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Best Basic Games for the TRS-80 Model 1/3

J

jgerrie

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I'd be interested in hearing people's top 10 picks for the best games in basic written for the Model 1/3? Any genera, but the most interesting and best to play.
 
You can't really go past Leo Christopherson or Kim Watts early games in Basic. Google them, Android Nim will regularly show up on your best games list.

Here's the thing, most of the best Basic-Language games had machine language subroutines in order to make the games work better, so are these truly Basic games or considered more of a hybrid?

Ian.
 
Well The Aforementioned Android Nim, Beewary, dancing demon, Snake eggs kind of a card game using snake eggs by Leo Christopherson, Big 5's Defense Command. Seadragon just to name a few. There are others but those are my favorites.
 
Hard to know where to draw the line. Things like Android Nim and Snake Eggs have machine language subroutines for sound which isn't unreasonable since raw BASIC can only do clicks and buzzes, at best. On the other end of the scale Dancing Demon (and Duelin' Droids) do all the fun part in machine language with only a chunk of UI in BASIC which I'd say disqualifies them.
 
Demons, Air Raid, Precision Approach Radar, Dogstar Adventure, Hustle (aka Snake), Starlanes, Super Star Trek, Camel, X Wing

All of those managed to get quite a bit of play time despite the stiff competition from assembly language arcade knockoffs. The first 3 can be found in this book:

http://archive.org/stream/80-programs-for-the-trs-80-1979jim-perrypdf/80programsforthetrs-801979jimperrypdf#page/n81/mode/2up

Typing them in by hand (and proofreading/debugging) makes one appreciate them more, I can assure you.
 
Oh my god, I remember when I was younger trying to type in those long programs. After a while you start getting confused and losing your place. And screw up the program, then when you try to run it gets all messed up. So hand debugging was a pain in the a A&@
 
Chromedome45 said:
Oh my god, I remember when I was younger trying to type in those long programs. After a while you start getting confused and losing your place. And screw up the program, then when you try to run it gets all messed up. So hand debugging was a pain in the a A&@
Click to expand...

lmao definitely remember trying to do that. It's interesting how many magazines offered a few pages of basic (or worse hex) for a program to type in. Cool theory though that's lost today. Buy a book with several games instead of buy the game. I wonder if there are some popularity ratings on mobygames or some other site for vintage games? (May not be as narrow as basic for a category though).
 
barythrin said:
lmao definitely remember trying to do that. It's interesting how many magazines offered a few pages of basic (or worse hex) for a program to type in. Cool theory though that's lost today.
Click to expand...
Yes, it's hard to believe we actually used to do that. LOL. Typing in hex code from a listing...one mistake and arrgg. Trying to find it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack!!

Tez
 
tezza said:
Yes, it's hard to believe we actually used to do that. LOL. Typing in hex code from a listing...one mistake and arrgg. Trying to find it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack!!
Click to expand...

We usually worked in pairs with a reader/checker and a typist. Helped keep the error rate down plus we'd pick typists who'd finished grade 9 typing. We quickly formed strong opinions about anything that increased character count. Lines less than the maximum length? Waste! No spaces unless absolutely necessary! Putting the variable on a NEXT statement -- nonsense! Comments? Forget about 'em. Except for (gasp) the line with nothing but a comment. Then you have to worry if there's a GOTO that line. We were a little crazed, but it did make a difference when you're saving stuff to cassette.

The one time I had something of mine published in a magazine I made sure to have checksums on each line of DATA.
 
When I bought my Model 1 back in 1978 - it came with a BASIC program called 'Quick Watson' on tape. I was literally amazed at how this machine could actually play games. I played a lot of those 'Quick Watson' games and so that became a favorite with me. The game is just a different sort of 'Mastermind' game.
Concerning those magazine 'type in games' I did plenty of those, and it required a fair amount of concentration. You needed to be a good typist where there was no need to look away from the magazine, losing your place quickly if you did. If you could type without looking at the keyboard, keeping your eyes on the magazine, there was much less chance for errors. My wife would read back lines to me while I followed along on the screen when it came time to proofread due to some error that was cropping up - and there always were some. I don't think I ever typed a big program in from a magazine that ran right the first time. Them was the 'good old days'.
 
Can't really say I remember which of my favorite TRS80 games were basic or asm, but some of my top favorites that I remember were Flight(Voyage?) of the Valkyries, Outhouse, and hmm, well the whole what was it, Van Nuys 5(Guys?) catalog. I think Outhouse was one of theirs. There were a lot of great games on that platform, monochrome was no limitation to imagination. :)
 
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