Game of the Month
Citadel
Catch pneumonium bombs and save the world
Pneumonium
bombs are falling fast- catch them before they clobber you. This fast-action
joystick game in BASIC works on all Atari 8-bit computers of any memory
size, with disk or cassette.
The evil Commander Bardrudius failed in his efforts to enslave the people of Earth, so he decided to destroy it city by city. Bardrudius has ordered his sub-orbital shuttles to tow massive racks of pneumonium bombs across the sky and drop them.
As a bomb's timing mechanism reaches zero, it will descend towards the Citadel far below. These bombs fall erratically and the Citadel's defenses can't anticipate the point of impact.
Your mission: Control a maneuverable energy shield to
intercept and absorb the bombs before they explode. The
skill level, the lower
the bombs start to
zig-zag-watch out!
Citadel-indeed, the future of life on Earth as you know it-is in your hands.
GETTING STARTED
Type in Listing 1, CITADEL.BAS, check it with TYPO II, and SAVE a copy
before you RUN it. If you have trouble typing the special characters in
lines 490-510, don't type them in. Listing 2 will create these hard-to-type
lines for you. Type in Listing 2, check it with TYPO II and SAVE a copy
before you RUN it. When RUN, Listing 2 creates a disk file called LINES.LST.
To merge the two programs, type NEW, then LOAD CITADEL.BAS and ENTER LINES.
LST. Be sure to SAVE a copy of the completed program before you RUN it.
PLAYING THE GAME
You'll be prompted to select a skill level (1-3) with the joystick.
The skill level determines the height at which the bombs start to move
straight instead of zig-zagging. The computer creates the playfield and
a Bardrudius shuttle places bombs at the top of the screen.
Bombs drop randomly, one at a time. If you catch a bomb, you'll absorb it and win five points. Clearing a whole rack earns 25 bonus points. But miss a bomb with your shield, and the number of impacts increases by one. If that number reaches five, you've failed in your mission, and the game is over. If you want another crack at Bardrudius, press [START].
Even if you do clear the rack, that doesn't mean Commander Bardrudius will give up. He'll send out rack after rack of bombs for you to tangle with.
HINTS
Start at skill level 1. The bombs start moving randomly at a higher
altitude, so you have a better chance of catching them. Once you've practiced,
you'll be ready for the next two levels. To pause the game or continue
a paused game, press [CONTROL] [1].
Heath Lawrence lives in Port Elgin, Ontario, and has been programming on his Atari 800 for about five years. His two previous Antic programs are Cliffhanger (November, 1986) and Vectron (March, 1987).
IF YOU'D ENJOY SEEING MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE, CIRCLE 177 ON THE READER SERVICE CARD.
Listing 1 CITADEL.BAS Download
Listing 2 LINES.BAS (not needed)