Amtruck

The game is named after "American Truck" game by Telenet Japan.

I discovered MSX BIOS display driver commands that insert empty string and was trying to apply them to writing a game where car (single triangle) rolled ahead. Original scribble was written with function keys hints switched on. At some point I switched the keys off and screen became 1 line taller and car got tail. When it turned it looked (to me, at least) exactly like a truck from American Truck, hence the name.

This is the most successful of my MSX games ever. It is the only game of this series that I saw other people (other than myself and my friends) playing for significant stretches of time.

Rules

You are driving a truck (which is represented by two triangles). The truck is going forward. Use left and right arrows to avoid cars (white squares) on a busy highway. There is no way to stop, slow down or go backwards. Drive as far as you can,

Code and comments

Download the original AMTRUCK.NSG code or version for international character set.

<ESC>L inserts empty line on the screen at current cursor position
<ESC>J clears everything from current position till the end of the screen
BIOS routine at 0x156 address clears keyboard buffer.
Game is so simple, it fits in just 2 lines and I had to fill third line with descriptive comments of player's progress.

[ MSX BASIC | << Previous | Next >> | Feedback ]