DOWING SKI (Naoyuki Toyoda)

Title – DOWING SKI
System – Sinclair ZX81 (with 16K expansion)
Author – 豊田　直幸 (Naoyuki Toyoda)
Publication – Micom BASIC (マイコンBASIC) October 1982
Page Scans – 1 2
Preserved By – TWE
Recommended Emulator – EightyOne

Download ROM

Loading the Game –

NOTE: EightyOne emulates a wide range of Sinclair computers, so it must be configured to emulate a ZX-81 with the 16K RAM expansion.
– Options -> Hardware -> ZX81 (on the Sinclair tab), select “16k” under “RAM Pack”.

Load the dowinski.tzx tape file, type J, Shift-P, Shift-P (the resulting output should be ‘LOAD “”‘), press Enter then play the tape;
NOTE: EightyOne does these steps automatically upon loading the tape image.

After the program finishes loading, press R (for ‘RUN’) then press Enter to start the game.

Game Instructions –

Press [J] to move left and [L] to move right; after the game ends press [Y] to restart;
Go through as many gaps(-) while avoiding the flags(I) and the gates(checkerboard patterns).

Article Translation –

ZX-81
DOWING SKI
Naoyuki Toyoda

Introduction
I made this program using a ZX-81 I borrowed from a friend. Because of that, it may have some small useless points, but I hope you don’t mind it too much.

Game Contents / How to Play
As I’ve said before, just like in games such as Skier Game, you have to go through the space between the flags(-) without touching the flags(I) themselves. However, from time to time a gate will appear, and if you run into it you die. Passing between the flags nets you 100 points, and you get 1 point for each time the screen scrolls. The key controls are [J] for left and [L] for right.

Program Explanation
There’s nothing special going on. Line 130 looks for whether a flag was hit. If you remove the gate at lines 300 onwards, and then eliminate all the other unnecessary parts, along with the CLS and REPLAY parts, you might be able to run this at 1Kbyte.

Conclusion
This game is really simple. However, if you start adding more features on stop, the speed becomes so slow you won’t have much of a game anymore. It might be possible with the use of machine code, but the monitor and sub-routines are all secret, so that approach is out of reach. If someone finds how how to do it, please write about it in BeMaga. Lastly, I’d like to thank Haraguchi for lending me his ZX-81.

CHECKER FLAG
Editor: Um, there’s no goal here…
Kage: Ah, really?! The skier’s chatacter should’ve been worked on a bit more, eh?
Editor: It, uh, looks like a snake or a worm…
Dr. D: Hey! You two, what are you even saying!? This is a small program here…
Editor: By the way, Dr., between you and me… Kage keeps going skiing in the summer and fracturing his leg…
Kage: H-hey!! You… lay it off.
Dr. D: Ooh. Wasn’t there supposed to be no holidays this year? I’ll have to report this to the editorial’s chief…
Kage: W-wait a minute. I was absolutely, uh, just… doing whatever. Whatever debugging-related.
Dr. D: Well said. Well then, you should make falling snow on the screen, and add more goals as well.
Kage: Huh? You talking to me?
Dr. D: Of course, go make that on your skis!