QL Super Sprite Generator

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 3/5

John Gilbert 3/5

PUBLISHER: Digital Precision PRICE: £24.95 Graphic sprites are suddenly in vogue and Digital Precision has released the QL Super Sprite Generator to ensure that it captures that part of the market which is interested in making the most of the superb graphic capabilities available. Sprites are user-defined graphics which have been magnified two or even three times. The Kit provides a set of Superbasic extensions and two demonstration programs called Alien and Bird. As the example titles suggest, the demos are simple but it is possible to move the sample graphics around the screen with the arrow keys. The examples also demonstrate how slow the sprites are when controlled by Superbasic in an animated display. The switch between sprite-frames is slow and the resulting image is jumpy and flickery. But those are only examples, the idea of the kit is to set up the sprites and then deal with them as you wish. To design a sprite you load in the design program. The program runs in a similar fashion to those UDG generator programs of which you see so many in magazines. A grid is drawn on the screen and, using the arrow keys, you can move around the squares of that grid. Once finished you can file the sprite frame. To make an animated display just create several frames, each one a progression in movement from the last. It is possible to reverse the direction of the sprite within the design program. When you are happy with the result you can enter the construct program which asks you the frame order in which you want to put your sprite. It then puts the frames into a single file which can be called by your own programs. The package contains everything which you will need to produce animated sprites but it is dramatically over-priced. For a similar package on the Spectrum you would expect to pay £6.00. The excuse may be the price of microdrives but taking development costs into account, the price could be cut by at least a quarter.