It's magic

That screenshot (on the other page) looks pretty nice.

Chip's Challenge was actually one of my favorite games years ago (I think it came on a Windows 95 computer I used to have)

Thanks

It came on a computer I had (might have been win95) and was the first computer game I ever played.  I accidentally deleted it (never tell a 6 year old playing in DOS is fun) but I finally came across it a few weeks ago.  I figured that my difficulty with it was the fact I was 6, but even now (12 years later) some levels take a few dozen tries

I'm going to have to spill over onto a second picture anyways so I'll probably have different sprites depending on the tile Chip is on.  All that should change is that instead of the sprite's location in the picture being constant it'll be dependent upon the variable N, which is already in use in my program.

Thanks for showing me how to mask sprites though

I *know* I have shaved at least 50k off this game overall. So my optimizing has helped some. ^_^ Just think, if I had left it with Codex... and Celtic2 was not around, this game would already be somewhere around the 130k range.

Do you mean currently 130k or eventually it's going to be 130k?  I thought the estimate was >1Mb for the final game.

Thanks

simplethinker > Yeah, those tiles looks really bad in 8x8, I think yours are better.

edit : Don't you think it'll be better if you don't xor the player's sprite ?

I'm using mostly your tiles, but level three doesn't have any switches, gravel or enemies so it doesn't show them.  For the boots and fire tile I'm just using 'Fi', 'fi', 'fo', 'w' as place holders.  Yours are way better than what I had and you're still gonna be close to the top of the credits if/when I get this game done.

Right now I'm just using 'or' since 'xor' looks worse.  Eventually I'll be using different sprites depending on the tile it's on, but right now I'm using one sprite.

Since there is tile-induced movement with varying dominance over user input I calculate the direction/change in position and leave determining if the new spot can be moved to to another subprogram, currently 283 bytes and I'm estimating another 200 bytes after I implement switches.

N=tile currently on
D=direction (-1=left, 1=right, -.01=up, .01=down)
L3(6)=ice skates yes/no
L3(7)=suction boots yes/no
K=key press (using xLIB's getKey)

N between 21 and 25 are ice tiles, so '2<abs(N-23' is true when it's not an ice tile.
If you land on a regular ice tile (N=21) you continue in the direction you stepped on it.  The others are curved and redirect you depending on how you come at it.  My name for them is "ice NW/NE/SW/SE" depending on the corner it's in.  For ice NW: if your direction is 'up' it changes it to 'right', if your direction is 'left' it changes to 'down',  and so on for NE/SW/SE.

N between 17 and 20 are force tiles.  They push you in a certain direction, but you have limited control over Chip (you can move off to the side, but not directly against how their pushing you).  20=right, 19=left, 18=down, 17=up

Here's the code for determining 'D'.  I have the 'If:Then:End' statement to increase speed even though they're adding about 10 bytes (I did speed tests to confirm they help).  It's only 164 bytes now, but I'm estimating another 90-100 bytes for when I add in the semi-bordered floors and switch tiles.
:If L3(6) or 2<abs(N-23:Then
:(K=3)-(K=2)+E-2((K=1)-(K=4→D
:If not(L3(7
:D+(N=20)-(N=19)+E-2((N=18)-(N=17→D
:Else:ND
:D+1.01((Ans=-.22 or Ans=-22)-(Ans=.25 or Ans=25))+.99((Ans=-24 or Ans=.24)-(Ans=23 or Ans=-.23→D
:End(E-2 is the little E to the -2 power, ie .01)

Enjoy

Update time!  I'm done with programming all the items as well as the water, ice, force, and fire tiles.

Next up is the behavior of movable blocks on ice/force/fire and then implementing switches (with lots and lots of optimization spaced throughout).  After that are the enemies and the timer, followed by redesigning the HUD (to make it look pretty with the timer), lots and lots more optimization, transferring 150 levels to the calculator, more optimization, get guinea pigs for testing, fixing the many major flaws that will undoubtedly be found, optimize......

@ deeph: Thanks for the sprites and tiles.  The fire tile, suction boots, flippers, fire boots need a bit of tweaking (I'm sorry if I sound rude, I'm really bad at phrasing things correctly with only text.  I appreciate your work )

@ anyone who's written a massive BASIC game before:  For the algorithm used to determine the player's next spot when there's a lot of tile-induced movement (like sliding on ice, tiles that push you in a certain direction) along with user input, does ~250 bytes seem big?  (This doesn't include the action once it decides where you will be moving)

Here's a screenie of level 3

These are great! Thank you