Dr. Dave Johnson PhD - puzzle game for RISC OS

Hi,

I’ve made another simple game for RISC OS, written in BASIC. It’s called ‘Dr. Dave Johnson PhD’.

It’s a simple falling blocks puzzle game. The game is designed so that groups of four or more blocks of the same colour react with each other and disappear. The challenge is to build a wall out of the blocks while losing as few blocks as possible.

Here’s a dropbox link to the game: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6wl4w7g3n0yiquu/DaveJohnson.zip?dl=0
And an alternate link in case the first link doesn’t work:
http://dusthillguy.ddns.net/folder/files/quickupload/DaveJohnson.zip

It seems to work, but I have a few concerns:

• It’s designed for the 320×256 (40×31 character) video mode, and in my experience, depending on your monitor settings, that video mode quite often isn’t available for some reason

• I use *FX15 to clear the keyboard buffer, since it’s the only way I know of doing it from my experience of using the BBC Micro. I’m wondering, is that a sensible and safe thing to do? Does *FX15 clear only the keyboard buffer, or does it clear other things too? I hope using *FX15 isn’t potentially dangerous.

If you have the time, please try running the game and let me know if it works on your system, or if there are any problems. I’d appreciate any other comments too.

- Patrick

Works OK with the ARMX6

Thanks Kevin, I appreciate the information.

Launched and played for a bit on my Raspberry PI 2 :P Spent like 5 minutes on playing. A fun little game :p
Thanks,
George

Hi Patrick,
I first played this on RPCEmu at work. I’ve just had a chance to play properly at home on my ARMX6. I like the idea of an inverse Tetris style game. Tricker than it looks as its the opposite of what I’m used to. Completed the small board with about 300 pound losses. (an inverse score too which is pretty cool. i.e. 0 would be perfect :-) ) I’m tempted to add sound via RDSP. Would that be ok?

I wonder if the games that you’re writing could be added to the PlingStore or somewhere? Its a shame if they get lost in the Forum as I think they’re cool games.

Thanks,
Tony

Hi Tony,

I’m glad that you have a positive opinion of the game.

I’m tempted to add sound via RDSP. Would that be ok?

Sure, that would be great, I’ll be interested in hearing what you come up with. I had been thinking that the game could do with sound effects. I considered adding some myself but I wasn’t sure how to go about it, or what sort of sounds to use, and so I didn’t get around to it.

I wonder if the games that you’re writing could be added to the PlingStore or somewhere?

That would be cool. How do you go about submitting software to the PlingStore?
I might also set up a small webpage for my games and other software I might make.

- Patrick

How do you go about submitting software to the PlingStore?

I think you need an account of some kind?
I emailed RComp about this (for !Manga) on the 16th of July and still no response… :-/

Hi,

I’m off on holiday in the morning. However, I can send you both a URL tonight to register with Plingstore which Andrew emailed to me. I guess Andrew has not listed it publicly to avoid spurious accounts being created.

Internally – you create a Supplier and then add applications against it.

Any problems, please let me know.

Regards,

Tony

I think you need an account of some kind?

You do: Andrew should be able to supply this, assuming that your email reached him.

PackMan is another option for free software. It’s still a manual process to get the original setup done, but once you’re set up then you can add/update your software by yourself.

Hi Steve,

The e-mail I sent should allow Rick and Patrick to create an account themselves (at least I believe so. Its been 2 years since I used it). It points to a registration page.

Tony.

The e-mail I sent should allow Rick and Patrick to create an account themselves (at least I believe so. Its been 2 years since I used it). It points to a registration page.

Ah, fair enough. My account was created manually a long time ago and the PlingStore registration link still led to an empty page, so I’d assumed that the process hadn’t been automated since.

PackMan is another option for free software. It’s still a manual process to get the original setup done, but once you’re set up then you can add/update your software by yourself.

Could you give me more info on PackMan and how to use it? I had a look with google but couldn’t seem to find easy answers to my questions about it. Would I need to create my own PackMan repository, or is there an existing repository I could submit my programs to? How would I submit my packages to that repository?

You don’t need to create your own repository; you can add to ROOL’s (although you do need access to a Web server). There are some details here and there’s an app called PackIt which assists with creating the actual package file.