---     |
 / OOM  | ABS
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Doug Torrance
profzoom@hotmail.com
http://www.pubweb.nwu.edu/~dat927/zoomlabs
==========================================

Blockbuster v4.31 for TI-83
Nov. 19, 1999
Size - 37 bytes (blkbustr.83p)
       224 bytes (zasmload.83p)
       1531 bytes (zblkbstr.83p)

included in this .zip file:
zblkbstr.z80 - the source
blkbustr.txt - this info file
blkbustr.83g - the game (includes 3 programs, BLKBUSTR, the basic program you run to play the game, ZASMLOAD, which you may already have on your calculator to use other games, and ZBLKBSTR, the actual assembly code)

Blockbuster is an arcade/puzzle game of my design, and it's also my first assembly game!  I first programmed it for TI-Basic.  The object is to break as many blocks as possible before you reach the end of the board in the lower right hand corner.

Keys-
right and left arrow - move
[Y=] at the same time as the right or left arrows - jump
[2nd] at the same time as the right, left, or down arrow - break block
[MODE] - exit

Scoring-
Pretty simple.  One point for every block you break.  Normally, you can't break every block.  Therefore, high scores aren't very high compared to most games.

Version History-
v1.0-2.0 - TI-Basic
v3.0 - Ash v3.0
v3.1 - now for CrASH v1.5!
-fixed nasty bug that caused ZTetris and some other games to crash after playing Blockbuster (thank you Evil Sam for figuring why!)
-massly optimized (134 bytes!  thank you Ahmed and Adamman!)
-new graphics (from 83 version, thanks SkOgGiE and Blackbelt!)
-replaced my new e-mail address and changed Manticore Software to ZoomLabs, the new name of my software company
v3.11 - same as v3.1, but for Ash v3.0, just in case you still want to use the old shell
v4.0 - changed controls from old [TRACE] and [GRAPH] jumps to [Y=] plus arrow keys
-new graphical title screen
-optimized the code some, although it is still bigger than previous versions because of the title screen (not by much though, it's still only 1.7 K)
v4.01 - now for Crash
-tiny little optimization, 4 bytes smaller :)
v4.02 - for Ash
-optimized (77 bytes smaller!  thanks Kouri and Evil Sam!)
-fixed bug that caused title screen to be inversed after entering high score name
v4.03 - for Crash
v4.04 - for Ash
-fixed bug that caused random bytes to appear on the title screen because the entire GRAPH_MEM wasn't completely cleared (thanks to OBD for the optimized code!)
v4.05 - for Crash
v4.06 - for Ash
-optimized 2 bytes :)  (thanks Kouri!)
v4.07 - for Crash
-now uses Crash's built-in functions, call CR_GRBCopy and call RAND, bringing the size down to 1625 bytes! (and thanks again Kouri for pointing out CR_GRBCopy!)
v4.08 - for Ash
-giant optimizations by Evil Sam--down to 1566 bytes!  thanks!!!!!!
v4.09 - for Crash
v4.1 - for Ash 
-even more optimizizations by Evil Sam! down to 1526 bytes!
v4.11 - for Crash
v4.12 - for OS-82
-it's almost 300 bytes bigger than its Crash counterpart because of OS-82's lack of relocation, but I kind of felt pity on the poor shell that everyone has forgotten about, so why not? :)
v4.3 - now for the TI-83!
v4.31 - fixed a bug that caused the high score not to be saved after quitting the game--thanks to James Matthews for his wonderful tutorial on writing back to the program!


Future Versions-
Next expect a port to the TI-85, then the 86.  And after that, possibly to the 68K calcs if I'm ambitious. :)  And expect more games eventually, too.

Acknowledgements-
-all the 85 hackers that first thought of running assembly programs on TI calculators
-Dines Justesen and Mattias Lindqvist - creators of Ash
-Jason Todd - creator of OS-82 and getrand.asm
-Jimmy Mardell - Online ZShell School and DM_HL_DECI
-all the A82 folk for answering all of my newbie questions
-everyone who's released source with their games - especially Adamman, whose source was most helpful
-all the #ti-files folk for sharing my fascination with calculators
-Jacob Boyce - for liking my game enough to port it to the 83!

Thank you!




