snakedemake, a BBC BASIC for Z80 type-in for the Agon Light

One tradition rendered obsolete by ubiquitous fast internet is that of the type-in. In the early days of home computing, one popular way to distribute software was to print a listing and publish it in a magazine or book.

By typing it in, you developed a more intimate relation with the program, gaining understanding and the confidence to make alterations of your own.

Classic Snake is a fast paced video game where the player manoeuvres the end of a growing snake, pursuing food while trying not to collide with itself. This is a text adventure reimagining, inspired by Gregory Yob’s 1973 classic Wumpus.

This game was written on and is known to work with BBC BASIC for Z80 version 1.04 on the Agon Light running MOS/VDP 1.03.

It also works on the Agon Light emulator if you do not own either an Agon Light or Agon Light 2.

Part of the fun of BASIC is modifying listings to work on different dialects of the language. If you own a different retro platform running a different version of BASIC then you should be able to adapt this to work on your computer. This is left as an exercise for the reader.

It was written for the Programming Challenge hosted by Olimex with the theme of writing a snake game. Box art created with the assistance of DALL-E 2.

Type it in carefully and see if you can escape your doom.

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Note: this game is supplied as a PDF containing a listing of the program in BASIC. You are expected to type it in yourself.

Donations help me and are optional. You can download for free if you desire.

If you do not feel up to typing it in but desire to play the game anyway the source can be found at https://github.com/oldpatientsea/agon-snakedemake.

Copyright © 2023 oldpatientsea. Published under a GPL-3.0 license.