game of the month

Helicopter Round-up

by WALT BULWA

Cows? Helicopters? In your Atari? You bet! This BASIC action game challenges you to round 'em up from the air. Works on all Atari computers of any memory configuration.
Disk or cassette.

In Australia there are more men than women and more cows than men. To keep the cows under control, ranchers use helicopters. Your helicopter is supposed to scare the cows into their holding pen.
   In case you've never buzzed a bovine with a helicopter before, you'll need some advice. As you maneuver your joystick-controlled copter closer to the herd, the animals get increasingly skittish and move away from you. Steering heifers into a corral isn't easy.
   While patiently waiting for you to get airborne, the cows move randomly Then after all of the cattle have been packed into their pen, the gate will close. You must return the copter to the landing pad for a full score.
   But if you run out of fuel, your helicopter will crash and kill some innocent cows.

USING THE PROGRAM
To get this game off the ground, type in Listing 1, check it with TYPO II, and SAVE a copy. When you RUN Helicopter Roundup, you'll have to wait while the screen blanks for initialization (don't panic). Then you'll see the game.
   You can [SELECT] the number of cows to herd, and you can refuel during play by positioning the copter over the landing pad and pushing the joystick trigger.
   The game continues indefinitely until all cows are controlled or you crash.

When he's not rounding up redefined cow characters, Walt Bulawa is an application programmer for the medical field.

Listing 1   ROUNDUP.BAS Download