Minecrawler
Warning! This is a DOS program.
It may crash or cause damages for which I am not liable.
Years ago, I got my first graphing calculator. It was a TI-86, and it was great. However, I didn't splurge on a computer link cable, and everyone else at school seemed to have either a TI-83 or a TI-89. I was an outsider in the community of graphing calculators, and this meant one critical thing. I could not get any games.
And for today's youth, a product is worthless if you can't at least play Tetris on it. (Even the oscilloscopes in Drexel's labs can play Tetris.) Eventually I did get around to building a link cable, but until that happened I was more or less on my own. So I did the next best thing to playing games in class. I programmed games, in class. It was fully justified - anyone will learn more math in the structured environment of a computer than they will in geometry.
Writing games in TI Basic is not fun. It's slow. Real time arcade games are pretty much out of the question. Besides, its really obvious when someone plays an arcade game. You will get caught, assuming the teacher cares. There is no other reason to button mash the keypad like that.
I worked on a Minesweeper clone. The interface was a sticky problem. There is no mouse, and jumping around with the keypad was annoying. I gave up on an exact Minesweeper clone, and turned my failings into features. The new game was what you see here, Minecrawler.
The concept is simpler but challenging. You don't hover over the field like a god, testing any square. Instead, you're actually on the field. You have to walk everywhere, and so your options are much more limited. To make it easier (and slightly more real) the game is won not when you mark all the mines, but when you reach the far side of the field.
It was a mindblowingly challenging game. The available screen space made for a 40x7 grid, so there was only one possible route on some of the hardest levels. There was one act of kindness in the game; the first column of each level will always be free of mines.
Eventually I ported it to PC. Now the map was huge, and the keys quick and responsive. Far too quick, and players of the early version tended to hold down a key until a "1" flashed up, but by then it was too late. Key presses still in the buffer carried them to their doom. I added features to give the player more time to respond. For example, if you step on a "0", it will automatically test the surrounding eight squares. Minecrawler is not as generous as Minesweeper, so don't expect any giant areas to automatically clear themselves.
Later I added flagging. Normally, the arrows move you around. But in flag mode, the next key press doesn't move you. Instead a flag is dropped in the direction indicated. Once you flag a spot, you can't step on it, preventing dumb keyboard accidents. But fail to press the flag key first, and you step on the mine instead of marking it. This was fixed with auto-flagging. If you are standing on "1", and you've already checked out seven of the eight squares around you, it will automatically flag the one unknown square. Try it out, you'll soon be dancing around mines just to use auto-flag.
Linkback: http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~kmk592/ Printer friendly links: http://www.ftp83plus.net/cablesA.htm http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~kmk592/software/minecrawler/minecrawler1v30.zip History: 2005/12/31 uploaded