where you put your feets or you'll pay for it.

The Game

It begins at the entrance of a forest full of dangers as lava pools, asassin
crocodiles, rolling trunks or poisonous butterflies that you'll must avoid with
skill until you arrive to the entrance of a deep cavern. There, the dangers will
continue until you could find the Royal crown, completing your mission.
You have 5 lifes at the beginning, but you could obtain some more if you reach
the necessary score. During the adventure, you'll find money bags whose will add
points if you pick up them, to obtain extra lifes.
You control the explorer with the following keys:

P -- Right
O -- Left
Q -- Up
A -- Down
Space -- Jump


The Idea

This is the third game I've finished in my new Spectrum time. Pitfall II was one
of my favourite coin-ops, and I thought to program a Basic version, knowing the
limited possibilities of this language. I had made a little beginning I made in
1989, and I retaked it to finish it, as I did with Castillo Maldito ("Damn
Castle"), but after a few screens, I thought to view MAME with the original
game, and I saw they weren't so similirar, so I decided to begin again the
project.

But at the beginning I realized that I would have a serious problem because the
original game has much colorful and to leave the landscapes all of a color and
not to have problems with the explorer sprite it was well the first version that
I rejected. Therefore I put myself to think about how to obtain that the
personage could move in the end by landscapes of different color and I had an
idea that I believe that, after seeing the result, it was more than acceptable
solution... I was able to do sprite of the personage "transparent" using PAPER 8
and using single PAPER for the landscapes. The game consists of 24 screens (some
are repeated), but has many of the dangers of Pitfall II, like roller trunks,
crocodiles, the lava of the ground, etc... It is not a very long game (most is
first stage of original and something under earth) coz the memory didn't give me
for more in BASIC, but by the difficulty that have some screens sure will cost
you to finish it.

About the game technology

I obtained that the explorer doesn't blink so much, coz the movement is
basically horizontal with jumps, although to up and down the stairs I wasn't
complicated so much. When the explorer is down, the stairs rewrites all the
short while so that it doesn't erase it and if you press the key to go up, he
appears above and ready, there isn't much complication. What if you will notice
is that it's slow sometimes. This is because the program verifies continuously
if there is ground under the feet of the personage or if it touches an enemy,
but in BASIC this is something common. The screens, like in other games of mine,
are each one at 100 lines of listing, and is enough with verifying if sprite is
in the beginning or at the end of a screen to make a GO TO to the following
screen that corresponds. I made the game in only 4 or 5 days, reason why I
didn't take so much care in the graphics of the enemies, although there is
assorted varying of them, as well as of traps distributed by all the game. In
any case I believe that it has been left a version that, although is not very
long, is enough faithful to the original one, and been made in BASIC I believe
that the result is satisfactory.

I hope you enjoy it.  
  
 
PROGRAM: SERGIO VQUER (Beyker soft) 

 2004 CEZ SILVER | COMPUTER EMUZONE GAMES STUDIO.
 2004 Karnevi for Computer Emuzone (concept and layout). 

created 2 oct 2004 
