Artillery Duel

Artillery Duel © 1980 Fabris, Robert.

An intriguing game submitted courtesy of The Arcadian, a monthly newsletter serving the Bally BASIC programming hobbyist. This program sets up a random mountain scene and adds two gun emplacements. As each player's turn is taken, he adjusts the knob for barrel elevation, moves the joystick to add or reduce the number of gunpowder bags (by whole bags sideways; by tenths back and forth). Then when ready, pull the trigger. There is gravity and a random wind. The gun recoils and fires the shell. There is an explosion when it lands. A gun is destroyed when less than half a gun remains (the repair crew can replace a gun barrel). The program uses all available space, so don't enter lines 3 and 4. Be sure to exercise the joystick to see how the variables work.