BONUS GAME

Saucerian Shootdown

They don't seem hostile, but...

By James Catalano

SAUCERIAN SHOOTDOWN IS A speedy missile-firing game as straightforward as its title. This BASIC program works on 8-bit Atari computers with at least 32K memory, disk or cassette.

During your duty shift at the security console monitoring the outer sectors surrounding the military outpost on planet Traken, your scanners report several unidentified objects moving erratically in and out of Quadrant 24. Checking your databases, you find that no maneuvers are planned for that quadrant today. You quickly dispatch an Occuloid Trackship to investigate.

Arriving at the scene, the Occuloid's camera reveals strange saucer-like objects darting about. You switch onto a general broadcast hailing frequency and try to communicate with the saucers. There is no response.

Although the saucers don't appear to be hostile, they might well be remote-controlled spy devices from some other planet. You can't take chances with the security of this remote military base. If these saucers won't answer your communications, you will send an Automated Missile Launcher to shoot them down.

Type in Listing 1, SAUCER.BAS, check it with TYPO II and SAVE a copy before you RUN it. If you have trouble typing the special characters in lines 20060-20075, don't type them in. Instead, type in Listing 2, check it with TYPO II and SAVE a copy. When you RUN Listing 2, it creates these hard-to-type lines and stores them in a file called LINES.LST.

To merge the two programs, disk users LOAD "D:.BAS" and then ENTER "D:LINES.LST." Cassette users: CLOAD Listing 1, then insert the separate cassette used for Listing 2 and ENTER "C:". Remember to SAVE the completed program before you RUN it.

Move the joystick to shift the Automated Missile Launcher left or right across the bottom of the screen. Press the joystick button to launch a missile. You score 100 points for every hit, plus a bonus of 1000 points for every 5 saucers destroyed.

You can only hit a saucer when it is directly above your Launcher. When a saucer is targeted accurately, its color will turn white. The Launcher is armed with 50 missiles. The game ends when all missiles have been fired.

James Catalano of Chicago is the programmer of Sorcerer's Apprentice, which was Antic's September 1988 Game of the Month.

LISTING   SAUCER.BAS Download