Thanks! The overlapping aliens is a "known bug". I'm not sure I'll be able to fix it, and keep the code within the 10 lines/120 chars per line limitation of the BASIC 10-liner contest (https://www.homeputerium.de)
On Fri, Feb 6, 2026 at 12:37 AM B 9 <[email protected]> wrote: > Sweet! Great job on making another “Surprisingly Entertaining!”︎™︎ game! > That was a clever way to decode the eight way input. Plus, you finally gave > me a good reason to use the NUM key! I’d never tried it before and didn’t > even know if it locked down or not. (It does, thank goodness.) > > At first I didn’t like that while a bullet was moving, pressing keys > didn’t seem to do anything, but once I figured out that you can bundle up a > bunch of shots in the keyboard buffer, I loved it. I don’t think I could > see playing the game any other way now. I also noticed that sometimes two > aliens will overlap and you can see them flashing between their different > types. I'm not sure if that's a bug or a feature, but it definitely makes > the game harder. I think the only thing that would make it better would be > if the Tandy 200 had a tactile bump on the center of the number pad so I > don’t keep hitting the wrong numbers and getting eaten by aliens! > > —b9 > > P.S. Speaking of the NUM key, what do folks here think about NUM+GRPH? > Has it ever been useful to you? I wonder if that TSR could be customized to > do something else, like a hexadecimal converter. > > On Thu, Feb 5, 2026 at 6:45 PM David Plass <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Announcing yet another 10-line BASIC game: OCTOSIEGE! It's a fast-based >> video game for the T200 inspired by Space Invaders, Robotron 2048 and >> Tempest. >> >> https://github.com/dplassgit/games/tree/trunk/t100/octo >> >> "Defend the center from the invading aliens! You can fire from the center >> in all 8 directions using the numeric keypad. An alien can take up to 3 >> hits before it dies - but watch out - if any of them reach you in the >> middle they'll decrease your shields! >> >> You only get TWO smartbombs, which kills all aliens instantly. Use them >> wisely!" >> >> For Tandy 200 only. >> >> As always, bugs/comments/feedback welcome. >> >
