The game now includes an option to pause/turn the calc off by pressing [ON]! I've also optimized some of the code a bit.

Update accepted. Would you consider separate Pause and Off features, or doesn't that interest you?

Probably not, because I don't want the player to be able to still see the numbers while the game is paused. This would be cheating in the timed modes.

I read that as meaning: Could you also add a button to just pause the game and bring up another menu with stuff like Quit game, Save and quit, Enter cheat codes (>:D), etc. Though I could be wrong / saying what I would want

Right. Well, so far when you press [CLEAR] you will return to the main menu without any confirmation. In the future you will have to confirm this through a pop-up window. Saving the game will be done automatically, so whenever you do return to the main menu, you will be able to continue where you left off, once you try to start another game. As for cheats, I don't think that I will implement those. Maybe when all else is finished.

That's fair about cheats. _player had exactly the idea I was thinking of with the difference between pausing and turning off, by the way, and you made a good point about why a simple pause wouldn't be a great idea cheating-wise. I'm not sure which I'd prefer now.

In the original game by PopCap they just don't show the gems when the game is paused (of course they can't turn off the screen).
In my game saving will be done automatically if you return to the menu before the game is over (you will always be asked if you want to continue it if you start a game in that mode again in a pop-up window (for which I already have the design)), returning to the menu can be done with [CLEAR], quitting the game altogether with [DEL] and I haven't thought about options yet, but that is all just icing on the cake to me. I agree, it is not the prettiest solution to pause the game, but I also want to keep the program as small as possible, so everywhere I can combine stuff I try to. I'm hoping to keep it all well under 10000 bytes. Because I don't know yet if the game is entertaining enough to have a very large memory footprint.

Oh, I think that it definitely is that entertaining, but I definitely respect your wish to keep it as small as possible. If you were writing this with DCS GUI elements, you could trivially do the continue/new game window, by the way. It sounds like this is rapidly reaching completion; what's the status on that bug?

Hehe, nice try As awesome as I think DCS is, and I will make a version that can be run by it (I don't suppose DCS programs are Ion or MirageOS backwards compatible?), I'd like to have an original design, please as well as have it not depend on DCS.

The bug is still there, by the way. If you're still up for looking for it...

I'm still up for looking for it some time in the next couple of days. Doors CS can run any type of program, so everything's compatible with Doors CS, but sadly, Doors CS programs can't be run on other shells.

That's great, it would mean a lot if you did, let me know if/when you need the source!
That's what I tried to say when I asked if they weren't backwards compatible. See, I want it to be playable on those shells as well, so I have to make a different file for each.

I'm looking forward to download this game onto my calculator today. It's a keeper!

Cerzus, if you made it MirageOS-formatted, it could have an icon and description for Doors CS to display, and you could play it on both MOS and DCS. I think very few people use Ion anymore.

Cool, well why don't you? It's not finished, but it's playable and if you find something could be changed, especially the difficulty, let me know.
That's cool, I think I'll do that then. What about CrunchyOS or Venus, anybody still use those?

Anyone who doesn't use Doors CS needs to have their head examined.

This is the new design for the HUD. What do you think?



The sprite in the top left represents the current mode you are in. The one in the image is for CLASSIC mode. The value below that is the level you are on (good luck getting to 123!) and the value below that is your score.
This design will limit the displayable score to 999,999, but hey, I've never even beat 10,000 so I guess that won't pose to many problems.

Oh man, that is the slinkiest of interfaces. Many props to you for a job very well done.

DShiznit: You get some Kerm Points for that. Cheers.

has this version been uploaded to the archives yet?

Thanks! It isn't actually a screenshot. Just an image made with MS Paint . Getting there, though. Also, I can't take too much credit for the design of those boxes that contain the sprite and the values. Most of those was designed by my brother. It's supposed to look like they are behind a glassy surface.

And indeed that's exactly what it look like to me; nice job to you and to him. I'm sure that it will be reality soon enough.