One of the staples of the computer gamer's diet is the platform-type game, which features a lot of leaping about and treasure collecting. Peter Green starts a series showing how to write your own. One of the games that will go down in computing history as a landmark is Manic Miner, a game which originally appeared on the Spectrum and whose success brought forth an army of clones: Jet Set Willy, Jet Set Willy II, Blagger... Most of these games have been converted to run on the Amstrad computers, and you have all probably seen one version or another. The basic principle is that you have a number of screens built of various types of platform. The player uses a joystick or the keyboard to control a little figure who can run left and right, or jump into the air. Scattered about each screen are both pieces of treasure, which you have to collect, and nasties of various types, often moving, which you have to avoid. The object of this series is to give you an insight into the problems involved in writing such a game, and the techniques used to overcome the problems. As an example, month by month we'll build up the code for a demo program called (for obvious reasons) ‘Roland Takes A Running Jump'. Our hero will be Amstrad's mascot Roland, who will have to leap about the various floors of the Amstrad company offices collecting 3" floppy discs. 
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