December 1984 - Cosmic Combat, 3-D Labyrinth

Editor's Notes talk about the Plus/4 and the 16, but also the C-128, as well as the Amiga. Overall you get the feeling the company is stretching itself a bit thin.

Feature was on strategy games, not my favorite but I appreciated the lede's reference to the movie WarGames. (Also the Broderbund ad for 5 games including "Raid on Bungeling Bay" (by Will "SimCity and The Sims" Wright) triggered some nice memories.) The article also went over the basics of Chess-playing programs

Kind of poor month overall.

Ad of the month: I thought this guy (from an ad for Datasoft's "Mancopter") was totally cool, and as a kid I would redraw it sometimes:

The Games


Cosmic Combat - Tommy Graham

Pile of meh... IN SPACE! Enemies stumble in from the top of the screen, shoot them with your laser before they hit the bottom and explode (you can get caught in the sideways explosion) The VIC version is a bit more polished with an attractive level select screen, but on the C=64 the game's charming signature "enemies destroy themselves by crashing into each other" move is more pronounced. Rating:2/5

3-D Labyrinth - John Stilwell

Press N,E,S,W to turn, space to move, H for a map, and escape the maze. I've never been a big fan of this kind of labyrinth program, and I found using cardinal directions (rather than left and right relative to the player) kind of distracting. Rating:2/5


2 comments:

  1. one thing I liked about the 3-D labyrinth program was that it was a hybrid Vic/C64 program that would work on an unexpanded VIC. but it means that the code is incomprehensible.

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    Replies
    1. Huh! Interesting point. Explains why it only takes up part of the C64 screen too, then.

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