Game#13 : Jawbreaker (A blitz)

As a blitz, because I'm off for a week tomorrow, yesterday I wrote most of a version of the Atari 2600 game "Jawbreaker" (original below) in a couple of hours. It's nearly finished, except the objects aren't actually moving (yet). Should be available later today, but the write up might be delayed.

When I get back I will move onto Robotron.

Jawbreaker is a Pacman variant. Amazingly they were sued for "copying Pacman" - this was a time when there were umpteen dodgy Pacman clones. Pacman isn't really suited to the Atari 2600 for reasons relating to its hardware, so its a sort of horizontal version, though it has many of the same elements - the sprites only move horizontally as do the gaps in the maze.

This is because it is very difficult to get multiple sprites on the same line, and even if you do it is Space Invaders like (e.g. very repetitive) - Pacman's maze is doable, but the five sprites on the screen at once (4 ghosts, Pacman) flicker because they can be drawn in any vertical position.  This homebrew is much better in terms of its resemblance to the original, but it still flickers, for the same reasons.