Loadstar 207/207.d81/t.ant wars

Text File | 2022-08-26 | 5KB | 158 lines

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           A N T   W A R S

      Program by Knees Calhoon
          and Ron Slaminko

        Text by Fender Tucker


    I'm embarrassed that I have lost
so much of my familiarity with the
Commodore -- the keyboard, the
programming, the joy of having a
program on LOADSTAR. I was recently
quoted in The Wall Street Journal as
saying, "I like being in a rut. I'm
an inertia kinda guy." And it's true!
It took me forever to get out of the
Commodore rut and into the one I'm
in, and now I am finding it hard to
even visit my old rut. Shame on me.

    This is a game that I wrote a
long time ago, around 1993, I think.
And it's a good thing; I've forgotten
much of the programming knowledge
that I had back then. It's an ancient
game played by Chinese children with
stones and lines in the dirt. I can't
remember the name of the game but I
got the rules and history from
Scientific American, where it had a
write-up in the Games section.

    I added an "ants" metaphor and
made it into a hi-res strategy game
for one player against the computer.
Actually the first version was a game
for two human players -- which as we
all know is easier to program -- and
later tried to add a play-against-
the-computer feature.

    I couldn't get it to work. I
needed to write BASIC code that would
recognize when a player's ants were
surrounded, and I couldn't do it. I
had become jaded. I think most
programmers will tell you that in
their early days of programming they
attempted (and sometimes succeeded
in) things they would never even try
in their old age.

    But luckily I met Ron Slaminko in
my waning days at LOADSTAR and sent
him the code I had. Within days he
sent me back a working version of the
program. I've since looked at the
code and have no idea how he made it
work. But it seems to recognize when
ants are surrounded and calls the end
of the game correctly, whether it's
the computer (Knees) who wins, or the
human. Or even if it's a tie.

    The rules are simple. You and
Knees take turns placing one ant at a
time into the 21 "rooms" of the
anthill. Yours are red and Knees' are
black. If, after an ant is played,
one or more of the opponent's ants
are completely surrounded by his
opponent's ants, the surrounded ants
are removed from the board -- and
from the player's starting supply of
25 ants. A player [cannot] play into
a spot where he will be surrounded.
Players try to end up with the most
ants. Sooner or later, one player
will win or there will be a tie.

    I have developed no strategy for
winning. I'm sure that 95% of all
quarter billion Chinese children can
beat me. I can live with that. Can
you?

    This will probably be my last
published program for the Commodore
computer. One of these days I hope to
collect all of the programs I ever
wrote and put them on a CD for future
8-bit historians. I've still got a
great Commodore system and until my
memory drops another 30% I should be
able to at least move programs around.

    As you can see I haven't lost my
uncanny ability to babble and
blather. The inane sentences keep
tumbling out of my fingertips.

    By the way, I planned on this
program having a multicolor title
screen and Walt Harned even made one
for it. But I used the picture
(twice!) as title pictures for issues
of LOADSTAR already. Besides, I've
forgotten how to use multi-color pics
to boot BASIC programs -- even though
I seem to remember Jeff Jones writing
a little utility that will create ML
boot programs.

    I hope you enjoy this final game
from me. I devoted 14 of the best
years of my life to LOADSTAR and
Commodore and they've repaid me many
times over. You have too. Thank you!

 FT


 [DAVE'S AFTERTHOUGHT:] I was going to
put something else on this side, but
I have just learned how to add multi-
color screens! While I did find the
original "Ant Wars" picture, I
discovered that Fender sent me an even
better graphic.

 In a way, it is sad to hear Fender's
"swan song." LOADSTAR [is] Fender
Tucker in so many ways. I have been
going through pre-Tuckerian issues.
They are fine, well done software
collections. But as one moves from
Issue 42 to Issue 100, a subtle change
can be noticed.

 Fonts -- for instance. And Toolboxes
(which are Jeff Jones' contribution,
but Fender was at the helm). And don't
forget the Contests! And an aura of
intelligence that encouraged logical
minded people to learn more and do
wonderful things with the C-64.

 I have asked Fender to write us some
articles from time to time. It doesn't
[have] to be about our favorite
computers. Anything "slightly out of
kilter" would be enjoyable.

 DMM