Computer Games to Play and Write

Personal Computer News

Piers Letcher

'Computer Games to Play and Write' by Dan Isaaman, published by Sparrow Books at £1.50 (paperback, 126 pages). For just £1.50, this book offers clear and concise help for programmers of the Spectrum, BBC, Dragon, Electron and Vic. Dan Isaaman does this by having most of each program the same for all machines, and then an additional few lines that are machine specific. Though this limits the scope of the games, it doesn't matter too much. Far more important than their scope is how these games stimulate your creativity and encourage you to write your own computer games. There is even a game at the end of the book that takes you from a game's concept through to the finished work, explaining in detail what decisions are made and how they are implemented. The book includes a chapter on Basic and its commands, though I think you would need a pretty good knowledge ofBasic to find this useful. From 'Basic.. isn't like English' to 'using the POKE instruction you can...' in just five pages is a little brief. As a guide to how to write your own programs this is a good buy. Particularly useful are the author's program notes which enable you not only to understand his approach to each game, but also to learn how to change it, yourself and gain experience through experimentation.