How to Write ZX Spectrum and Spectrum+ Games Programs

Your Computer

Author: W. Simister Publisher: Bernard Babini Price: £2.50 This useful book is another in the now large Babini family, written as a step-by-step guide to help with the writing of graphics games programs on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Spectrum Plus. The book starts at the logical beginning, with a chapter on the making and placing of graphics characters. While it is aimed at the beginner, a degree of familiarity with the machine is assumed and it is expected that users of the book will at least have read the Spectrum introductory manual. Making use of short listings which the reader is able to type-in, it is possible to work your way through the book and gain a better understanding of Basic in a relatively short time. As the book progresses, the programs become more complex and such topics as how to throw dice, programming a chess game and writing a game in 3D are covered. The book recommends that it is used at the same time as the computer and that all the information entered is saved to cassette tape, thus helping to absorb everything more easily. For the money you cannot go wrong with this book. It covers everything that the games-writing beginner would need to know and the use of listings gives the reader something concrete to produce very quickly.

ZX Computing

David Harwood

HARWOOD'S HYPOTHESIS This month we have only four books appearing on this page. This could be due to the fact that publishers aren't letting us reviewers get our hands on the books and then beating them into pulp, or more likely it is because the computer book market is starting to falter. Will it eventually collapse? The problem lies at the hands of two parties. The publishing industry and the computer owner. The former because they knew too early what a good thing was and rushed out and produced books to do this and that on all types of computer, completely flooding the market, which then slackens as everyone who wants one. has got one. Another reason for the fall in the market is that all readers who wanted a book with lists of arcade games have by now got them. Then to produce a book on the Spectrum with lists of games after games is just pointless. Who would buy a new book when there have been thousands on the market for ages already? That is why generally the books this month are starting to move away from the idea that people just want to program their machine to play space invaders. HOW TO... Babani Books £2.50 This book is the one that is contrary to my point in the first paragraphs, claiming that the reader is not interested in the usual games programs any more. How To Write ZX Spectrum and Spectrum+ Games Programs book is a step-by-step guide to writing games programs, and does at times assume the reader to be ignorant of computing, and at other times to know it all. On the first page, the invaluable REM statement is again explained, but at this point the reader is expected to know all about FOR... NEXT loops and the PRINT AT statement. The reader is also told how to get an asterisk on the screen by pressing Symbol Shift and B, but not how to get any of the other statements. Double Dutch if you ask me! The step-by-step guide could be useful to the novice programmer, but perhaps the author thought that just a games book wouldn't sell too well, so the idea of learning how to program games seemed a better prospect. The programs are in separate chapters, and by the end of the first chapter the reader should know how to use the UDG's and the PLOT and DRAW statements. The games are separated into individual routines, and the author does his best to explain each routine demonstrating how the game is moulded together. The games are at most for six players, but never included is the capability of playing with the computer. There is a chess game, but only the bare structure, as the CHESS game in the book is only for two players, and does not have the facility to compete with the computer. I would rather get the good old fashioned chess board out. This way is much more real. The programs also did not appear to be all that well written. I could easily rewrite a few sections if I was going to use the book to any great length. The listings also, due to the width of the book, were hard to read and appeared somewhat compact, but the programs could be adapted to improve the games, which in my mind only half succeeded. At £2.50 the book is reasonably priced, and it may appeal to those who have some ideas but have difficulty in transferring them onto a computer, but otherwise I cannot really see the book as being extremely beneficial to anyone. Why would anyone want to draw a River Nile Scene in a game? Just another way of filling out a chapter.