Yearfall

A poor harvest leaves less grain. Selling land can pay for food, but those acres will not grow next year’s crop. Yearfall asks you to keep a settlement alive while its resources and population change.

B buys land; S sells land. Both take positive acre counts. F edits food and P edits planting. Enter accepts an amount, X cancels the edit, and Space commits a valid year. R restarts and Q quits outside the number editor. The title uses S to start.

Each person needs three grain; each fed person can work two acres. Seed costs one grain per acre, while harvests yield two to five. Land prices change each year. Occasional travellers offer to join for an explicit welcome cost, adding workers and food needs. Every ten years, review the results and choose whether to continue ruling with C.

The game runs in Sinclair BASIC on a stock 48K ZX Spectrum, with deliberate silence and no real-time deadline. The number editor accepts four digits; the extended execution check covers thirty years, not arbitrarily large settlements or a guarantee that every run can be rescued.

Build a budget that remembers

Fourteen lessons use twelve runnable programs. Start with a settlement ledger and inspect the food and seed arithmetic. Resolve one harvest, then build a number editor and an editable plan. Carry resources into later years and add visible buying and selling controls.

A worked shortage separates making this year’s plan affordable from securing the next harvest. Traveller choices and decade reviews extend the simulation; the final lessons add the invitation, save a self-starting tape, then steady the plan screen and give every quit one closing screen. Saving this program starts a fresh settlement when loaded; it is not campaign persistence.

The BASIC and arithmetic are explained where they are used. Meet BASIC provides a slower route through program entry and saving. Previous games and assembly experience are not prerequisites.