Positron BASIC Community

I have just finished writing a game I used to play many years ago (a frightening amount of years), on my first computer, which was a Sinclair ZX81. :-)

I started it, 'and do not laugh', in 2008, using a smaller maze, on a PIC18F452 and a KS0108 graphic LCD, but things got in the way, and things happened that put it off, then put it off again. But I have had a dreadful bought of the cold virus, so I thought I would try and get back into it, and it is now finished...

It runs on a PIC18F26K22 device, and displays on an SPI interfaced, SH1306 (sometimes named SSH1306), or an SSD1306, or an SSD1309. All of which are 128x64 monochrome OLEDs.

See if you can name the game, with the picture of it below, operating on the Amicus board. It is a maze game, with monsters and treasure to find. There was also a re-write of the game on the Sinclair Spectrum computer, a couple of years after the ZX81 version, which I am also thinking of re-creating. But I will first be looking at trying to re-create "3D Monster Maze", and "3D Defender". Crickey.... Is time going backwards in my mind? :-)

The game takes up 2.7K or RAM, and 16K of flash memory, so it will operate on smaller devices, as long as they have a suitable SPI peripheral for the OLED display, and I have had to slow down the game quite a lot because the Positron8 compiler produces such tight assembler code.



As soon as I tidy up the source code I will be making a page for it on my google site, with source codes for the game, that also include libraries for the SH1106, SSD1306, and SSD1309 OLEDs.

Regards
Les

I asked ChatGPT if it could identify the game, here's the response:

From the screenshot alone, I can't identify the game with confidence.

What I can observe:

It's running on a small monochrome SPI OLED display (likely a 128×64 SSD1306).
The player character is a simple stick figure.
Above the character is a circular object with a horizontal bar through it and a plus sign in the middle. It could be:
a magnet,
a drone,
a checkpoint,
or some kind of power-up.
The level consists of solid white platforms and patterned blocks that appear to be either walls or hazards.

This doesn't immediately match well-known OLED demo games like:

Tiny Invaders
Flappy Bird
Breakout
Snake
Doodle Jump
Lode Runner (OLED ports)
Rick Dangerous (fan ports)

It looks more like:

a custom Arduino/ESP32 platformer,
a game made with the Arduboy or TinyJoypad libraries,
or a hobby project using an SSD1306 OLED.

If you're trying to identify the exact game, it would help to have any of these:

a photo of another level,
a short video,
the GitHub repository or tutorial where the project came from,
or the microcontroller being used (Arduino Nano, ESP32, STM32, etc.).

With just this image, I'd say it's most likely a custom Arduino SSD1306 platform game rather than a commercially known title.

[Me again} I then saild it ran on Spectrum ZX81:

It ran on a Sinclair ZX81

That narrows it down quite a bit!

The graphics style is very reminiscent of late ZX81 high-resolution games using character graphics (or WRX/CHR$ graphics). The stick figure and the room layout make me think of a platform/puzzle game rather than an arcade shooter.

My strongest guesses are:

Manic Miner (or a ZX81 clone/inspired version) – the room-based layout and stick-like character evoke it, although the sprite doesn't exactly match Willy.
Minefield – some ZX81 games used very similar simple humanoid sprites and blocky rooms.
One of the many ZX81 type-in platform games from magazines such as Sync, ZX Computing, or Your Computer.

What catches my eye is the object above the player: a circle with a horizontal bar and a '+' in the middle. I don't recognize that as an icon from any of the better-known commercial ZX81 games, which makes me suspect this may have been:

a lesser-known commercial title,
a magazine listing,
or a homebrew game.

A few questions that might trigger recognition:

Was the game single-screen (one room at a time) or did it scroll?
Were you collecting objects or just trying to reach an exit?
Did the circular object move, or was it collectible?
Was the original display monochrome like the OLED (black and white), or have the colors been inverted?

I'm quite familiar with the ZX81 library, but this screenshot doesn't immediately match one of the classics. If you remember roughly what year you played it or whether it required 16K RAM, that would help narrow it down considerably.

Game "Mazogs" on ZX81.

That's the one! Well done.

It was one of my favourite games back then, and was amazing when you consider the actual ZX81 computer's architecture, and how short a time it had been available. Don Priestley was an excellent software writer, as were others of that time.

My other favourites were 3D Monster Maze, and 3D Defender, which were both incredible pieces of software for the machine, at the time. I know we take it for granted now, with all of the 'gubbins' in computers and games machines, and almost realistic graphics etc. But back then, the machine was an 8-bit Z80 microprocessor, with 16K or RAM, and operating at around 3MHz, and most of that time was used to display on the television using an interrupt, because it did not have a dedicated video chip inside it.

And a video game is for enjoyment, not how good it looks!

The ZX Spectrum version was called 'Maziacs', and it was also excellent. I am thinking up the code to re-create that game on a colour TFT. A lot of the code I have for the Mazogs game, will operate for Maziacs as well, but it is the graphics and the slight extra bits in the game that I will need to code from new.

Regards
Les