Rover
Steer a rover around a maze with the joystick, in real time — it stops dead at walls and scores when it rolls over a pickup. Meet PEEK(56320) for the stick, erase-move-draw for movement, and look-ahead collision: PEEK the cell you're about to enter to know what you'd hit before you hit it.
In Safe Cracker the machine waited for you to think. Here it answers you as you move. Rover puts a craft on screen that you drive with the joystick, through a maze of walls, collecting pickups for points. The trick at its heart is control: for the first time in the volume, the machine responds in real time — the rover goes where you push, the instant you push.
This is the volume's first real-time game. You'll read the joystick on control port 2 with
PEEK(56320) every pass of a loop, move the rover by the erase-move-draw technique, and —
the heart of it — detect collisions by looking ahead: PEEK the cell the rover is about to
enter and decide what happens before it gets there. Wall, pickup, or open space, read from the
screen itself.
What you'll build:
- A rover placed on screen as two position variables and two POKEs
- Joystick control:
PEEK(56320), the direction bits, and erase-move-draw - Walls drawn into the screen that stop the rover dead
- Pickups that score when collected, and a score on a status row
- A board you can clear — collect them all for an "ALL CLEAR" finish
- A title screen and a fire-to-start, turning the toy into a game
6 units. About 7–10 hours. This follows Safe Cracker and builds on Meet C64 BASIC.
Unit roadmap
A rover on screen
Place the rover as two numbers and two POKEs, then drive it with the joystick
A world to drive in
Walls that stop the rover, and pickups that reward it with a score
A game with a finish
Clear the board to win, then a title screen and a fire-to-start