 Water Fall was a project I did during the development of my game GunStar.
Diversions such as these are a good break from the work of a larger
project and let me shift my focus away for a short while to return with a clearer
mind.
This game took just over a week to create and is a good example what
can be achieved with the Color Computer's powerful Extended Color BASIC
language built-in to ROM. The program is also an example of using machine
language subroutines to help provide a speed boost in areas that are
too demanding for BASIC alone.
Water Fall is a simple arcade type game based on the Atari 2600 game Man Goes Down, also Spike Goes Down on the Vectrex Game Console and Down Fall for the Atari Jaguar.
Each of these games can be viewed by following the YouTube links below.
The Game
The player uses a joystick plugged into the RIGHT joystick port to control the
falling emoji character. When you start the game, your emoji falls from the
top centre of the screen. Guide him to the safety of one of the
platforms that are moving up the screen. You must prevent your
emoji from being squashed at the top of the screen by dropping down
to lower platforms. But be careful, you must also ensure he does not
fall off the bottom of the screen.
During
your time falling, you will find bonus objects that you may collect.
These give a score of 200 (GREEN) , 400 (MAGENTA) or 600 (ORANGE) points.
You can turn the in-game music OFF or ON by pressing M at the title page prior to starting a game.
Review of WaterFall by Jacob Moore
Program Information
Water Fall
is programmed in Extended Color Basic with a Machine Language
subroutine to provide speed and support for the water falling effects,
platform and emoji movement.
The game uses the low resolution SG4 VDG mode to provide 8 color graphics at a resolution of 64x32 pixels.
It requires a Color Computer 1, 2 or 3 with at least 16K of RAM and may also work on the Dragon.
This program is also designed as an educational aid. The source code is
included on the DSK for anyone to look at or even improve if they wish.
Speech and Sound Cartridge Support
Water Fall supports the Tandy Speech and Sound cartridge installed into the Multi-Pak slots 1, 2 or 3.
I purchased this cartridge 30 years ago when Tandy were discontinueing
the CoCo but has had limited support and I have hardly used it. Part of
the problem was that it also required the purchase of the Multi-Pak
Interface which added to it's cost. It also doesn't work on a CoCo3
when running in the higher clock speed of 1.79 Mhz unless a hardware
modification to the cartridge is implemented.
Speech
effects are provided throughout the game as well as in-game music. It's been fun exploring
my unloved Speech and Sound Cartridge after all these years.
Water Fall will still work if the cartridge is absent although it will be silent.
It will also work with the MAME and VCC emulators. Speech and Sound is
supported in MAME when the S/SC plugin is installed. It will be silent
with VCC.
NOTE:
When running under MAME with the S/SC support, the music will playback
a little fast. You can compensate for MAME's innacuracy by EDITing line
1220 and changing the A=I to A=I*2 to make it play closer to a real CoCo's speed.
Special Mention
Water Fall has
recieved interest and support from other members in the Color Computer
community. There has been no shortage of people providing their
feedback and game testing, contributing ideas and enhancements.
It particular, I personally want to express my gratitude to Eric Canales for transcribing the musical tune By the beautiful Sea from sheet music into musical notation that Tim Lindner
used for his transcription to the Speech and Sound Cartridge format, as
well as his vast technical knowledge of this cartridge.
Free Download
The game can be downloaded as a DSK file using the FREE DOWNLOAD link at the top of this page.
YouTube Videos
Click on each screen below to see a YouTube video of each game.
WATER FALL - COCO
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SPIKE GOES DOWN - VECTREX
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MAN GOES DOWN - ATARI VCS
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DOWN FALL - ATARI JAGUAR
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