In motion This is the first Sprite graphics package I have seen for the Amstrad computers. It seems to be a reasonable utility, although it has some drawbacks that may make some people want to hang on for the release of something more powerful such as White Lightning. The good points are that the routine takes up very little memory space, up to 40 sprites can be denned at once, the maximum size being 32*46 pixels. The sprites are 'non-destructive' of any information already on screen and you have full control over wraparound, bounce and collision detection. The sprites can be animated in sequence, are smooth and flicker free. The speed of the response is good from Basic as long as you don't have too much happening on screen at once - 40 separate sprites would be ridiculous. There is also a very-easy-to-use sprite editor which looks like a large copy of those UDG designing grids, but gives you full control over colour pallettes, allows scrolling, mirroring and reversing of images and can read the information to and from tape or memory. The drawbacks are that you are restricted to working in mode 0, sprites cannot be defined offecreen and moved on, there appears to be no method of relocating the spriter movement code, and control of sprites from Basic is only achieved by poking a series of memory addresses with data. It is a shame no attempt was made to exploit the ability of the machine to add commands to the Basic itself, making the whole thing more user friendly. Thy manual is a classic example of why documentation shouldn't be written only by those who know exactly how the program works. It took me ages to work out some points, and I'm sure programming beginners could easily be baffled. The company also seem to have shied away from any mention of where they stand on copyright when games are produced using this utility. Tony Kendle , Popular Computing Weekly |
