ASTEROIDS AHEAD! by Clyde Bish from ZX Computing Apr/May.1983 Steer your spacecraft clear of the asteroids in this exciting game from Mr. Bish of Exeter. There you are, a lonely spaceship floating through space, when suddenly your peace is shattered by a swarm of asteroids bearing down on you at a great rate of knots. You can manoeuvre your craft left using the '5' key or right with the '8' key. You also possess an energy field which you can use to deflect asteroids you cannot avoid, but beware of running out of energy - the energy field has only a limited strength and a short range. User defined graphics have been used in this program for the asteroids, the energy screen, the spacecraft and the explosions. They are set during the initial display, thus not causing an embarrassing pause during the game. Logic lines have been used within the program. The most well-known example of these are present in line 50, but you may like to study the less popular conditional GO TO used in line 405. Also, the use of ATTR to detect the presence of a white asteroid in the path of the yellow spacecraft should be noted; SCREEN$ (x,y) would not work with user defined graphics. Line 460, which goes to itself, is used to prevent a STOP message from spoiling the appearance of the screen. Press the Break key to stop the vicious circle. It should also be noted that the capital letters within quotes in lines 62, 100 and 400 are user defined graphics and as such should be entered in Graphics mode. The program is also equipped with a routine to give your score and the best score achieved, and there is also a best-ever score with the initials of the player who managed to build up that score. To operate the best-ever score option, enter: LET e=0 as a command, and then SAVE using: GO TO 430 The program, when LOADed, will GO TO line 1 and execute itself, complete with variables. -- Another Fine Product transcribed by: Jim Grimwood (jimg@globalnet.co.uk), Weardale, England --