Many computer adventures contain references to 'Runes'as does the classic Tolkien book 'The Lord of the Rings'. But what were the Runes? They were the written language of the Icelandic and Northern European peoples - including the Vikings. They look nothing like the letters of our alphabet which are of Arabic origin.
They were invented by the Shaman - a sort of Druid - who saw their shapes in patterns made by twigs and branches of trees. One of the major uses of the Runes was in telling the future. For this, the Runes were carved on blocks of wood and cast on a cloth. My program simulates a fortune-telling method that might have been used by a Shaman The 25 Runes are kept in a bag and 9 drawn out at random These are then æthrown' one at a time onto the cloth. Finally, information on how it interpret each Rune is displayed; this depends on the Rune, the way it falls, position and relation to other Runes.
The program includes full Instructions, it is intended as an amusing game - don't take the results seriously! Life for the Viking was mostly a grim, hard struggle, and the Runes tend to reflect this. The program To keep the program to a reasonable length, I have removed al REM statements and shortened all variable names to 2 characters maximum. The most interesting part of the program is the drawing of the runes at different angles in the plane of the paper. Data for drawing each rune upright is held amongst the data statements. Data for each line consists of 4 parts - Move relative x1,y1: Draw relative x2,y2. “Move relative” is actually equivalent to a “Draw relative” command using an invisible ink. So both commands can be thought of as drawing lines. These lines are manipulated by the Defined Functions in line 80 according to the angle the tune is to be turned through. (This is why relative rather than absolute commands are used). In the Defined function statements - an is the angle in degrees, in is the scale, and ax/ay the data for the realative move or draw.
A large number of arrays are used as follows:- - ps (24,2) Runes can fall on a 8 by 8 grid This array gives the x, y coordinates for each square and its Importance
- re (7,3) Data to draw the edges of a rune (8 lines)
- rc (24.6.3) Date to draw the lines of each rune. (The number of lines varies - so seven lines - the maximum - has been used. For less lines, the data statements are ended with zeros
- t (24,1) Old Norse and English titles of runes
- w (24,2 ) Meanings of runes - upright, sideways or upside down
- n (8) Which of 24 runes selected for each of 9 runes
- m (8) Position on gird/importance selected for each of 9
- d (8) Rune upright, sideways or down (1.0.-1) for each of 9
- f (8) Rune face up or down for each of 9
Breakdown - 30-70 subroutines
- 80-120 print title, set up
- 130-170 choose runes
- 180-230 casting the runes
- 240-320 interpreting the runes
- 330-370 data for symbols, title and bag picture
- 380-470 data for rune border and rune drawings
- 480 data positions and importance
- 490-660 data rune names and meanings
- 670-710 instructions
- 720-730 fill out arrays (while instructions are read)
COMPUTER GAMER #17 |
