C64 Lunar Lander from LoadStar #1
Commodore 64 Lunar Lander
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Back in the days when computers were still hooked up to black and white television via a switch box adapter that attached opposite end to an RF connectors, kids set to work on creating demos, utilities, and games. Due to the popularity of a computer called the Commodore 64, many users set out to create their own masterpieces, which eventually found their way into a publicized disk subscription service. One of my favorites, was called Softdisk Publishing. It was originally created for the Apple computers, but soon others followed. In that era programs had to be saved to a disk and no surprise to this day floppy disks can still be purchased online
When a person first purchased a personal computer in the early 80’s, they were often lured by a small variety of games that began filling the store arcades, as advertised through television commercials. One computer that really fascinated me was called the Commodore 64. I was intrigued when I first saw the amazing colorful graphics, amazing sound, and demos that were often broadcast in electronic stores of that age.
This article will focus on the style of game design by reviewing one of the earlier publications released by Softdisk Publishing at around 1983. The program was called Commodore 64 Lunar Lander and it was written in a programming language called Basic. I will review it here.
Lunar Lander Commodore 64 Review
The primary goal of the game is to navigate among mines (diamond shapes) without crashing into them as the rocket ship begins to descend from the top center of the screen toward the bottom. Since it is written in Basic, it suffers terribly from delayed timers. The game seems to utilize a lot of loops that progressively limit the gameplay. Often you are just waiting for the screen to redraw the mines before you can even move the ship.
When you first enter the screen using the Commodore 64 Lunar Lander program, the ship must be moved slowly to the bottom of the screen. Gravity is attached to the sprite and begins to push it down. As you are navigating the controls, be sure not to slam into any of the mines (#) signs. Well such was the day of PET Ascii, when graphics were not the most important element of a game. However, to be honest this version needs a lot of work, but I can only imagine that someone was in a hurry to get it published into a disk subscription and wrote it in a day or two. Yet this was the nostalgia of this generation and still had many users glued to their television screens to wait on each new issue published monthly by Softdisk.
If I had to sit down and write my own revision today, I would surely append machine language subroutines to handle the speed of both the ship and the mines, setting them on timers. That was very common for many famous game titles back in the day. Still sitting down at my Commodore 64 today put a smile on my face as I began to explore through the earliest programs I had come to love during that era. Good stuff!
