Sunday is rapidly coming up. I had one of my applecartians ? Not sure how you would word that. Anyways I was approached by him and he stated that while I might be able to crank out an Applecart every Sunday, others like him may not be able to and instead would like to do it in easier stages.

So - okay. I understand. Maybe I've been going at it too fast.

First off the cart we are working on now is called, Pensate, it is a turn-based puzzle game originally for the Apple ][ and later ported to many other computer platforms including the Atari.

It is interesting in that in higher levels you are expected to make two moves at a time while your opponents also make two moves making the thinking a lot trickier to solve the puzzle.

And the puzzle is simply to move your piece from the bottom to the top which completes the level.

(Press CTRL + on the number keypad to zoom, CTRL 0 (zero) to return to normal view size)
http://www.atarimania.com/8bit/files/Pensate_Penguin%20Software.pdf

(longer video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3ONAx2QA68

As you can see the original game itself is quite complex with some opponents that move left every time you move up and right every time you move down.

Instead I thought it would be more interesting for each level to have a fixed number of opponents placed randomly, and they are simple ones, 4-arrows, each of which travel in the direction they are facing and wrap-around the other side of the screen.

If one collides into another then the one that collided immediately turns 180 degrees around and that is it for their single move. Of course if any opponent runs into the player, then the level ends and the player must try that level again with newly randomly placed enemies.

So to break this down into stages that are byte-size :) here are four sets.

1. Sprites and game appearance (due tomorrow, I finished mine all in just an hour)
2. Movement of sprites (due 02-09-20)
3. Menus and scoring (etc)
4. Sound
5. Cleanup and completion

So instead of 1-week I'll break this cart down to 5-weeks. Tomorrow I will show stage one completion on my part and you can compare with me what you've done, and then prepare next week for stage 2, movement of sprites. If you fall behind that's fine. Let me know what you need help with, I'll see if I can assist.

Hope to see you there !