Show Down - ARTIC (Your Spectrum-No.1-Page 85) Heralded by the strains of the theme tune to 'The Good, The Bad And The Ugly', Show Down (coming to us courtesy of Artic Computing) is an early example of a cowboy gunfight. To move upwards, use any key from 6 to 0 on the top row and any key from Y to P on the second row will move you down again. The all important fire button can be any key from B to SPACE on the bottom row. It can be used as a one or a two player game, but be careful if you decide to fight the Spectrum - it pro- ves to be a more than accomplised gunslinger. To type in the code needed to generate the user-defined graphics required for Show Down, you should first type in the line of Basic shown below (line 100). When you have done this, RUN the program anf type in the graphics code star- ting with the top line and moving onto the second line and so on; in this ca- se you should type in 0,0,1,6,12, etc. (where a comma denotes your pressing the ENTER key). Once you have entered all 168 pieces of code, you should BREAK into the pro- gram and type NEW. All the user-defined graphics will then be stored above RAMTOP, and can be typed in in Graphics mode where required in the program. Lines 3-5 Set the initial screen colours. The POKE command lowers the user defined graphics area to that of a 16K Spectrum, as the graphics will be loaded as code. Lines 6-67 Print the instructions for the game and play the various tunes while the computer waits for the replies to the questions - such as how many players will be playing, etc. The data for the tune played while the computer waits for an input is stored in lines 29-31. Lines 69-120 Set up the initial variables for the game. Lines 130-180 Set up the screen. Line 140 calls the routine to print the cow- boy character, and lines 150-170 print the wagon and cactil. Lines 185-190 Read the keyboard and check which keys are pressed. (This rou- tine may not work with the new issue 3 Spectrum models.) Line 200 Prints and moves the wagon. Lines 210-290 Provide the control routine. Lines 300-340 Contain the routine that prints the cowboy charater. Lines 345-380 The routine controlling the firing of bullets between the two cowboys. Lines 390-410 Contain the routine controlling the movement of the cowboy cha- racters. If you are facing the Spectrum in a shoot-out then you will find that if the two cowboys are not level then the Spec- trum's character has a 50 percent chance of moving towards you. Lines 420-450 Should player 1 get shot by this adversery, this routine packs him off in a coffin and mourns his death with a short burst of music. Lines 460-490 Contain a simple routine to that above, but deal with the even- tuality of player 2 biting the dust. Lines 495-567 A collection of data that plays the various tunes that occur once one of the characters is shot. Line 520 plays the tune when player 2 dies, and line 550 does the same for player 1. Lines 565-567 play the tune at the end of the game. Lines 570-595 Ask the user for another game. Line 600 The routine containing the graphics loader. This info file was typed by Michael Bruhn 14/6-1998 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ letter from Your Spectrum #3 (May'84) PLAYING HARD TO GET I refer to the program, Showdown, in the Play Power section of your first issue. Half-way through the program, you comment that the keyboard routine may not work on the new issue 3 Spectrums. As people typing in the program will have spent some time at the keyboard by the time they reach line 190 (and probably have no idea which issue Spectrum they have anyway!) that perhaps was not the best place to break the bad news. However, the program will work with the issue 3 models if the value of the IN command is changed from 255 to 191. On other occasions, when converting programs using the IN statement for the issue 3 Spectrum, you may like to refer to the following list (the IN command values are followed by the altered values for the Issue 3 in brackets): 255(191), 254(190), 253(189), 251(187), 247(183), 239(175). RP Taylor, Cheshire