QL RACER
by Tim Hartnell
from ZX Computing Oct/Nov.1984

MOVING GRAPHICS ON THE QL

Drive a racing car around the screen in this fast-moving
game from Tim Hartnell, which demonstrates how effectively
SuperBASIC can be used for moving graphics.


[The accompanying file QLRACER.BAS is in MS-DOS format;]
[ie. CR+LF at the end of lines, whereas QLRacer_bas is ]
[in QL format; ie. LF at the end of lines.             ]
[There were some bugs in the program, as noted in the  ]
[REMs in the listing.                              JimG]


Drive a racing car around the screen in this fast-moving
game from Tim Hartnell, which demonstrates how effectively
SuperBASIC can be used for moving graphics.

Although the speed of the QL has been criticised, it is
still possible to produce highly satisfactory moving
graphics programs as you'll see when you run this program.

In QL RACER you drive a little racing car (which looks
remarkably like an arrow) around a race track. You'll
discover that the game, although it starts off running
fairly slowly, is almost impossible to play. If you manage
to get around the track once without crashing, it will speed
up, and will continue to increase its speed for twenty
games.

The program, which comes from my book Tim Hartnell's QL
Games Compendium (Interface Publications, #5.95), makes the
most of a number of features which are unique to the QL,
such as the real-time clock.

You travel from the top left hand corner round the course
clockwise, then up the left hand edge to your starting
position, where you'll be given a new car. You must avoid
all the edges to stay in the race. Your score is related to
how long you manage to keep the car in action, and also to
the 'difficulty level' which is set at the start of a game.

As I pointed out, the real-time clock is used in this
program.The QL's internal clock is used to give a readout
which shows how long you have survived. The clock, and the
score, is updated using the procedure defined in lines 470
to 560.


--
Another Fine Product transcribed by:
Jim Grimwood (jimg@globalnet.co.uk), Weardale, England
--
