Have you ever wished that you could have a raycaster run at 2 FPS in pure TI-83 Plus or Casio BASIC? Well, unfortunately that will never be possible, but if you have an HP Prime and thought it would be the case on that calc too, then get ready: Critor has just released PrimeCaster 3D, a variable wall height raycasting engine for the HP Prime!
Because guess what? You read it and see it right:
This raycaster even supports variable wall height, and as if it wasn't enough, it supports shading too! You can jump, climb stairs and from what I can see while moving around, it seems that some floors show reflection of walls.
The frame rate is very slow, though, but given the fact this is written in HP PPL rather than C and ASM, it's ridiculously impressive. You can adjust the frame rate to whatever you like and the raycasting quality will automatically adjust itself to match the frame rate you want, but above 3 FPS on-calc it starts being hard to see anything. This is why the maze game will look nicer on the simulator than the calculator at the same FPS (the screenshot above has been altered to show approximately how fast the quality shown in it runs on a real calculator. You can also change the weather or lightning effect by switching between darkness, fog and light (the latter which turns off all shading)
In order to allow a game to use this engine, level design would have to be made so that wide-open areas are obstructed by walls, cutting the view down, as it runs faster in smaller rooms. Also, some elements such as shading support and variable wall height would probably have to be eliminated or toned down. Regardless, this awesome program shows once again what the HP PPL language of the HP Prime is capable of and gives an idea of what kind of game could be achieved in it!
Download link: http://tiplanet.org/forum/archives_voir.php?id=87246
Source: http://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=15033
