This is a simulation of helicopter rescue of the crewmen from stricken ships heading for the rocks. The player has to rescue the three crewmen of a ship which is moving back and forth, approaching rocks, and land them safely on a cliff. If he hits anything or the ship reaches the rocks before all the crew have been rescued then he loses a life. If the player sue-ceeds then a new ship appears slightly nearer the rocks. To complicate matters further, there is a lighthouse and the ships and crew can only be seen when the light is on. The program is not readily transportable as it uses a number of CPC464 specific features such as windows and interrupts called from BASIC. It includes a title and instructions within the program. It also has a high score record and new game option. ... The program is full of REM statements to make it self-explanatory. One special feature used deserves a mention. CPC-464 strings can include control characters. By including control characters in a string to move the cursor it is possible – for instance – to print a 2 x 2 block of characters (the helicopter) as a single string. If these strings were to be printed near the righthand edge of the screen then it is a feature of the CPC-464 that they would be moved to the next line. The CPC-464 looks at the length of a string and decides whether it will fit, ignoring the fact that it may contain control codes! The formatted print command – print using – free formats the printing so the printing stays where it is wanted. Amstrad BASIC contains no method of checking the character at a given square so an array is filled to silumate the screen obstacles to the helicopter.  
CG#1 | 
