Vertical Shmup - Part 10 - A spot of housekeeping

Now that we've got most of the basics of the game working, let's take a break and tidy up the presentation of the game a bit.

First let's add an intro menu:

MENU: EVENTS > INTRO MENU

EVENT INTROMENU

WAITKEY
BORDER 0                    ; black border
COLOUR 68                   ; green text on black
CLS                         ; clear the screen   
LET CONTROL = 99
WHILE CONTROL >= 99
	PRINTMODE 1
	AT 4 7
	PRINT "RETURN TO ARCADIA"
	PRINTMODE 0
    AT 8 10
    PRINT "1. KEYBOARD"
    AT 10 10
    PRINT "2. KEMPSTON"
    AT 12 10
    PRINT "3. SINCLAIR"
    AT 14 10
    PRINT "4. REDEFINE"
    LET CONTROL = 99
    WHILE CONTROL = 99
        IF KEY OPTION1
            LET CONTROL = 0
        ENDIF
        IF KEY OPTION2
            LET CONTROL = 1
        ENDIF
        IF KEY OPTION3
            LET CONTROL = 2
        ENDIF
        IF KEY OPTION4
		CLS
		WHILE KEY OPTION4
        ENDWHILE
        AT 7 12
		PRINT "PRESS KEY FOR:"
		AT 9 12
		PRINT "LEFT"     
		DEFINEKEY LEFT	; the key pressed will be the new LEFT key
		AT 11 12        
		PRINT "RIGHT"     
		DEFINEKEY RIGHT	; the key pressed will be the new RIGHT key
		AT 13 12
		PRINT "THRUST"
		DEFINEKEY UP		; the key pressed will be the new THRUST key
		AT 15 12
		PRINT "FIRE"
		DEFINEKEY FIRE1	; the key pressed will be the new FIRE key
		AT 17 12
		PRINT "PAUSE"
		DEFINEKEY FIRE3	; this will be the PAUSE key
		LET CONTROL = 100 
		CLS
        ENDIF
    ENDWHILE
ENDWHILE
CLS

Next, we'll tidy up the Game Initialisation event:

MENU: EVENTS > Game Initialisation:

EVENT GAMEINIT

LET L = 1			; Level (starts at 1)

LET LIVES = 3	
AT 0 14
DISPLAY LIVES

AT 0 1
SHOWSCORE

AT 0 25
SHOWHIGH

Now lets add a 'Get Ready message to the screen every time the player starts (including after being killed if they still have lives left:

EVENT RESTARTSCREEN

LET S = 0			; initialise the sprite counter
AT 0 1				; position the cursor Line 0 Column 1
SHOWSCORE			; display the score

AT 10 12			     ; Cursor at L10 C2
REPEAT 10			; do this 10 times
READ A				; read next item into A
CHR A				; Display A
DELAY 5				; short wait
ENDREPEAT			; all items displayed?
DELAY 100			; longer wait


DATA 'G' 'E' 'T' ' ' 'R' 'E' 'A' 'D' 'Y' '!'

Next, the Kill Player event:

MENU: EVENTS > KILL PLAYER

EVENT KILLPLAYER

SUBTRACT 1 FROM LIVES	; reduce number of lives remaining
AT 0 16					; update the lives in the score bar
DISPLAY LIVES
CLW						; clear the play area

And finally, for now, the Lost Game event:

MENU: EVENTS > LOST GAME

EVENT LOSTGAME


AT 10 12			    ; Cursor at L10 C2
REPEAT 10			; do this 10 times
READ A				; read next item into A
CHR A				; Display A
DELAY 5				; short wait
ENDREPEAT			; all items displayed?
DELAY 100			; longer wait


DATA 'G' 'A' 'M' 'E' ' ' 'O' 'V' 'E' 'R' '!'

And for a touch of visual flourish, we ll add a starfield to the play area, add this line in to your Main Loop 1 event:

STAR DOWN		; vertical star field

I'm also going to select a new font.

Now lets test it:

And there you go, if you have reached this point you should have a small, but fully functioning, vertical shoot 'em up! My version is currently using just under 13Kb of memory, so we have plenty left to play with. At some point we're going to want to add some sound, maybe add some powerups, but next I want to improve the Alien sprite so that it points in the right direction that it is travelling.