
CENTIPED.BAS - GW-BASIC, Centipede arcade clone
Unfinished game that I was enthralled by in the arcades and also with the TI-99/4A version. I thought it was amazing how the centipede was made of so many parts, and how it interacted dynamically with the mushrooms it ran into. I used to wonder how it would figure out the complex direction and geometry when it would enter a large grouping of mushrooms. Thinking about it today, it was likely very simple -- it seems to pull a "Space Invaders" and simply drops down and reverses direction when it hits a mushroom, and likely does this over and over until it sees freedom. But I don't recall this vertical drop in its behaviour on the TI-99/4A (I'd have to play it again to be sure).
This GW-BASIC version, running in the PC-BASIC emulator, is using 40x25 text mode, for which you could not redefine the 8x8 (or 8x14?) characters within GW-BASIC. You needed assembly for that (although it appears GW-BASIC allowed for PEEK and POKE for direct memory access on this real-mode CPU, so perhaps I could have, had I known where to access). One of the things the arcade and its conversions showcased was a super fast moving bullet, which was unparalleled at the time (aside from instant lasers), so I replicated that here, where the bullet moves several characters per frame, though not jumping over obstacles.
I recall regretting that I never finished this game, since I had the main elements programmed, and it was just a matter of getting the enemy AI to move, and then program in the cool dynamic movement behaviour. Perhaps I got stuck in analysis paralysis, and couldn't decide on what it should do?
PC-BASIC emulator has a large delay on the first SOUND call, and eventually will crash if you play too many SOUND calls. It is very buggy here. Even after the first SOUND call, it does not appear to be playing the SOUND calls at the correct times.
My playlists:
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- Voxel: https://youtu.be/watch?v=XCVWEuhCCDM&list=PLjnbT4UISq0bQF1g85tE9jTrKfEtdRYlY
- Road: https://youtu.be/watch?v=ck5ALX11YU4&list=PLjnbT4UISq0bnfd1RC3M4PgTgkmhlkikV
- Ray Casting 3D: https://youtu.be/watch?v=zjswXUTMP2o&list=PLjnbT4UISq0YcFtRFjFQqK0g6ONNCtrvY
- Side-Scroll Shmup: https://youtu.be/watch?v=fF4X8zN-Raw&list=PLjnbT4UISq0Y_7IAN_zUzxgZnfhXxo_0Q
- MonoGame Tutorial: https://youtube.com/watch?v=WW1dJnfXWb0&list=PLjnbT4UISq0adw__Y9B2eXA0LL35TyORU
My websites:
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- my GitHub: https://github.com/JDoucette
- my company: http://xona.com
- my Blog: http://thefirstpixel.com
Other Videos By Jason Doucette
Other Statistics
Centipede Statistics For Jason Doucette
At this time, Jason Doucette has 209 views for Centipede spread across 1 video. Less than an hour worth of Centipede videos were uploaded to his channel, making up less than 0.04% of the total overall content on Jason Doucette's YouTube channel.