CARROTS FROM SPACE
by David Green, Wye, Kent
from Your Computer, August 1985

WHILE RECOVERING from the sheer boredom of typing in over 5K of
machine code, I resolved to write a 48K Spectrum game that would be
fast, fun to play, well-endowed with sound effects and that would
contain less than 1.5K of machine code. Despite its unbelievably silly
title, this is that program.

The game is based on the slightly improbable situation that entire
battle fleets of alien telekinetic carrots, with world domination
their intent, have been temporarily trapped in freak wormholes in the
space/time continuum, and someone has to go in there to turn the evil
vegetables into so much mangled cellulose. The only method known to
science of destroying these extra-terrestrial tubers is that of
skillfully placing time bombs in their path, but it is best to do this
only when you are moving, as otherwise it is all too easy to blow
yourself up.

Convincing your computer to take part in this wanton slaughter is
relatively straightforward. The recommended procedure is as follows:

Type in listing 1 and save it. This bit sets up the graphics, the
title page, and various other things of dubious artistic value.

Type in the hexloader in listing 2 or load a suitable one from tape.
No self-respecting Spectrum user should be without one. Enter.
	CLEAR 31999
and then type in the machine code from listing 4 using the hexloader.
Save it as:
	SAVE "from" CODE 33000,1300

Type in the imaginatively-titled listing 3. This actually controls the
game and plays the music. Save it when you've finished and then reload
from the beginning when you want to play it.

The game should work first time, but if it doesn't, check the machine
code in listing 4 and the Pokes and USR calls in listing 3.

Full instructions on how to select any particular game configuration
are given in the program. It would be quite easy to add a high score
table by adding a few short routines to listing 3, including one at
around line 320 that would use the Screen$ function to find out what
the score was after every game, but that is up to you. Anyone with a
disassembler might like to know what the first 200 bytes of code do,
since this is not very obvious, and this is in fact a collection of
subroutines which handle printing to the screen etc.

If you don't like using the cursor keys, the part of the code which
deals with the bombs is from 33520 onwards, and the section which
controls movement is from 33630 onwards.

These articles usually end with a heartfelt plea to send cheques or
postal orders to the author, but as this program has been made as
short as possible, this should not be necessary.
