I S From the Editor... VOL. 2 NO. 4 This is the fifth issue of COM- JULY-AUGUST 1982 PUTER GAMING WORLD. From the beginning CGW has sought to Features provide a forum for the computer THE WARP FACTOR 6 gaming hobby and industry. We are Strategies for Winning Decisive Victories RENDEZVOUS 7 very pleased with the response you A Space Shuttle Flight Simulation have made thus far. From letters WE'RE IN THE MONEY 9 and responses to R.I.D. cards it is Economic Simulations For The Apple apparent that we are providing a CONTROLLER: A REVIEW 12 needed service for thousands of com- Avalon Hill's Air Traffic Control Simulation puter gamers. We try with each issue PURSUIT OF THE GRAF SPEE: A REVIEW 18 to add new features or twists which Strategic Simulations Naval Wargame make CGW a better magazine. The STARSHIP COMMANDER: A REVIEW 20 basic information box, Reader Input A Space Combat "Simulation" ADVENTURES — CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN AND A HALF 22 Device, Silicon Cerebrum, Atari Survey of THE CAPTAIN 80 BOOK OF BASIC ADVENTURES Arcade, Real World Gaming, and HORSE RACING CLASSIC: A REVIEW 23 screen photos are just some of the A Horse Race Simulation added features. We hope to add more SNEAK ATTACK ON KNIGHT OF DIAMONDS 23 as time goes along. An Unusual Approach to the Second Wizardry Scenario DNIEPER RIVER LINE 28 For example, we will add more or "How Can You Be Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All? pages as our advertising income CHOPLIFTER' 30 allows. When you buy a product Rescue the Hostages which you saw in CGW tell the REAL WORLD GAMING 31 company you read about them in New Column by Dan Bunten CGW. The effectiveness of advertising CASINO 33 is important to the manufacturers. DataMost's Card Game They pay a lot more attention to Departments your input than you might imagine. Letters 2 Hobby & Industry News 2 Continued on pg. 36 Initial Comments 5 Silicon Cerebrum 14 Atari Arcade 27 Micros 34 Reader Input Device 40 who think I might be kidding--I the Russian units are outflanked, checked on a friend's Apple II, and they retreat, trying at all times to LETTERS all of the above-mentioned disks maintain their lines of supply. This booted. latter is crucial to the Russian units. My New Year's Resolution (which They cannot be beaten back during I have kept until now) is: I won't buy the winter unless their strength is programs that don't say they will diminished. And the only way their run on my Apple III in emulation strength can be diminished is by Dear Editor: mode (although I will buy programs cutting their supply lines. As an Apple III owner, I have that will run in the Apple III native Knowing this simple fact, the found several problems in game mode). This means a loss of about German player must find ways to software designed for the Apple II. $2000 per year to the computer games outflank the Russians. And he has industry from me alone. So long As many may know, the Apple III an excellent tool to use: his superior can emulate an Apple II, but there Broderbund I hope you change mobility. are limitations. soon. I really enjoyed your games while I could use them. My favorite The German player must forever Until recently, the biggest limi- software company at the moment is be involved in end runs. He must tation has been the lack of paddles. Picadilly--mostly because they have find clear sailing for his own units Before the new FCC regulations, all an Apple III keyboard version on all while forcing the Russians to retreat Apple II's were supplied with paddles, their games. across water and woods. and almost all software manufac- turers took advantage of this. Unfor- Deirdre L. Maloy High scores are possible using tunately, for the first six months this strategy even without having to that the Apple III was out, there destroy large numbers of Russian were no paddles for them. There was MORE STRATEGY FOR units. The entire German army can no easy way to use the paddles EASTERN FRONT be shifted north and begin a long trek eastward (along the northern designed for the Apple II either. Dear Editor; Since then, a joystick has come out bank of the Volga) at about Christ- for the Apple III, BUT it will only I am an Atari 800 owner and I was mas time, which--with some fighting work in emulation mode IF the soft- glad to see your recent addition of a --will take the hard pressed German ware manufacturer uses the standard regular Atari column to your maga- troops to the eastern edge of the Apple paddle read write routines. To zine. I have also enjoyed your cover- board by March. age of Eastern Front--my favorite date, only one program, On-Line's A more realistic and satisfying computer game. MISSILE DEFENSE, has worked. tactic is, as Bob Proctor suggested, This means I don't get to enjoy such Bob Proctor was clear and read- to ignore the game score and try to classics as SPACE EGGS or RAST- able in "A Beginner's Guide to truly take Russia. This involves ER BLASTER on my Apple III... ever. Strategy and Tactics in Eastern eliminating as many Russian units More recently, Apple II programs Front" but his article did little more as possible. My best game has left a have been coming out with keyboard than repeat Chris Crawford's own total of six red squares on the board-- versions. Usually, the keyboard ver- playing hints in the Eastern Front all surrounded and facing eminent sions are more difficult to play (such player manual. To whit: surround destruction in April. the Ruskies, don't try to march as Sirius' SNEAKERS -my favorite Similar or better results can be through them. program, which makes them much accomplished by completing two easier to play. Some software houses, Interested readers and dedicated crucial encirclements of the Russian such as Picadilly, have several versions gameplayers are surely able to troops. (Keyboard, Joystick, Paddles, Apple garner this information from the III Keyboard) on one disk. The Apple player manual without Bob's helping The first, which must be completed III Keyboard is also laid out differently, hand. Of more use (and more in- by September 28 (before the mud thus causing some problems for the terest) might have been an article sets in), brings panzer units north- uninitiated. dealing with grander strategies and ward from Kiev and the Pripet The greatest threat lately has been tactics which are not immediately Marsh through the narrow gap a change in software protection. Many obvious from reading the rules. between the Volga and Don Rivers. Once in firm position south of Moscow of the newer programs have protection The good game, like the good and moving at all possible speed, schemes so sophisticated they fool player, has a specific strategy to these units can stonewall the Rus- my emulator. These programs do which it tries to adhere. This game sian retreat from the German not even boot--they just make nasty "personality" in Eastern Front is infantry units pressing steadily east. noises. I am naming names here-- not very complicated, but it is ef- When successful, this plan destroys Broederbund, IDSI', and Energy fective. The German player must all the Russian encampments in the Games. Broderbund used to be my first discover what it is that the woods south of Rahev. Any re- favorite software house, but I refuse Russian units do, then develop an maining Russian units will retreat to buy games from a company that effective counter-strategy. doesn't have programs that work on east of the Volga and will not be able my computer (No Broderbund soft- Logically, if Crawford's own notes to return to the Moscow battlefield ware later than APPLE PANIC in Eastern Front suggest surround- until the winter months. (Be sure to will boot). My Christmas package ing the Russian units to destroy retreat the panzer units before for my Apple was ruined by two them, then his program's strategy must October or they are likely to be programs that wouldn't boot-TRICK be to keep those units from being bogged down and caught before the SHOT (IDSI) and SANTA'S SLEIGH surrounded. This is indeed what winter ice frees their movement RIDE (Energy Games). For those happens during the game. Whenever again.) Only a small holding force is needed in the south around Dne- fensive placement clogs their ad- propetrovsky--five or six infantry vances. Eventually this long white NOTICE TO ROBOTWAR with the Hungarian panzer unit. line begins to swing south, like a ENTHUSIASTS The second encirclement must be door on its hinges. The large red carefully timed due to the annoying mass of Russian units is then pricked Robotwar enthusiasts will be tank reinforcements the Russians by white and slowly shrinks...until glad to know that there is an receive around Gorky. The Russians the door slams shut. organization being formed to must be allowed to re-cross the Volga Good luck to all Eastern Front sponsor Robotwar tournaments in order to slow their final retreat players and Computer Gaming on an ongoing basis. Frank back toward the east. World. I look forward to more in- Krough of North Hollywood, Cali- depth gaming articles and your fornia has formed a Robotwar Given that the German player continued success. club for the purpose of holding controls the line from Smolensk to local and postal Robotwar tour- Ed. — Thank you for some ex- Moscow to just west of Gorky by naments. If you live in the South- cellent strategic suggestions for winter, then an east-west line should ern California area you may want Eastern Front. Your letter seems to be held no further north than Rahev. to get directly involved with the indicate, however, that you did not The Russians will push north through local tournaments. For those of take note of the title of Bob's article the woods east of Smolensk and you that live elsewhere, check out or the explicit statement in the third west across the Volga toward the postal Robotwar tournaments paragraph of the article; to wit-- Moscow. Frank's group will be running. "This article is written for those While the Russians are on the of you with little or no wargaming Entry fee for a tournament will offensive, the German player must experience." Many of our Atari be $4.00 which will cover handling run to the far north with his panzer readers indicate that the article was charges and prizes. Tournaments units and whatever infantry is not helpful to them even with a good will be classified as either novice, needed in defense. (Some can be sent deal of wargaming experience. I master, or champion. If you want to take Leningrad.) These units then found the article of help to me more information drop Frank a rush east and cross the Volga just (beyond what was offered in the note: east of Gorky--or perhaps even as far rulebook). None-the-less your stra- Frank Krogh east as Kazan--and move south. Once tegic suggestions are appreciated P.O. Box 5337 they reach the open Russian plain, and I know will be of interest to our North Hollywood, CA 91616 they will cut off supplies for the readers. Russian counter attack forces around Moscow. The German units which were previously shaky in defense will be able to press attacks with no fear. If the German player can also bring his southern force and re- inforcements to bear on the Russians southern flank, then the entire Russian army will begin to shrink and disappear inside the white circle. Alternatively, these latter German units can press east and take Stalin- grad. But obliterating the Russians is much more fun than taking a featureless city. This second encirclement proce- dure is satisfying but tricky. The Russians will desperately attempt to break through the German armor and, once out of the trap, they have an excellent chance to remain at bay until the end of the game. There are also a few Russian reinforcements (cavalry particularly) which arrive at the eastern edge of the board and must be drawn westward toward death. A picture to keep in mind is the white German units strung out from west to east north of the Volga--the panzers in front, the infantry lagging behind. The red Russian units press north to attempt to break this extending line, but the Volga slows their movement and effective de- HOBBY AND Model I/III entitled MYSTERIOUS Automated Simulations has re- ADVENTURERS. Written by a leased several new titles for the Atari INDUSTRY NEWS chap in England the series makes 400/800 computer. ALIEN GARDEN use of "proper English". The first is an arcade game available on ROM release in the series is ARROW OF cartridge ($39.95). Four new releases Avalon Hill has announced that DEATH PT. 1. in the adventure game area by Auto- they will begin developing game mated are mentioned in this issue's cartridges for the ATARI VCS and installment of Atari Arcade. MATTEL INTELLIVISION game JON FREEMAN and ANNE systems. WESTFALL have left Automated Simulations to form FREE FALL Strategic Simulations will be re- Program Design of Greenwich, ASSOCIATES, a game design and leasing GALACTIC GLADIATORS Connecticut has released MOON- development firm. Jon's credentials (Computer Ambush in space) in Late BASE I0 and STARSHIP DUEL include Rescue at Rigel; Crush, June or early July. GG features for the Atari 400/800. MI combines Crumble, & Chomp; The Playboy individual combat, maps, scenario an arcade/adventure format with a Winner's Guide to Board Games designing routines. Speaking of COM- voice narration. Game consists of (book); and The Complete Book of PUTER AMBUSH, the long pro disk and voice cassette. SD is a Wargames (book). Jon was a co- mised updated version is on tem- cassette game of starship combat. founder of Automated Simulations. porary hold. They hope for a fall Hayden Book Company (50 Essex Anne's background includes exten- release but winter is more likely. St., Rochelle Park, NJ 07662) an- sive experience in the programming GUADALCANAL CAMPAIGN is nounces the release of TETRAD, a field from business to game applica- now slated for a middle of July four-level Tic-Tac-Toe game for the tions. She was formerly the Senior release. An improved WARP FAC- Apple II, and TRS-80 GALAXY Software Engineer at Automated TOR will be released for the IBM PC OF GAMES, which includes four Simulations. FREE FALL can be in middle July. The IBM version will games for the TRS-80 computer (level reached at 3888 Corina Way, Palo feature graphic display of combat. II 16K). The four games are Hang- Alto, CA 94303. The computer opponent in the IBM man, One Arm Bandit, Skunk, version will be three times faster Jacks. Computerware (Box 668 Encinitas, than the Apple version. Ca 92024) has released STARSHIP Acorn Software (634 North Carolina CHAMELEON for the Radio Shack The Apple version of CYTRON Ave., S.E., Washington D.C. 20003) Color Computer (disk or cassette, MASTERS should be out by the announces a series of machine 16K required. SC is a space combat time you read this. The Atari version language adventures for the TRS-80 game in which the player controlling of CM should be out in August or the starship Chameleon protects a September. Paul Murray's new space planet from an aerial attack of enemy combat game THE COSMIC invaders ($29.95). BALANCE (or "Son of Warp Factor") will be out in mid-July for The Liberty Software Co. (635 In- the Apple. SSI hopes to have the dependence Av. S.E., Washington, Atari version available at the same D.C., 20003) has released MEDIEVAL time, otherwise look for the Atari MAGIC, a new adventure game for version at the end of summer. TCB the TRS-80 Model I/III. MM was will be a joined later by a strategic written "especially as an introduc- space game in which TCB will be tion to the adventure format of game used to fight tactical battles gener- playing". ated by the strategic game. Data Most The New American Library INITIAL 9748 Cozycroft Ave. 1633 Broadway COMMENTS Chatsworth, CA 91311 New York, NY 10019 BUYING AND BEATING THE WORLD SERIES BASEBALL: HOME VIDEO GAMES: A thick In addition to games mentioned This is the old Programma Base- paperback (676 pages) filled with elsewhere in this issue the following ball game that first came out interesting information on the home games have been received by CGW. back in 1979. The game is the video game field. The book Most but not all of these games will same even down to the same color- includes: tips and strategies on receive more detailed attention in ful introductory sequence which more than 200 games; descriptions future issues. includes a redention of "Take me and analysis of five home video out to the ball game". It is still a systems (Atari VCS, Intellivision, very good "beer-and-pretzels" Odyssey, Astrocade, Fairchild Muse Software baseball game. Written by Charles Channel F); playability ratings 347 North Charles St. Sullivan Jr. and skill levels. This SIGNET Baltimore, MD 21201 paperback sells for $3.95 and is worth checking out.

SUPER TEXT 40/80 COLUMN Synergistic Software DISPLAY: SUPER TEXT 40/80 830 N. Riverside Dr. Suite 201 Broderbund Software is a new and better version of Renton, WA 98055 Muse's popular SUPER TEXT II 1938 Fourth St. San Rafael, CA 94901 word processor. Features of the NIGHTMARE GALLERY: NG new package include: 40 or 80 has a lot of the flavor of the column display; page headers and DUELING DIGITS: Here is an popular coin-op game CENTIPEDE. footers; user definable key; type- educational game that makes use Various creatures parade up, down, ahead buffer; counter occurrences of hi-res graphics and can be and across the screen as you of words/phrases; display of played by anyone who can add attempt to shoot them. If you like available disk space; split screen; 1+1. It is interesting as a com- Centipede or Cavalier's BUG multi-file find and replace; and petitive game and can help teach ATTACK you'll like NIGHTMARE others. We look forward to using younger persons basic math GALLERY. The sound effects SUPER TEXT 40/80 as our skills. One or two can play, but include an amazingly realistic regular word processor at CGW solitaire play is only a shadow of "scream". as soon as we get an 80 column the two player game. board. Continued on pg. 39

FIREBUG: A game of arson. Although the fiction of the game is regrettable, this is one of the better low-res graphic games available for the Apple. In FIRE- BUG you go around dropping gas cans in order to spread the fire being fueled by a fuse which follows you. If you don't move fast enough the fuse will catch up and you'll "make an ash" out of yourself. Can be played with key- board control or a joystick.

Data Soft Inc. 19519 Business Center Dr. Northridge, CA 91324

TEXT WIZARD: TW is a word processor for the Atari 400/800. Using 50 different commands Text Wizard can do all the normal features of a word processor (such as insert, delete, replace, search, reposition, etc.). Additionally TW can print multi-copies, use multiple type lettering (bold, elongated, condensed, normal) and provide for proportional spacing of the document. Documentation is clear and easy to follow. TEXT WIZARD is CGW's Atari 800 word processor. THE WARP FACTOR: by William Strategies for Winning Decisive Victories Edmunds

when compared to the Klarson Another way to victory is to take BASIC INFORMATION Cruiser. The Klarson has four dis- advantage of the enemy's weakness. ruptor bolts that can fire every turn In developing our strategy we must NAME: The Warp Factor while the Alliance ship has four understand how the enemy operates. TYPE: Tactical Space photon torpedoes that can only fire You can get a good idea on some of Wargame every other turn. It's true the photon the tactics the program uses by read- Apple II, IBM PC (July) — SYSTEM: torpedoes have twice the destructive ing the Operations Manual. One IBM 64k C or B/W (July) power of the disruptors but they such tactic, taken from the manual, FORMAT: Diskette r j require four times as much energy to is to "maximize your firepower". This # PLAYERS: 1 or 2 charge and I don't believe they are means to coordinate as many wea- AUTHOR: Paul Murray & as accurate when fired. The Klarson pons as possible to fire in the short- Bruce Clayton can turn faster which makes it more est possible time at the shortest pos- PRICE: 539.95 maneuverable. They also have sible distance. This is a good PUBLISHER: Strategic Simulations Inc. drones which can reek havoc on concept but the program often fol- 456 Fairchild Or., your shield protection. And finally, lows this rule to the extreme. If you Suite 108 the Klarson ships have more trans- are attacking with a fleet of fighters, Mountain View. CA. porters than the comparable Alli- the computer will train all its phasers 94043 ance version. This makes it very on the lead ship and use the "last difficult to capture the Klarson even instant" command for firing. Sup- in the best of circumstances because pose these fighters are attacking a you can't get enough marines aboard Starbase. Now the Starbase has the vessel. enough fire power to destroy the If you are like me the first time you fleet in a single turn but it would played THE WARP FACTOR you Captured ships are worth twice as take the computer one turn for each chose an Alliance Cruiser, which many victory points as destroyed ship. Because the computer cannot you named Enterprise, with the ships. But capturing ships is much distinguish a case of overkill, you intention of destroying a Klarson more difficult than destroying them. have the ability to sacrifice one ship, starship. But after being smacked As a result, you should design your or use it as a decoy, while the rest of left and right by drones and stung scenarios such that they allow you the fleet attacks the enemy with time and again by disruptor bolts to destroy the enemy ships while little fear of being fired upon. This is and phasers your shields began to still scoring a decisive victory (i.e. the most valuable strategy you have fail with many weapons being put scoring a large number of victory for fleet operations and will be de- out of action until, eventually, the points). In order to do this you should monstrated in a number of the Enterprise was destroyed. give the computer a ship or fleet scenarios at the end of this discussion. with a total point value that is fifty I think I played that scenario percent greater than your own. This If you have only one ship then it is another four times before I finally may sound like an invitation to going to be the object of this max- destroyed that nasty Gorm, and my disaster but need not be if the match- imized fire power with nowhere to ship was so chewed up that I only ups are well thought out. The point hide. Normally, the computer rein- achieved a draw. The fact that the values assigned to various ships are forces and tries to keep its forward computer plays a very good defen- not always accurate. I've already shield facing your ship as long as sive strategy, coupled with a few shown you that the Cruisers are not possible. If you are trying to man- other factors makes it extremely really equal. euver around to one side, it will turn difficult to score a decisive victory in in that direction thus making it this scenario. But the computer as An Imperial Raider is worth two difficult for you to get a good shot an opponent does have weaknesses points and a Klarson Cruiser, six. If without risking a good retaliatory which we are going to discuss, along you put a Cruiser against three blow. The way the computer deter- with a few strategies that will ex- Imperial ships the computer would mines your course of action is to ploit these weaknesses. By using consider the match even. The Imper- examine your position, heading and these strategies you will be able to ial ships each have one disrupter speed at the end of a turn. You win a decisive victory in most any bolt and two light phasers. As a fleet telegraph your intentions every turn scenario you want to devise. they have three disrupters against by your final position. By sending * * * the Cruisers four, six light phasers versus nine, three unit shields false signals at the end of a turn, you can fool the computer into turning So why is it so difficult to score a against the Cruiser's average shield one way while you go the other once decisive victory against a Klarson strength of twenty, and the Cruiser the next turn starts. Once you leave Cruiser? First the Starship Point also has drones which the Raiders the arc of his facing shield, his Values are unbalanced, and there- do not. The Klarson side would win weapons will fire and you are then fore the scoring system is invalid. without a struggle. You could double free to move in close and fire on an Both Cruisers have a point value of the number of Raiders and the unreinforced shield. This ability to six. In games where both sides are Cruiser would still have the game. I decoy the enemy ship will prove about even, the only way to score a consider this scenario to be the ulti- most valuable in single ship en- decisive victory is to capture the mate mismatch and it demonstrates counters such as a Cruiser versus a enemy ships while sustaining little that by taking the best ships for the Dreadnought. or no damage to your own. And it is points allowed, you can overcome at very difficult to do that since the least some of the enemy's mathe- Your basic tactical objective is to Alliance Cruiser is an inferior ship matical edge. destroy a shield so you can damage RENDEZVOUS: A Space Shuttle Simulator by Stanley Greenlaw

BASIC INFORMATION mediate vicinity of the station. Once engine burn to rendezvous with the the shuttle is within two kilometers station (i.e. inside the station's orbit NAME: Rendezvous of the station, the program will and slightly behind the station. TYPE: Space Flight Simulation switch to the Alignment and Docking SYSTEM: Apple 11148K) After you get the shuttle close phase. In this final phase the player FORMAT: Disk enough to the station to enter the attempts to dock the shuttle in a # PLAYERS: 1 Approach and Docking mode, you large landing bay. AUTHOR: Dr. Wes Huntress (JPL) will be required to use either a joy- stick or keyboard controls to make PRICE: $39.95 The Earth Liftoff phase challenges your approach and docking. The key PUBLISHER: Edu-Ware Services the player to attain the minimum to success from here on is practice, P.O. Box 22222 orbit configurations using only the Agoura. CA 91301 practice, practice. Fortunately the fuel in the solid fuel boosters and program allows you to save your external fuel tank. Any use of fuel position so that you can return for Sub Logic's FLIGHT SIMU- from the fuel tanks onboard the another approach in case your prior LATOR (see May-June 1982 issue shuttle proper takes away from criti- attempt ends tragically. of CGW) and Muse's THREE MILE cally needed maneuverability in the ISLAND must make room for other segments. A successful partial The graphics and documentation another outstanding example of a orbit can be achieved in the following are very good. I would have preferred simulator for a microcomputer. manner: At about 15 seconds into a better rulebook illustration of the RENDEZVOUS, by Edu-Ware is a the flight begin tipping the nose of joystick controls, but with a little well designed simulation of a space the shuttle off the horizontal, steadily practice you can figure it out. The shuttle flight and space station reduce the angle so that the shuttle direction finder (available in the rendezvous and docking. From launch is on a 30 degree angle when the approach sequence) faces the wrong to docking the gamer/student must solid fuel boosters jettison. Continue direction for my tastes. It's purpose learn how to make use of basic to reduce the angle until the shuttle is to show the relative location of the physics to orbit, rendezvous, and is only 15 degrees above horizontal. station when not visible out the maneuver his shuttle close enough If you leave the shuttle at 15 degrees, shuttle window. The problem is that to dock the shuttle with an orbiting a partial orbit will be achieved and the direction finder is orientated in space station. the program will switch to the such a way that the simulated shuttle Orbital Rendezvous. in the "finder" is aimed at the viewer The simulation is structured into rather than along the line of sight of four segments, each of which can be The Orbital Rendezvous requires the viewer. In other words as you "played" separately as a stand alone a series of trial and error attempts at look at the range finder, the shuttle exercise or in sequence to simulate getting the shuttle's orbit to cross is coming at the player thus reversing the flight from launch to docking. the station's orbit at the same time "right" and "left". Flying "reverse" The first segment, Earth Liftoff, that the two crafts pass the inter- controls should be left to the remote involves launching the shuttle into section. If you blast off at zero control flying hobbyists. a partial orbit. Arbitrary parameters seconds on the mission clock in the RENDEZVOUS is educational of 191 kilometers altitude and 7800 Earth Liftoff mode you will find the while being entertaining. Teachers Meters per second horizontal speed shuttle reaching orbit "ahead" of will find it a valuable teaching tool must be obtained to cause the program the station. You must either slow in the areas of General Science, Earth to transit to the second segment, down (with the threat of plunging in Science, and Physics. As entertain- Orbital Rendezvous. The initial orbit the atmosphere) or adopt an orbit ment the simulation will appeal to path set up by the liftoff must first inside the station's orbit (i.e. less gamers who enjoy mental challenges be adjusted to an orbit path that than 1.50 earth radii) and patiently (such as those involved in setting up won't carry the shuttle back into the wait for the shuttle to accomplish the orbital rendezvous) as well as to atmosphere. Then the player must, the several orbits necessary to "catch gamers who enjoy hand-eye co-ordi- through one or usually two engine up" to the station. You may find it nation challenges (such as will be firing sequences bring the shuttle easier simply to wait for 30 seconds faced in the approach and docking into close proximity of the space to pass on the mission clock before segments). RENDEZVOUS is a station. At this point the player lifting off. This will most likely put welcome addition to the educational must make an approach to the im- you in a desirable position for an and entertainment software field. the ship and knock out its weapons. shields next to it and turn it toward a heading of 030 degrees. Launch a If you are using photon torpedoes the enemy before he can fire. type one drone on this and the next don't get too close before you fire Here are a couple of important turn. them. If you get within 2Mk. of the technical observations that you The Dreadnought will assume target they become ineffective and should remember. First, when firing you're going to try and move up on you are left with only your phasers. weapons using the last instant op- its right side. In the next turn it will It is better to fire your torpedoes and tion, the weapon must be capable of continue to move toward you and phasers as close as possible without firing through the facing shield at turn slowly to the right in an effort running the danger of coming with- the start of the turn. If you are to keep its forward shield facing in 2Mk. of your target. commanding a Dreadnought and you. Set your speed for 20 Mk., over- In using drones, unless you can your target is facing shield two, you charge your disruptor bolts and create a drone swarm, never count cannot fire your siege phaser the energize your transporters. Turn on them to destroy a specific shield. last instant even if you turn and right to 090 for four time points and Drones are unpredictable due to move toward the target. Second, the then start turning back toward the movement of the target and elec- phaser field of fire for the Alliance Dreadnought. You want to cross tronic counter measures. They sel- and Klarson Cruisers are inaccurate- directly in front of the Dreadnought dom hit the shield you want or ex- ly depicted on the Starship Data at a range of 8 to 10 Mk. with a pect. A drone can best be used to Cards. This can be most trouble- heading of about 330. Once you soften the target by knocking out some when entering firing com- achieve this continue turning left any general shield support. In this mands. I've constructed a chart to for the remainder of the turn. Set way it is not important which shield cross reference the phasers with the your disruptors and phasers to fire it hits and it increases the efficiency shields. By reading across you can at a range of 3 Mk. of your main weapons. see through which shields a phaser The Dreadnought's phasers will will fire and by selecting a shield I believe one of the most impor- fire when you leave its facing shield. and reading down determine which tant tactical weapons you have, and You should still be more than 10 Mk. phasers will fire through that shield. one the computer never uses, are away at this point and your shields your boarding parties. I cannot will absorb the damage. Your main overstress the importance of allo- blow will hit the Dreadnought in cating energy to your transporters. shield 5 or 6 at a range of 3 Mk. This When attacking a larger ship you will do sufficient damage to get your can do enough damage in one turn boarding parties aboard and knock to knock out a shield but you will not out many of its weapons. normally be able to cripple its wea- On the next turn, hold your posi- pons. However boarding parties can tion and fire all your weapons in an sabotage a ship's weapons and make effort to destroy another shield and it possible for you to attack again on get more boarding parties transport- the next turn without sustaining a ed. The Dreadnought probably won't lot of damage yourself. How much move on this turn so next turn you damage they do will depend on their may be able to shoot at the same number and the level of damage shield. Continue destroying shields already inflicted. This is because the and transporting boarding parties Marines aboard the enemy vessel until the Dreadnought is destroyed. will resist yours. But one of the first areas to receive casualties are the An interesting variation to this Marines. So the more damage you scenario is to use a Klarson Dread- inflict, the more damage your board- nought and give the computer two ing parties can do. Alliance Cruisers. You'll need a little more speed on the first turn If you are already in close to a and more moderate turns on the target and want to fire your wea- second Launch type two drones at pons on the first time point use the the second Cruiser while attacking range command with a range great- the lead ship. With eight transpor- er than the range to the target. If you ters you have a good chance of use the time command and the wea- capturing a Cruiser. pon in question will not fire through SCENARIOS Freighter and Fighter vs. three the facing shield, then that weapon Here are some scenarios which if Imperial Raiders will not fire at all during the turn. By executed property against a com- using the range command, the wea- puter controlled opponent will result This is a short game but you can pon can still fire if you change in decisive victories. make it more challenging by giving course or the enemy should move in the computer a fourth Raider. You Cruiser vs. Dreadnought such a way that would bring the will use the Freighter with its larger weapon to bear. This is especially In this game you will use the shields as a screen for the Fighter. important if you are going to sit and decoy tactic along with the Klarson's spin your ship because the program On the first turn move your Freight- maneuverability to strike a Dread- er straight at the enemy at a speed of moves the ships first and then nought in the flank and cripple it. checks to fire weapons. This brings 11 Mk. You don't want to decoy on up an important defensive tactic. If In the first turn set your speed at this turn because your drones will you had a shield badly damaged or 12 to 14Mk . Move straight at the have a better chance of hitting if the destroyed at the end of the last turn, Dreadnought for twelve time points you can usually reinforce one of the and then turn and finish the turn on Continued on pg. 37 WE'RE IN THE MONEY... Economic Simulations For The Apple by Bob Proctor

BASIC INFORMATION day activity and one which simulates year-to-year NAME: Computer Stocks And Bonds Wall Street decisions. TYPE: Stock Market game Stock Market game SYSTEM: Apple. Atari. Pet. TRS-80. IBM Apple II or Apple II+ COMPUTER STOCKS AND BONDS FORMAT: Diskette (also on tape) Diskette # PLAYERS: 1 to 6 1 to 9 In COMPUTER STOCKS AND BONDS, each AUTHOR: Bob Garman Donald Brown turn represents a year; a game being ten turns PRICE: $25.00 ($20 on tape) $24.95 long (figure about 30 minutes to play with 3 or 4 PUBLISHER: Avalon Hill CE Software people). You can't borrow or "leverage" (lever- 4517 Harford Rd. 801 73rd Street aging is buying something with funds that don't Battimore, MD 21214 Des Moines, IA 50312 (301) 254-5300 (515) 224-1992 belong to you) in any way. You have a choice of nine stocks and one bond. The bond pays a simple 5% dividend, so that if you invest everything in NAME: Cartels & Cutthroats Conglomerates Collide bonds you'll turn your initial $5000 into $7900 -- Business game TYPE: Business game with no risk! In effect, the bonds are just like a SYSTEM: Apple II or Apple II+ Apple II or Apple II+ FORMAT: Diskette Diskette savings account. If you can't do better than this # PLAYERS: 1 to 6 1 to 4 then it is a mistake to buy stocks. This lesson, that AUTHOR: Dan Bunten Mason, Mayne. Siegling additional risk should pay additional dividends, is PRICE: $39.95 $39.95 the basic lesson to be learned in the game. PUBLISHER: Strategic Simulations Inc. RockRoy 465 Fairchild Dr., Suite 108 7721 E. Gray Rd. The nine stocks are hypothetical companies and Mountain View, CA 94043 Scottsdale. AZ 85260 represent a cross-section of different stock types. There is a growth stock which can usually be The four games reviewed here fall into two expected to go up but pays very low dividends. groups. There are two stock market games, where There are risky stocks which offer "high" divi- each player is an investor, and two business dends -- as much as 7%. There are speculative games where each player is the President of a stocks that offer no dividends at all but may company. double (or halve) their value in a single year. Stock market games are easy to understand Dividend ratios, growth potential, and risk are the because they're based on the well known axiom, major factors to consider when you are going to "Buy low, sell high." Invariably, the number of hang on to stocks for a year or more. However, an stocks, bonds and other investments available are important aspect of long-term investing is absent; much smaller than in real life. Here we have two there is no information about the economic cli- well done games; one of which simulates day-to- mate that would give you a way of judging which stocks will be best. Plausible reasons are given for tips can cost more than they're worth. very large gains and losses but these are after the Even if you could buy a large block of stock, it fact: winning is largely a matter of luck. Two would certainly attract the attention of the other factors make this game unique: it is the only one of players. The order of play is set randomly by the the four available for computers other than the computer so if you happen to be first then everyone Apple and it is the only one which needs only 32K else can copy you and cash in on your tip without of RAM (instead of 48K). having to pay for it. This means that if you have to WALL STREET play before your rivals, it might be better not to reveal what you know (but you still must pay for In this game, each turn represents a single day the information). Another type of player inter- instead of a year. Five turns make a week and a action concerns breaking codes. Each player's tips game lasts one or more weeks. There are no are delivered by means of a 4 to 5-digit number dividends here and no other forms of investment which is decoded with a "secret" number chosen for comparison; just day-to-day trading in com- by the player. This code is not hard to crack, mon stock. However, there are broker's fees when- particularly when you can see which stocks the ever you buy or sell and there are interest payments player is buying and selling, so the wise player on any money you borrow. The interest rate is will change their secret number occasionally -- it about 20% per year, so the game feels very contem- can be done at the end of any week. porary. You are also allowed to sell short, which means selling stock you don't have (yet), hoping I don't think this game is realistic -- IBM won't that the price will fall before you have to deliver it. go bankrupt in 2 weeks and real tips are free and unreliable rather than expensive and 100% reli- There are 30 stocks from which to choose; all able -- but the player interaction makes WALL real companies, most of which are actually listed STREET the most interesting stock market game on the NYSE. They are grouped into six indus- yet. tries: computers, entertainment, oil, automobiles, retail, and appliance manufacturers. As with the CONGLOMERATES COLLIDE real market, certain industries may show promi- nent trends, though individual stocks in that We now move from the world of private inves- group may not follow them. Whereas I have yet to tors to the world of corporations. In CONGLOM- see a company go bankrupt in STOCKS AND ERATES COLLIDE, you are an executive of a BONDS, it is a distinct possibility in WALL large corporation. You are trying to expand your STREET: IBM and GM seem as likely to go under company by buying up other companies. There are as anybody else. All of your choices, then, are always 20 companies to be bought, of varying size equally risky. You must "play" the market, specu- and profitability, and when they're gone the game lating on the daily fluctuations (somewhat exag- is over. Basically, it is a very simple game. You gerated) of the market. must expand to win, but there are varying levels of risk to choose from. Low risk means slow growth; What makes WALL STREET unique is your high risk (heavy borrowing and even selling some ability to buy information about the market. of your stock in your own company for extra cash) Knowing what will happen to a particular stock or means faster growth. Which strategy is best de- industry group on a given day can help you to a pends upon interest rates, stock prices and timing. quick fortune or avoid a catastrophic loss. There The first two fluctuate wildly and unpredictably. are six levels of information in the game. The One would expect the characteristics of the 20 lowest costs nothing and provides nothing. The companies to change too, but they remain con- next costs $10 per week and gives you (according stant throughout the game. to the 8-page rulebook) a 10% chance of getting a tip about any given event. In game terms, this There are three ways to play this game: two are means into one tip every 6 weeks or so. Each solitaire and one is with one to three other people. higher level costs 5 times as much as the next Playing by yourself, you can either see how much lower and gives you an additional 10% chance. you can expand in 15 turns or you can play the Thus the highest, level 5, costs $6250 per week and multi-player game against two opponents control- gives you a 50% chance. At best, then, there's half led by the computer. In all versions, the record a chance that you won't know about an event high score is kept on the disk. ahead of time. To give you perspective, let's say My greatest complaint with CONGLOMER- that the most common event, a 10% change one ATES COLLIDE is that the computer-controlled way or the other, will occur to a stock that costs $50 players apparently get extra help. They get enough per share. In order to pay for the cost of infor- cash every few turns so that you (or I) haven't a mation, you'd have to have 1250 shares of it -- prayer of winning. Since their books can't be $62,500 worth! It's not likely you'd have this much inspected, it's hard to say whether this is a unless it were late in a long game; in other words, program bug or a deliberate attempt to make things "challenging." The other versions are the game is enjoyable either way. At the end of error-free, but CONGLOMERATES COLLIDE is each year, an annual report shows the current only moderately interesting. It does have flashy standings of all companies. graphics but these are not important to the play of Any number of strategies may win but a good the game. CARTELS & CUTTHROATS player, like a good manager, will always be aware of what the com- CARTELS & CUTTHROATS petition is doing. If you start to lose market share This game is the best of the four reviewed here because ABC lowered their price, should you 1) and one of the best available for the Apple. It is the drop yours to match; 2) cut back on production but most realistic, the most educational, and the most keep your price up; or 3) gear up for ABC's share fun -- even my 11-year old son thinks so! Each after they go out of business? There is much player player is the President of a small manufacturing interaction, even in the closed game. Unlike company; all of which just happen to make the CARTELS & CUTTHROATS, the computer-con- same product. They start out with identical re- trolled players are absolutely fair. They play a sources and the winner is the player who amasses reasonable game, each with a different strategy, the most total income over the game. Each turn is and are challenging to the beginner. As your skill a quarter year and the players agree how long the increases, you'll find they are not too aggressive game will be beforehand. To give time for player and can be beaten easily. interaction to develop, the game length should be The documentation is excellent. The fifteen at least eight turns, which takes about two hours. page rulebook explains the rules clearly; giving It is possible to quit at any point if you need to stop you an understanding of what is happening and at a certain time. CARTELS & CUTTHROATS includes strategy tips. There is enough infor- can be played solitaire as the computer will play mation here to qualify this game as an intro- one to five "hands"; you can also have a four- ductory course for Micro-economics; in fact, at a handed game with two people or some other recent seminar, CARTELS & CUTTHROATS was combination. The game can be "open", where shown as an example of Computer-Assisted In- everyone sees what everybody else is doing, or it struction. Don't let that fool you; it's a great game! can be "closed", where each player plans secretly. There is also an option which lets you print every- thing on a printer, ideal for classroom use. Each turn, you must decide how much raw material to buy, how much of your product you want to manufacture, at what price you will sell it, how much you will spend upon research and upon advertising. The computer determines the total demand for the product from general economic factors (which are predicted for you, roughly, a turn ahead) and sales for each firm are calculated. The public may favor the company with the lowest price, the best product, or the most advertising --this will depend on whether the product is a luxury, a necessity or a little of both. If demand is high, everyone may be able to sell all they can make, but if times get hard, the poorly-managed firms will find themselves losing money. The players may expand their companies by buying new factories, can (and sometimes must!) stockpile raw materials in case of shortages or strikes, and must try to keep labor and production costs within reason or they will eat up profits. The results are presented each turn in the form of a set of realistic financial reports: profit & loss, balance sheet, inventory levels and a market summary to show you how you stack up against the others. There are also occasional memos and letters about research breakthroughs, labor disputes, and re- quests from charities. You can go over these reports in depth or skim them for the essentials; BASIC INFORMATION NAME: Controller TYPE: Real Time Simulation SYSTEM: Atari with 32K FORMAT: Disk # PLAYERS: One AUTHOR: Frank D. Kelley & William Volk PRICE: $30 PUBLISHER: Avalon Hill Game Co. 4517 Harford Road Baltimore. MD. 21214 301-254-5300

Remember the movie Airplane? Picture the scene in the control tower exploding with complete confusion, the controller with mike in hand shouting out instructions to the pilot, all culminating with a 747 through the window. I felt just like the con- troller in Airport the first few times I tried my hand at Avalon Hill's CONTROLLER. As the name implies, you, as the controller, take on the awesome task of safely guiding in eight aircraft before they crash, run out of fuel, or simply fly away (presumably to find safer facili- ties). This is a fine example of a game which runs in real time, but which has the sophistication of a complex simulation. Unlike most simulations written in basic, the computer does not just sit and wait for you to input your next command. If you're busy thinking, it's busy flying the eight planes. I've sat looking at the radar scope, frozen with indecision, getting more and more flustered as plane after plane crashes, flys away, or shoots right off the runway. The disk is self-booting and, after a short wait, asks you the number of planes you'd like to control (1 to 8). You then select the type of planes. The three choices are; a) Light plane: slow, maneuverable b) Jet liner: fast, ponderous c) medium Private speed, medium jet: control Each type has it's unique characteristics of min and max speed, rate of turn and climb, ceiling, and fuel usage. All of these must be considered in order to successfully issue commands to the pilots. Once you've picked your airplanes, the game starts. You're presented with a regularly updated table on the left side of the screen which gives the current heading, altitude, and velocity for each of the eight planes. To the right is a radar scope showing the location of each plane in relation to slow them all down to minimum speed to give me more time to think and to conserve fuel, and then to stratify all planes to altitudes that will prohibit collision. I then work on landing the closest to the field. This simple system does not take into account who is lowest on fuel, arranging not to have two or more planes arriving at the same time, or who is closest or farthest from the field. I have, using this method, been able to land six planes this way, three light and three jetliners. My two private planes ran out of fuel. CONTROLLER is certainly a challenge. The closest analogy to the control process in this original game might be lunar lander in the way you must plan the effects of your commands in order to achieve the right results. However, CON- TROLLER adds seven more landings not to the control tower and two landing strips. This mention one more dimension. This game requires scope has two scales (10 and 100 mile radius) you to learn the aircraft involved and develop which can be toggled between by entering "S". At processes to safely land them. After four long the bottom of the screen is data on a specific plane nights I could only land six planes (my average is you have selected. This includes fuel left, last four). At 10 to 35 minutes a game, getting CON- heading command, last altitude command, and TROLLER down pat may take a very long time. I bearing and range from the control tower. would recommend CONTROLLER to those who In order to land an airplane it must be on the would like a "thinking" game that doesn't let you approach markers, have correct heading, be slow dawdle around moving planes like chessmen. The enough, and be low enough. You achieve this by arcade player, however, may be disappointed with giving each pilot instructions on altitude "A", the slow (real time) action of the game. heading "C", and velocity "V". Of course the time There are two items I would like to see in- it takes for each of these to occur depends on the vestigated on future releases. The first is the real characteristics of the individual plane. time command entry. All Basic programmers But, it's not as simple as that. If two planes are know the problem of stopping a program to service too close, you run the risk of mid-air collision. If the players keyboard input when we'd rather be you neglect a plane that is flying away from the computing away. This can be solved if Basic looks tower it will fly away and you will loose contact. at the keyboard and only stops to process an entry And finally, the toughest problem is running out if one has occurred. With CONTROLLER, if you of fuel. For example, if you make a private jet take input your commands too fast (when the program two passes before it lands it's very likely it will run isn't ready for them) some of the entry may be lost. out of fuel. This can be frustrating with the tension of four or The approach I've adopted is to go through all five planes all vying for the same landing strip planes and head them towards the tower, then within seconds of each other. Perhaps a small machine language keyboard handler that is triggered by the vertical blank display interrupt might work. This would allow normal keyboard input while Basic chugs along. This touches on my second suggestion. Maybe more of the Atari's great features could have been included in the game. The Atari sound generator could supply radar beeps, plane crash explosions, and successful landing sounds. Also, more colors would enhance the display and make readability better. Of course these enhancements make a game very computer specific which has its obvious disadvantages when developing software. As of this writing (May 1982) Avalon Hill has stated that an updated version of CONTROLLER is in the works. Perhaps we will see the above suggestions incorporated into a later version. (b) decrease it by one for each adjacent hex containing a negative value. (3) Copy the new map back into the old one. (4) Repeat steps (2) and (3) some arbitrary number of times. When you're done, each hex will contain some value. The sign of the value indicates who controls it (+ = you, - = them), while the magnitude of the value indicates how strong that influence is. Values near zero suggest weak control, while large values (either positive or negative) suggest strong control. This technique works fine...assuming that the pieces don't move, that they all have the same combat strength, that they can't affect non- adjacent units, and that the map has uniform terrain. This, of course, leaves out most wargames. So, to be effective, we need to find some way of taking these different factors into account. Let's see how we can modify the algorithm above to adjust for each of these complications.

MOVEMENT Given two units of equal strength, the one that moves faster exerts more influence. More accu- THE SILICON rately, the speedy unit exerts the same level of influence, but does it over a wider area. Since our algorithm is based on immobile units, we need to CEREBRUM make some changes to account for unit movement. by Bruce Webster Modifying part (1) of the algorithm is one solu- tion. Originally, we placed an arbitrary value (positive or negative) in each occupied hex and zero in each unoccupied one. Now, for each unit, let's place values (of the appropriate sign) in all the hexes it can move to. We might want to reduce MAP WEIGHTING (PART 2) the influence by distance. Suppose we have a unit that can move up to 5 hexes, and we give its INTRODUCTION location a value of 50. Here are some possible assignments for the hexes it could move to: Last issue we discussed an approach for allow- ing a game program to "look" at a hex map. The distance 1 2 3 method assigns a value to each hex indicating 1 hex 25.0 40.0 50.0 who controls that spot and how strongly they 2 hexes 16.7 30.0 12.5 control it. This is the algorithm used: 3 hexes 12.5 20.0 5.6 (1) Assign each map location one of 4 hexes 10.0 10.0 3.1 three values: 5 hexes 8.3 0.0 2.0 (a) if it's empty, assign zero (0); Here are the equations used: (b) if it's occupied by your side, assign 1) value : = 50 / (distance + 1); some arbitrary value say, 50); 2) value : =50 — (distance * 10); (c) if it's occupied by the enemy, 3) value : =50 / (distance * distance); assign the opposite value (i.e., -50). Which one to use? That depends on the game itself (2) Make a new copy of the map, with each and will require some experimenting and "tweak- location receiving its old value modified ing". In fact, you'll probably want to come up with by the six hexes surrounding it: one of your own; these are just suggestions. (a) increase it by one for adjacent hex This method leads to another problem: what containing a positive (non-zero) value; Continued on pg. 17 " about hexes that several units (perhaps from both very quickly. Consider the problem of determining sides) can move to? What value goes there? As all the hexes to which a unit can move. Suppose before, there are several solutions. The simplest: that the unit has a movement factor of 5. If we the sum of all the values to be placed there. ignore terrain, then we simply look at all locations Another might be the sum of the largest positive 5 or less hexes from the unit's current position. We and the largest negative values. Again, you'll need can do that easily. Now let's add terrain. The to experiment to see what works best. result? We must try to trace a path to each of those 90 hexes, taking into account the cost of moving COMBAT STRENGTH into each hex along the way. There are some well- defined algorithms for doing this, but they're Given two units of equal movement ability, the going to take extra time and memory. And the one with greater combat strength (CS) exerts more terrain effects on combat strength and attack influence over the same area. How do you show range can be even harder to handle. this? Easy: make the arbitrary value used some CONCLUSIONS function of the CS. For example, we could just use the CS itself as the arbitrary value. However, the We can make a game-playing program compli- CS probably won't be large enough to get the cated without much effort. If we really try, we can differentiation that we want. In that case, we can make it very complicated. Unfortunately, the im- multiply it by some constant (say, 10) or raise it to proved performance doesn't always justify the some power (say, 2), or both. If we wanted to get increased time and memory consumption. really tricky, we could multiply it by a varying In the next few issues, I'll have examples of the amount, such as the number of friendly units techniques described above, as well as some of the within a certain distance. As before, you need to algorithms needed to carry them out. As always, experiment to see what works best with your I'm happy to hear from you, especially anyone game. who would like to submit a column for Silicon Cerebrum. You can reach me at: ATTACK RANGE Bruce F. Webster 9264 Grossmont Blvd. Given two units of equal movement ability and La Mesa, CA 92041. equal combat strength, the one that has a greater attack range (AR) exerts more influence, since it can affect a greater area. For each hex to which a unit can move, there is a surrounding group of hexes into which that unit can fire. These can include hexes both within and outside of the unit's movement range. Some questions arise when taking attack range into account. What value should we place in all the hexes that a unit can fire at from a given position? Probably the adjusted CS value that we are placing in the position itself. What should we place in a hex that a unit can both move into and fire at? Perhaps the greater of the two values that would be given to the hex. What about hexes that several units, possibly from both sides, can move and/or fire into? The answer to this question is left as an exercise for the reader.

TERRAIN FACTORS Given two identical units, the one that is least hampered by surrounding terrain exerts more influence. This can happen in several ways. First, terrain can limit movement. Second, terrain can affect combat strength, either directly (by lower- ing actual combat strength) or indirectly (by increasing defensive strength of enemy units). Third, terrain can reduce attack range by blocking line-of-sight (LOS) attacks. Dealing with terrain factors becomes very messy PURSUIT OF THE GRAF SPEE: A Review

by William Edmunds

Graf Spee as it moves about sinking merchant BASIC INFORMATION ships. The game can be played by two players or solitaire, with the computer playing the German NAME: Pursuit of the Graf Spee side. A complete game can take two hours. Games TYPE: War Game can be saved after each turn but require a separate SYSTEM: Apple II w/ ROM Card or Apple II Plus SSI initialized diskette. The game is played on a map of the South Atlantic which is displayed on the Hi-Res screen. The ocean is sectioned by a grid upon which ship positions are displayed by identification letters. There are ports on the coast of Africa and South America which can be used for refueling and repairs. PURSUIT OF THE GRAF SPEE is a The game starts on December 1, 1939 and ends war game based on one of the early conflicts of on December 25 or sooner if the Graf Spee is sunk. World War II. The Graf Spee, one of Germany's There are two turns per day and you can move new pocket battleships, was sent to the South your ships one space in any direction each turn. Atlantic to sink Britain's supply ships. In this Inputing moves is very simple and you can go game, twelve Allied ships must find and sink the back and change any or all ship moves as often as when moving into a location. By patrolling in small clusters off the main shipping lanes, you should improve your chances of locating the Spee either by sightings or radio distress reports. There is a short version of the game that starts on December 13 with the Exeter, Ajax, and Achilles sighting the Graf Spee as it leaves the Plate River area. But starting the game with three cruisers sighting the Spee is no easy victory, as you will see. When the Graf Spee is spotted, the game moves to a naval battle. The author has done a good job of simplifying many aspects of the real world while maintaining those which give you tactical control over your ships. The player input is simple and the resolution of a turn is quick. All the ships are rated for maximum speed, size of guns and their place- you like. If you choose not to move a ship, it will ment, armor thickness, strength of the hull and patrol its location. You can refuel by moving into a superstructure, and torpedoes. There is a chart port and patrolling for one turn. which gives maximum range at which the shells If the Graf Spee is in the same location as one of will penetrate the different thicknesses of armor. the Allied ships then there is a possibility it will be This makes for a nice tactical game within the sighted. That chance is based on weather con- main strategic game. ditions and the number of ships at that location. Battles are initially set up with the Graf Spee Once the Graf Spee is spotted, the game moves directly ahead at a range which is dependent upon to a tactical combat phase where each turn repre- weather conditions. The Graf Spee will be running sents about three minutes. This phase is much from the encounter while firing its stern guns at more detailed and takes place on a featureless you. Your ships all have more speed and can background with the letter designations repre- overtake the Spee, but except for the Renown, your senting relative position of the ships involved. guns are smaller and cannot penetrate the Spee's Here you can control speed, heading, and targets armor at long range. If you start your pursuit from for your guns. The ships are rated for speed, type, a long range, your ships, one by one, will succumb and placement of guns, and armor thickness. to the Spee's larger guns. Combat continues until all enemy ships are sunk The December 13th scenario is a perfect example or visual contact is lost. of this. The game starts with clear skies which The main portion of the game is finding the Graf places you at long range. In this case, I find it is Spee. You must deploy your ships to search the better to break off the attack and try shadowing areas where the Graf Spee is likely to show. the Spee. According to the formula given in the Normally you won't know where the ship is unless manual, with clear skies and three ships you have a merchant ship is sunk. Then there is a fifty a better than eighty percent chance of successfully percent chance the merchant vessel will radio its shadowing. Then on the next turn, if the weather location. is bad and you manage to keep track of the Spee, The Allied ships you have for searching are you will be able to launch your attack from a comprised of one battleship, four heavy cruisers, shorter range. You most likely will lose a ship or five light cruisers or destroyers, and two aircraft two but a torpedo hit will slow the Spee down. carriers. The carriers improve your chance of Then you will be able to finish her off with your finding the Graf Spee, because of their reconnais- remaining ship as the hits come in a fury due to the sance aircraft, and they can launch one air attack targets reduced speed, your closing range, and the with their torpedo bombers. However, they have smaller guns' increased fire rate. Of course, if you no armament and require an escort to prevent lose track of the Spee, then it's back to square one. being sunk. The Graf Spee has larger guns and The PURSUIT OF THE GRAF SPEE is a good more armor than the cruisers, so unless you are intermediate level war game. It combines a attacking with the battleship Renown, you will strategic game, its anguish of unsuccessful search- need more than one or two ships in a single ing, with tactical battles which can produce the location. thrill of battle when you're finally closing in for Even with occasional reports of the Graf Spee's the kill. This game characterizes many of the location, finding him is a challenge. Ships that are aspects of naval combat while being fast paced patrolling have a better chance of spotting than and easy to play. STARSHIP COMMANDER: A REVIEW by Bob Proctor

make decisions about how to allocate mine had this problem, so maybe it BASIC INFORMATION energy, when to rest weary crew is not too common. On the other members, and when and where to hand, you would not want to buy NAME: Starship Commander use your repair droids. The game is this game and discover that you TYPE: Strategy packed with detail but unfortunate- couldn't play it. SYSTEM: Apple II or Apple II+ ly the documentation doesn't give 148K, requires paddle) you an over-view of what's happen- ing. For this reason, many may find FORMAT: Diskette (DOS 3.3) GIVING ORDERS # PLAYERS: 1 that SC is not worth the effort AUTHOR: Gilman Louie required to master it; but Trekkies The list which you will use the PRICE: $39.95 will love its ability to make you feel most is called the Command Screen. PUBLISHER: Voyager Software --more than any other game -- like From it, you can select any of 7 P.O. Box 15-518 you're in the Captain's chair of a stations of the Ranger: San Francisco, CA 94114 Federation starship. TAKING OFF Communication — to talk to the Vegan Is there anyone with an interest in commander. The first thing that strikes you Defense — to maintain your computer gaming who has never when you start playing is the way You know, shields. played STARTREK? the paddle is used to control all where you dash from quadrant to Engineering — to allocate repair game functions. Almost every screen droids and power. quadrant, destroying Klingons contains a list of choices. By rotating wherever you find them? The game Life Support — to change crew or the paddle knob, you move an arrow team assignments. has been around for over a decade (!) to the item you want and push the and there are countless versions, Navigation — to control the ship's paddle button to select it. You speed and course. including the more glamorous off- NEVER have to touch the keyboard! spring such as Atari's STAR Science — to "scan" an enemy While I think this is an excellent vessel's status. RAIDERS. For those who are approach, I would still like to have familiar with it (and I assume that Weapons — to fire positrons or an option to use the keyboard in torpedoes. means almost everybody), the most emergencies. For example, the knob important thing I have to say about on my old set of Apple paddles would STARSHIP COMMANDER is that Each time you return to the Com- not turn far enough to let me select mand Screen, there is an asterisk in it is NOT another souped-up version the last item on each list. Unfor- of STARTREK. front of the stations which you have tunately, this was usually "RETURN" selected so far that turn. This keeps Instead, SC depicts a single battle and I was stuck--unable to continue you from overlooking an important with 1 to 3 enemy ships (the baddies the game. Some of the better paddles function (like Weapons!) which is an are called Vegans here). To win, you have an adjustment screw to correct aggravating mistake. It's a great must destroy them, force their sur- this, but I don't know what to tell touch which makes you feel like the render, or force them to run away. you if your pair is non-adjustable. computer, for once, is on your side. As commander of the USS Ranger, Perhaps you can devise a test to see you must not only give orders about if your paddle (0) has a full range of Besides these stations, there are 2 navigation and weapons, but must settings. Of 3 pairs I've tested, only other choices on the Command Screen. The first ends the game (with ning strategy. I expected to find a Another item I miss is a plot of the an option to save it and continue description of what's going on in the enemy's projected position. This is later) and the other ends the turn. 19-page book that comes with the the point where the Vegan ship(s) When the turn ends, you see the game. It's not there and I consider would be at the end of the next turn exchange of weaponry on a scanner this omission SC's biggest failing. at their present course and speed. screen, get a report of damage, in- This is a very complex simulation The auto-pilots can use this projec- juries and fatalities, and see the and a Commander should under- tion, but there is no way to display it relative movement of the ships on a stand it, not be learning it on the job. if you want to do your own navigation. screen called the "Motion Detector." Take Power, for example. It is ob- The automatic controls, both in De- Then you're back to the Command viously being used up -- the rules tell fense and Navigation, do an ade- Screen and it's time to plan your you how much is needed for some quate job for a novice but will not do next move (but not all) functions. However, no- as good a job as an experienced where are you told that the engines GETTING THE PICTURE Commander. If you are going to be are also generating power or that good at SC, you must eventually There is a lot of information this amount depends on the effic- take up these duties yourself. It available from your shipboard com- iency of the team on duty in Engi- would also be nice if there was some puters. There are about 30 different neering. It is possible, if you are indication of ship heading on the screens which convey the status of frugal, to generate more power than Motion Detector. This would let you your ship and as many others which you use and thus replenish the bat- see which shield was facing the allow you to perform some action. teries a little. In a battle where both enemy, a crucial factor. sides are severely crippled, this tactic may be the game-winner; the extra GETTING PROMOTED energy might allow you to repair At the end of the game you get a your torpedoes first. The point is score and a rank based on your that such subtleties are not obvious performance. Under 8000 points (at first) and are not explained -- you earns you the rank of Crewperson, have to be willing to dig for them. higher scores earn one of 11 higher DELEGATING AUTHORITY ranks -- all the way up to Fleet Admiral for more than 38,000 points. In the beginning it seems like The number of points you get will there are too many decisions to depend on several factors but is make; so it is nice that you can give primarily a function of how many the computer some of your decision- Vegan ships you faced and how making burden. Both the Defense The graphics used to display infor- strong they were. You can choose to and Navigation stations have Auto- fight 1, 2, or 3 at the beginning of the mation are superb. There are bar matic Control options -- with these game and select the type (Destroyer, charts to compare actual power in effect, you only have to worry Cruiser or Dreadnought) of each. At usage with allocated power, a graph about Weapons each turn and Life first, you'll have your hands full to give you the relationship between Support every 4 turns or so. With with a single Destroyer but as you speed and distance covered, sche- defensive auto-control, the computer learn, you can increase the challenge matics of the Ranger to show damage, will distribute power to your shields, by selecting a stronger force. You and plan views showing the relative keeping most of it in the shields that also get an 8000 point bonus if you position of all ships. If a business are facing the enemy. In Navigation, can get the Vegans to surrender. program had these graphics and you can choose semi-automatic, You demand this using the Com- ease-of-use, people would rave about where the computer sets the course munication station. The Vegan com- it. It's very nice to see them in a but you control speed, or full auto- mander has no sense of humor at all. game; certainly the need to easily matic, where you select a distance understand a lot of information and the computer will attempt to CONCLUSIONS exists here too. keep the RANGER that far from the enemy. STARSHIP COMMANDER puts YOU in charge. The level of detail is It is necessary to go to Life Support extraordinary; you know each crew- to rotate the crew teams from Duty member by name and control every to Sleep to Standby. There ought to aspect of your ship's operation. In a be a way to give orders to have them game lasting from one to four hours, rotate automatically but there isn't. you, like STAR TREK'S Captain There are, to my way of thinking, Kirk, will not only have to know several such features which should good battle-tactics but will have to exist but don't. For instance, there manage your ship well enough to isn't any report that shows you the maintain fighting efficiency equal power allocations for ALL of the to the enemy's. The documentation main systems. Each total is available is weak; it explains the commands on the appropriate report but I would and options but does not provide an expect an overview to be available insight into what is happening. This As good as the graphics are, there at Engineering. It isn't -- anywhere. can only be gained by playing. [Ed. is so much information that it is not It's also very hard to get a clear Note: Please see the designer's notes clear at first what is important and picture of power consumption. The for Starship Commander in our next what is "chrome." This is a mixed amount left in the batteries will give Issue]. For those who are willing to blessing as it adds mystique which you an idea of how much you're dig for this understanding, the game makes role-playing more fun, but it using but there is no report to show offers considerable challenge and makes it harder to figure out a win- you clearly where it's all going. satisfaction. ADVENTURES - Cheaper By The Dozen And A Half by Dick Mcgrath BASIC INFORMATION graphs offer brief suggestions on Greg Hassett, the teenage founder how to play, design, write and of his own mail order software NAME: The Captain 80 Book of business, Adventure World, is also a Basic Adventures market computer adventures. Don't expect the "complete adventure prolific computer adventure writer. GENERAL garners manual", however. Re- Five of his early efforts are included CONTENT: Program design and basic member, each chapter is only two or in Captain 80. "Journey To The Center language coding three pages long. Of The Earth" -- designed by a technique applied to beginner, for beginners; "House Of adventure-type programs Chapter 7 is particularly valuable The Seven Gables"; the claustro- SPECIAL to the sight-unseen mail order phobic "King Tut's Tomb"; Voyage FEATURES: 1. A newly-released purchaser of computer adventures... To Atlantis" and the sinister "Sorcer- adventure program in fact, this chapter alone could be er's Castle". Collectively, they trace generator which worth the price of the book! It his developing talents as a computer creates adventure contains capsule descriptions of 27 adventure writer. programs in basic. popular, commercially available ad- 2. Complete program venture programs. A little research Lance Micklus is well known as a listings in basic for could prevent you from wasting business and utility program writer. eighteen popular adven- money on a program that doesn't His only currently available ad- tures appeal to your particular interests. venture program, "Dog Star Ad- AUTHOR: Robert Liddil venture" is included as the single But the real value bonanzas in PRICE: $19.95 space age theme in the book. this book are the adventures! Of the PUBLISHER: 80-Northwest 252 pages, 215 are devoted to the A father-daughter programming Publishing, Inc. program listings of eighteen basic team from Indianapolis, Don and 3838 South Warner St. language adventures. If you con- Freda Boner, have contributed a Tacoma, Washington sider that each one retails separately tale of Kentucky Moonshine, re- 98409 for about $15.95, you could sell out a venooers, good old boys and southern total of about $287.00 for this sheriffs in Thunder Road. They also collection on disk or tape! You're wrote the most recent of the pro- In addition to software on tape getting them for about $1.10 each in grams, a two part series: Revenge Of and disk, there are armloads of books the book. Now that's value! The Balrog and The Fortress At with program listings which you Times End, fun for dungeon and can type in yourself. CAPTAIN 80's All the programs are written for dragon fans! BOOK OF BASIC ADVENTURES the Model I TRS-80 but should be is one such volume... and a source of easily convertible to other machines For those of you who like "Big" hours of exciting challenge for the and other versions of basic. All but adventure, Teri Li's Atlantean computer adventurer. one should run in 16K of memory, Odyssey, is a full 48K in length. Not although you may need to remove only is it the largest program, it "Captain 80" is the pseudonym of the remarks statements and com- comes complete with simple graphics author Bob Liddil, who writes a pact some of the code to fit. of the adventure locations. Teri, a column of the same name for the 80- professional programmer for Instant U.S. Journal, a national magazine All have been published previously and most are still commercially Software, has two other programs in devoted solely to the TRS-80 com- available. The authors are some of the book -- Lost Dutchman's Gold puter. the best in the business: Scott and Spider Mountain. The book opens with a forward by Adams, Lance Micklus, Teri Li, Greg If you've read this far, you probably that guru of computer adventures, Hassett, Don and Freda Boner, and know what is meant by a "Computer Scott Adams, president of Adventure others. These adventures represent Adventure". But just in case you International. As a pioneer of the a cross-section of some of their early don't, let me give you a definition computer software industry, his efforts. Though their current work is straight from Captain 80's book; A comments provide a stamp of undoubtedly more sophisticated, you computer adventure is... "A semi- approval. He describes the book as can hardly complain when you're intelligent, word recognizing com- "the world's first anthology of basic getting these at about $1.10 each. puter program which employs a adventurers from some of the best All are still great fun, and a few novelistic style to present an un- known writers of micro-computer have become classics. solved puzzle." It is a word oriented software". Let me give you a sampling: One game in which the player communi- The first seven chapters are brief of Scott Adams' first efforts, Ad- cates with the game author through (2 or 3 page) monographs, possibly ventureland, was written when all the computer. The writer has thrown the substance of past or future you could find were Star Trek out a challenge to the player, in the Captain 80 columns. The first two imitations. It has a sleeping dragon form of a puzzle. The author's success chapters provide a bit of philosophi- (tread lightly), a swamp, a lava flow is measured not so much by whether cal history on the role of the ad- and Paul Bunyon's magic axe. This you are able to solve the puzzle, but venturer in literature, and draw an is the original version, written in by the amount of fun you have in interesting comparison between the basic. Though it was later rewritten trying. adventure hero of the past and his in machine language, this is still an modern counterpart, the computer excellent introductory adventure for adventurer. The remaining mono- the novice. Continued on pg. 39 HORSE RACING CLASSIC: A REVIEW by Barry Austin

NAME: Horse Racing Classic to "Place" bet? How did I lose my TYPE: Sports Game money so easily? The appendix to SYSTEM: Apple II the rulebook has a nice little dis- FORMAT: Disk cussion on understanding odds and # PLAYERS: 1 to 9 pay-offs. PRICE: $36.95 PUBLISHER: Taaumi Software While HRC performs admirably International as a simulation and tutorial on 8 North Grosvenor Ave. thoroughbred wagering it really Burnaby. British Columbia shines as a party game. With HRC Canada, V5B 1J2 at a party, don't be surprised if you 1604)294-2891 find a room full of otherwise normal people jumping up and down [In Howard Cosell's voice] -- It's a screaming for "Spectacular Bid" (or able with HRC, as the two most simulation. A pedagogic device with- even "Spectacular Dud") to race recent performances of each horse out parallel in the annals of digitized across those last few grueling inches in a race are given for your ex- sports games. An electronic derby of the monitor for a well earned amination. In addition to the recent party which fetes more equine ex- victory. As we have just hinted, you racing history of each horse and citement than my own loquacious can change the name of any of the standard racing form data (weight platitudes and perambulations in 100 horses stored on the game disk. covering the May Classic (the carried, Odds, fastest time, number of starts, wins, places, and shows), This will not change the horses per- Kentucky Derby for the uninitiated) formance record (which is stored by HRC gives a rating to the jockey and in my own nasal and lugubrious date and race), but can provide a trainer assigned to each horse. All of fashion. humorous touch to the proceedings. which adds an amazing degree of Thank you Howard for that nifty Each bettor is given an initial stake realism to the game. introduction to HORSE RACING of $100 which he or she uses to try CLASSIC. Yes, we agree with you, As a tutorial, HRC can be used to and win the most money. The game HRC is a good horse racing simu- teach a novice not only how to read stores the ten highest winning totals lation, a good teaching tool, and just the racing form, but how to make on disk. This "Handicapper Hall Of a darn good party game. There have intelligent choices at the betting Fame" adds an additional touch to been several horse race games window. When is it best to bet across the game, evidenced by a recent written for the Apple (most were the board? Is there really any logic incident in which a player refused to little more than lo-res programming bet on the last 4 races of the daily exercises), but HRC stands apart. card because he had a $1 lead over As a simulation, HRC makes use the all-time third place total. of a horse's track record to determine From one to nine bettors can buy the potential performance of each the traditional win, place, and show horse on the daily card. For example, tickets for any of seven horses in the a horse that has a record of coming four to nine races of the daily card from off the pace (according to the race. Bettors can also buy tickets in racing form provided for each race) any combinations such as betting a will have a good chance of closing horse "across the board". This hi-res on the leaders in any given race. game is very well done and well Anyone who knows how to read a worth the $36.95 price tag. racing form will feel very comfort- SNEAK ATTACK ON KNIGHT OF DIAMONDS By Harry Conover The chevroned boys, fresh from a They had been warned by previous and giving aid when needed 30 day leave after whipping Werdna mercenaries that the maze was After stocking up with armament in Woodhead/ Greenberg's first guarded by monsters of incredible and supplies and a blessing from the WIZARDRY scenario, PROVING strength and that even level 13 nether worlds, Stoned Sammy (lost GROUNDS OF THE MAD OVER- veterans had fallen victim to it's forever !!) the group made their way LORD, were ready to join forces many entrapments. But expedition into level one. again. This time their task was even leader Prospero knew his men. more difficult. Find the five items on Stormtroopers Kirk and Frenchy along "Not as bad as I thought", cracked Gnilda and return them, along with with Akido the Samurai, would lead Kirk, reaching the middle chamber the staff of light, to her highness so with Lord Prospero, Damien and and receiving instructions from that she might regain her throne. Lechat in the rear, casting spells Gnilda. "At least there are no creeping "Well then", laughed Kirk, "it's "Yeh, sure looks that way", smiled coins", muttered Frenchy. time to call in our second generation. the stormtrooper, "we've got three of Thank Woodhead for backups". the five items and avoided some "Patience, men, patience, our test nasty traps. All in all this is a breeze". is about to begin" counseled Prospero. Using the time honored method of coordinate selection (10,10) the six And that is why, it took these well were whisked off into.... Fighting on with their quest nearly seasoned men hours to find the only over, the gallant men realized the 2nd way into level two and hours more to level and claimed all five items that map that 80% darkened maze. "Mon Dieu!", hollered Frenchy. made up the Knight of Diamonds. "We have landed right in the middle "And now", intoned Prospero, "for "I could be home playing Zork", of level five. No rock, no traps no..." the real test, we must journey back grumbled Akido. Frenchy's enthusiasm was quickly to the 5th level for the Staff of Light abated by a horde of monsters that for without it our task is incomplete." dispatched Damien and Lechat to "We all will be if you don't start the other side. Using Prospero's getting in the first hit", suggested Using the Malor spell and over- magical recuperative powers (and Damien. coming a gauntlet of the deadliest three and a half sets of crossed defenders ever seen in a maze the fingers), Damien and Lechat were prized staff was re-claimed and the "Let us camp now", said Prospero, summoned back from the dead. heroes given their due. "and decide on our strategy. Our food runs as low as our spirits so we "You men have got to remember, Back in the luxury rooms at the must devise a plan of expediency." these monsters aren't foolish. They inn the now be-knighted squad Around the crackling fire the 6 tossed grew up in the same environment we pondered their next adventure. "All ideas back and forth. They kept did so they know all our spells. Forget I hear about is Time Zone, Time coming back to Kirk's idea and about that dilto stuff, Damien and Zone", mused Damien," maybe we finally agreed on it. They would cast Lechat just open the chests please!" should look into this." a Malor spell down to the 5th level thundered an exhausted Prospero. and work their way back up the Heeding their mentor's advice the "Ah, Mesopotomia in the spring", stairs, thereby coming up on any six pushed on, hacking and slaying sighed Prospero. evil-doers or traps from behind. their way through levels 5, 4 and 3. "Guess I know where to send my There was only one hitch. "Hey Kirk", yelled Akido during a bags now", chuckled Kirk. "What happens if we travel into melee against harmless puffballs, "I Time Zone, you haven't got a solid rock?", asked Akido? think your planned worked!". chance. q

by Bill Willett

If you're an Atari gamer like me, not like I would have on an Apple or screen, the playability is excellent. you've probably visited all the soft- Color Computer. The detail is superb. The fox's feet ware stores within a thirty mile To have created this map (40 wide move and he sits down when done. radius to find that special combina- by 24 deep) on another computer The chicken flaps her wings and tion of software and people that can with graphic blocks would have shuffles her feet. The chicks (the help you find what you want. Or, required some 15 thousand bytes. result of a dropped egg) peep and you buy countless magazines and The same resolution on the Atari bustle realistically. Best of all I like read the reviews to help you spend can be done using a redefined the little man who boots the chicken your limited software dollars. Right character set with only one thousand off the screen (the result of stepping now, Atari game software is just bytes. This is done by redefining the on a chick). Synapse seems to be beginning to become abundant. We alphabet as pieces (trees, forests, producing good games. garners need two things to make us tanks, etc.) and printing them on the happy. We need more games, and Datasoft's Tumblebugs is like the screen just like text. The 8 by 8 ways to choose what fits our needs. Apple Dungbeatle. You are pursued matrix of graphics blocks defining in a large maze by a number of To get more games, you need more the piece can be specified with only tumblebugs. You must eat all the programmers. To convince these pro- one byte. dots before the tumblebugs get you. grammers to spend their limited time A final example is the gamers The unique thing in this game is the on the Atari there must be sufficient Godsend, the player missile. In my magnifying glass window which payback for the time invested. The game, to move a piece without moves above the maze (which is too Atari has inherent capabilities to players would mean moving the large to see detail) and magnifies make a game programmer's time image of the piece through the map, what is below it. Gamma Software's more efficient. But more important, restoring the map as I went. With Hockey is a delight to play. This the number of Atari users is growing players, the map is left intact and I two, three or four person game has into a substantial market. The lack move a player around on the screen. three players and one goalie per side of software and the potential sales is The computer takes care of who's on and is quite similar to Intellivision's drawing programmers to the new top of who and moves the piece soccer. Atari market. without disturbing the map. SSI has released Tigers In The The special capabilities I'm talking While there are advantages to pro- Snow and The Battle of Shiloh in about are the features built into the gramming your game on an Atari, Atari versions. Both require the hardware to make the game pro- there are also some negatives. One BASIC cartridge, and either disk or grammer's life so much easier. The is the limited market at this time for tape, and cost $40. All versions beginner, like me, can now do wonder- their efforts. Another problem is the require 40K except tape Shiloh which ful things like scroll across maps or lack of good utilities. We're now uses 32K. Both have scrolling maps fly needlefighters through defender seeing the second generation of The Battle of Shiloh recreates the type worlds. These capabilities are utilities which should provide better famous American Civil War battle, even more important to the pro- tools for the programmer. Another while Tigers in the Snow simulates fessional programmer. The time he problem I've heard of is the slowness the December 1944 offensive by the saves in developing graphics can be of chaining programs. Germans. You can find reviews on used in fine tuning and developing these two games for the Apple in more games. back issues of CGW, Mar.—Apr. for I'll give some examples of how the NEW RELEASES Tigers and Jan.—Feb. for Shiloh. Atari has made my life easier as a Protector, Chicken, and Dodge Racer EPYX has announced four ad- game programmer. I'm working on are three designs for the Atari from venture games to delight we Atarians. a war game right now that I could Synapse Software. Protector seems King Arthur's Court sends the player not have undertaken with any other to be very popular and with good off fighting dragons and wizards in machine on the market. I've in- reason, it uses all the Atari's features. order to return the crown. Nightmare corporated a four screen map (similar See notes on the game in the Jan.— puts you in a magical castle with to Eastern Front's six screen map) Feb. and May-June issues of CGW. gargoyles, headless men and, packs in basic. To scroll across this map on Dodge Racer is the old standby where of very hungry rats, all tempting to another machine I would have had the player guides his car around a stop you from retaining your sanity. to use complex machine code routines number of concentric tracks that When shipwrecked on Vulcan's Isle to actually move the map through can be switched between. The player you'll battle demons and satyrs to the display memory. With the Atari, attempts to clear the tracks of dots earn freedom. In Crypt of the Undead this scrolling is done by calling a while not being hit by the oncoming you are in a cemetery and must find fifteen byte machine code user routine computer car. Chicken captivated your way to the world of the living which has to change only a few me. Although a simple concept of a before dawn. Although I haven't memory locations. Yes, I had to chicken catching falling eggs dropped seen these games yet, that they all learn some assembly language, but by the cagey fox at the top of the require joysticks is a good sign. lates the problems (and frustrations) of a hypo- thetical sector commander in the German Army BASIC INFORMATION who sees the writing on the wall. NAME: Dnieper River Line Some old ideas are re-worked here: fog-of-war TYPE: Wargame (inadequate or inaccurate information); and in- SYSTEM: Apple. Atari. Pet, TRS-80 adequate resources desperately trying to do too FORMAT: Disk or Tape much with too little for too long. The result is a # PLAYERS: 1 series of scenarios guaranteed to earn the player AUTHOR: Bruce A. Ketchledge PRICE: $20.00 [tape): $25.00 (disk) (metaphorically speaking) his service decoration, PUBLISHER: Avalon Hill Game Company combat fatigue, and transfer to a quiet sector (like Normandy). The physical components are typical of Avalon Hill's board games: multi-colored mounted map- board; die-cut counters; 16-page narrative-based The desperate position of German defensive rules booklet, and thick 1" box. As the program strategy on the Eastern Front in 1943-44 was features text only (which must be interfaced with partially solved with the use of mobile Kamp- the mapboard and counters), pirating is rendered fgruppen (battlegroups) as fire-brigades, scram- impractical. A pirated version would resemble the bling desperately between emergencies with graphics state-of-the-art in wargaming of early never enough resources, keeping disaster at arm's 1971, with "paste-your-own" counters in the format length until the numbers finally caught up with of early zip-lock. the German Army. DNIEPER RIVER LINE, a The Game System recent release by Avalon Hill, accurately simu- Dnieper River Line is 8-12 turns long, with each

28 game-turn representing one hour of "real" time. Each turn is subdivided into five phases: Russian Movement; Russian Combat; German Movement; German Combat; and Reinforcements. A save- game option exists at the conclusion of each game-turn. The Russian movement phase is exclusively computer-controlled, with passive interaction neces- sary for the German player to keep track of Russian activity and intentions. An average computer turn takes 2-4 minutes. The usefulness (completeness) of information available to the German player is directly related to how well his units can "see" what's going on. Russian units move toward fixed objectives (there are six) until they capture objectives, encounter German units, run out of movement points, or are disrupted by German fire. The combat phases incorporate an algorithm which includes severity of fighting, disruption levels, smoke, anti-tank capabilities, percentage strengths, and combat modes. The computer displays combat odds as a ratio and immediately resolves the combat, with defeated forces retreating up; to squares toward their side's baseline. The German movement phase presents stra- tegic choices for the player: command (to change the status and move an individual unit); status (to check the condition of all German units); reserve (to request the release as reinforcements of off- map units); artillery (to request off-map artillery support); objective (to review the ownership of the objective squares); and quit (to end the German combat phase). In the command sub-phase of the German movement phase, units can be deployed in one of three combat modes: static (no movement allowed, limited observation, and defensive strength is doubled); assault mode (normal movement, com- bat, and observation); and mobile mode (doubled movement allowance, normal observation, and combat strength reduced by one-half). Disruption levels (displayed during the status sub-phase of the German movement phase) have a devastating effect on the combat capabilities of units, with an adjusted combat strength equal to 1/1(+x), where x=disruption level. Disrupted units that aren't moved or attacked, or don't participate in an attack can recuperate in disruption levels. Each unit has a displayed number, type, strength, location, mode, and status displayed during the status sub-phase of the German movement phase. A check also exists to easily see whether or not a unit has been moved. Combat, movement, and

Continued on pg. 38 BASIC INFORMATION realistically they ran to my 'copter when I had landed. But I burst out laughing when I returned NAME: Choplifter! them safely to base and saw them wave good-by as TYPE: Arcade I left on another mission. The fighter attack SYSTEM: Apple (now): Atari (soon) sequence makes good use of the 3-D and animation FORMAT: Diskette which Dan Gorlin put into this game. # OF PLAYERS: I While trying to rescue the hostages from their AUTHOR: DAN GORLIN barracks (which you may have to fire upon in PRICE: $34.95 order to set the hostages free) you are opposed by PUBLISHER: BRODERBUND SOFTWARE tanks, jet fighters, and drone air mines. The tanks fire at your craft while you are on the ground, and CHOPLIFTER! is an outstanding new release though not usually accurate on the first shot or from Broderbund Software. Outstanding in that: two they become deadly accurate after that. Don't 1) 3-D highly animated graphics are the best yet leave your 'copter on the ground for more than a on the Apple, and ; 2) the game is truly a "new" game. You can look at any game that has come out this year and not find one that is CHOPLIFTER!'s equal for graphics. A very realistic smooth scrolling screen with 3-D effects highlights this game which puts the player at the controls of a helicopter with the mission of rescuing the hostages from the Bungelings (a nation of militaristic ideologues). The first time you play you may well find yourself muttering "incredible" as you watch the screen. Photos with this article cannot do justice to the graphics and animation. The helicopter can appear to fly across the screen or turn and fire toward the screen with a nice 3-D effect. The 3-D effect also comes into play at the border crossing. The animation is also outstanding. I got tickled when I saw the hostages wave to me as I flew overhead. I got even more tickled when I saw how Continued on pg. 38 groups. There are arcade games, adventure games, A New Column... wargames, business games, sports games, fantasy games and so on and so on. To be such a small group (at least for the time being) we surely have diverse tastes! As a game designer, I am constantly reminded of the size of the various "interest groups" that make up the potential markets for my games. There is no doubt that the largest number of people at this point are interested in arcade/action games. However, I feel there is also a potentially large group that would be interested in simulation games if designers could only develop better games. Real World Gaming will examine the field of simulation games and offer game designers thoughts and techniques for better game design. In this first installment I will attempt to illustrate some of the vast potential inherent in the simula- tion gaming field. Simulation games can let you experience a real- life field of endeavor that is not normally open to you. Such games, in one form or another, have always been popular. Monopoly, when it was introduced in the 1930's, probably derived a large part of its early success from the fact that people "down on their luck" from the depression could wheel and deal like real estate tycoons. Wargames, in a like manner, have offered many "would be" military strategists a chance to re-fight the great battles of history. You could even contend that many of today's arcade games are a type of "role playing" simulation game since many give the participant the chance to, for example, save the world from some dreaded foe. However, all of these games have simplified the real-world to maintain "playability". In fact, this simplification often leaves nothing but an abstract shadow of what the real-world is like. Who could possibly believe that playing Monopoly is a realis- tic view of the field of land investment and development? Before the advent of computer games, most games were either so abstract as to have only a vague resemblance to reality or were so complex as to be unplayable for most people. But the computer offers the possibility of creating REAL WORLD games that make realism playable. Computers can reduce the conflict between the GAMING complexity necessary for realism and the simplicity required for playability. All the information needed Dan Bunten to create a good "model" of a real-world field of interest can be kept by the computer. All the charts, probability tables and other paraphernalia INTRODUCTION needed previously in simulation games can be hidden away in a few computer chips. Players I guess by the fact that we all read this maga- could then concern themselves only with the facts zine, we share an interest in computer games! But and decisions which parallel those required in the there are so many different types of games. Also, it particular real-life area being simulated. The com- seems that each type only appeals to specific puter would do all of the work required for analyzing the situations and generating results. In the case of "board" (or non-computer) games, Greater realism would still require more sophisti- the main feature of abstract games is the simplicity cation among the players, but this type of "com- of their mechanics. Likewise, realistic board games plexity" would be a result of the knowledge needed are marked by a high complexity. In fact, the only to pursue the activity the game is simulating as reason most board games are so abstract, is opposed to being caused by the mechanics of the because greater realism always meant more com- game. For instance, to play a good computer plexity before there were computers. I doubt that business management game, you might need to whoever "created" chess would have designed learn something about making decisions based on such arbitrary rules and abstract representations financial reports, but you would not and should of feudal power had he had access to a method that not have to know how to do the bookkeeping and could easily simulate the subject area with much detailed accounting to prepare those reports. greater realism. Nonetheless, even if you disregard Good simulation games would allow you to this biased view of game design, it is still apparent quarterback a professional football team, manage that the old rules of "realism equals complexity" a multi-million dollar corporation, dabble in the are less constant since the computer became part of games. stock market, explore for oil, fight glorious battles, ... all from the comfort of your own easy chair. That notwithstanding, the unfortunate fact is These games would be "educational" without your that many computer simulation games are copying even knowing that you are learning. They would from our predecessors of the pre-computer days. be exciting in ways that arcade games couldn't We are using many game conventions that are no possibly be. There are limits to the challenge of longer necessary. We don't need to have turns just coordinating a hand on a joy-stick with an eye where each player gets a chance to make their on a video screen. But, since simulation games add input when we can allow simultaneous action. We a mental aspect, there are no bounds to the don't need games built on game maps from the potential for fulfillment. (It's been said that there pre-computer era. In addition, there are capa- is no toy like the human mind). bilities offered by computers that were totally So, if simulation games are so great, why aren't unavailable previously. The great success of arcade they more successful in the market? We are games should make it obvious that the inclusion of currently selling personal computers to the "right" changing graphics and continuous physical in- people (although things may change later). The volvement in games are attractive features. But great majority of the computer games audience is since board games don't have such things, most made up of a more intelligent, better educated, game designers don't even attempt them. relatively affluent elite. Some have proposed the Simulation games have a great potential but simple answer that people just don't like to think. game designers have to go quite a distance towards If this were true, humans would be in big trouble new techniques in their programs. In the suc- because many of the species we are driving to ceeding articles of this series, I shall describe some extinction can out-DO us but none can out-THINK of the methods that can be used to improve games. us. I am certain this is not the reason why Some of what I will write will be based on a formal simulation games don't do very well. We need to education in Industrial Engineering, Operations look at the games themselves to get a reasonable Research and Systems Simulation. Other ideas explanation. will be based on experience gained "the hard way" It often helps to better understand a muddled (by spending many hours on a few games which picture (such as computer gaming) for one to netted little better than minimum wage). Finally, I generalize a bit. For the purposes of discussion, hope to convey some of the things that others have let's say there are two extreme types of games: discovered. (Towards that end, anyone with abstract and realistic. Checkers would be a good interesting ideas to contribute, please contact me example of an extremely abstract game and war- through Computer Gaming World.) But, even if games could represent the other end of the you are not interested in designing games, you spectrum. However, wargames can vary con- should at least be aware of some of the things siderably in their realism versus abstraction which will help you become a more discriminating balance. Chess, for instance, could be considered consumer of what the marketplace offers. to be a very abstract wargame. So, instead of two I look forward to the day when simulation categories in which we could dump all games, games will fulfill the potential I believe they have. abstract and realistic are the extreme points on a I hope you will become a believer too! line. Checkers would fall very close to the abstract end of the line and moving toward realism you Dan Bunten is the author of Computer Quarter- might find chess, Monopoly and wargames in that back, Cartels and Cutthroats, and Cytron Masters; order all published by Strategic Simulations. by Stuart Gorrie

BASIC INFORMATION you enjoy playing Blackjack, you is displayed to the right of the screen. can play this one for hours. Upon game entry, you once again NAME: Casino Your next choice is Keno. Here, have a stake of $1000 and are offered TYPE: Card Game again, it appears to be a fairly the opportunity to declare the value SYSTEM: AppleEmulation) II (Apple III standard game. A grid of ten by of your betting chips. Should you eight numbers (80) is displayed. You desire to change the chip value FORMAT: Diskette may choose from one to fifteen during the game, you may do so. For # PLAYERS: 1 numbers by moving the cursor to the placement of bets, cursor move- AUTHOR: Bob Rosen selected positions on the grid. When ment is required. Bets are placed PRICE: $39.95 the amount of numbers you indicate using the "B" key and multiple bets PUBLISHER: Datamost have been selected, the game draws per cursor placement are possible 9748 Coztcroft Ave it's numbers. As it selects it's simply by depressing the "B" key Chatsworth, CA 91311 numbers, the grid is marked to keep the desired number of times. The (213) 366-7160 it's selections separate from yours. wheel is spun and where she stops For those of you who are interested It marks common selections so that nobody knows. Payoff is thirty-six in unusual values, here's one that the end result, from Keno's point of to one for a one number bet, eighteen you should consider. Take a look at view, is yours, mine and ours. Payoff to one for a two number bet, nine to CASINO by Data Most. This is an is based on an algorithm dependent one for a four number bet, two to one unusual value as it contains five on the amount numbers you picked. for a red/black bet and two to one for games on one disk. For a mere If you choose to bet the same card an odd/even bet. The graphics are fairly well done and the spinning of $39.95, you receive Blackjack, Keno, more than once, simply suffix an Poker, Roulette and Baccarat. "S" to your bet and your previous the wheel is accurate. For betting selections will remain in effect. purposes, the cursor movement is a CASINO provides it's user with a little slow and the mechanics of it little personal touch. As you enter Moving right along, we find the could be improved. It is, however, the CASINO, you are greeted and next game to be Poker. Mind you still an enjoyable game; so place asked your name. CASINO knows if this is not a normal game of poker, your bets and spin the wheel. you have been here before, as, you since it has no adversary, as such. Your competition is the standard see, it keeps track of it's clientele. The last choice is Baccarat. Player CASINO knows all about you. The list of resultant hands obtainable in and dealer are each dealt two cards program not only provides you with a game of draw poker. Play begins which are then totaled. The value of a menu of the five game choices, it with you placing a bet. Already at a dis- the low order digit of the total is also provides you an additional four advantage, because you have not what is important in the game. utility choices. The New Player yet seen your cards, you must deter- Player and dealer each have a option allows you to complete play mine what to bet. You are then dealt different set of rules for play that are as one person and resume play as your five cards and have an op- hierarchical. For a total of zero thru another person. It also allows you to portunity to discard up to three. The four, the player must draw a card. delete players from the list whom cards are numbered left to right, one With a total of five, the player has you are sure will never again return. thru five, so you simply select the the option of drawing a card or Stats allows you to examine the play discards by their number. Your passing. Given a total of six or seven, record of any client, tracking the discards are replaced with the draw the player must pass and for totals winnings and losses of all games and there you have it. You have a of eight or nine he must show his played. Music simply allows you to standard obtainable hand or you cards. The dealer rules are a little turn on or off the music which don't--and therein lies the payoff easier. For totals of zero thru five, accompanies the play. Finally, Quit determination. The payoffs are $1 the dealer must draw a card. The for permits you to quit; at which time it one pair (J thru A), $2 for two dealer must stand on totals of six pair, bids you good-by, come again. $6 for three of a kind, $11 for a thru nine. In the environment flush (this game), $26 for a full house, The game of Blackjack is fairly presented here, the player must be $101 for four of a kind and $1001 for standard. You are playing against a quite familiar with the rules as there a straight flush (ahmen). This style dealer and may double down on card is very little player-micro inter- of poker is sterile, as it has, amongst action. The game is fairly fast and totals less than 12 and on soft totals. other lackings, no allowance for You may split any pair or 10 count automatic except for the circum- bluffing. You should at least be cards but may only draw one card stances where the player has a five allowed to view your cards before point total with the option to draw or on split aces. The dealer must hit on you place your initial bet. totals of 16 or less and stand on pass and the dealer has less than totals of 17 and above. Insurance is six. At this point, you have to input offered and pays two for one along The next choice is Roulette. It's your choice. Aside from that, the with blackjack. In terms of the standard, easy to play and, graphi- only other time you interact is when micro-machine interface, unless you cally, it's fairly well done. The you bet. For the beginner, this game demand the personal touch, one playing field is displayed to the left can be frustrating due to the short dealer is as good as another. This is of the screen and the roulette wheel, display time for each play. You must a fair game of blackjack. Starting called "Roulette Square" because pay strict attention to what goes on the round, as you do, with $1000, if squares are easier to do graphically, to see how the hierarchy works. Unfortunately, I found the solution The recent months have seen disappointing. There are a lot of several games come on the market false trails, which is understand- which try to marry arcade and able, and even good. A real murder strategy game elements. These games, MICRO - mystery would have false trails. of which CE -Software's MISSION There is a lot of evidence which isn't ESCAPE and Avalon Hill's GUNS needed, which would also be true of OF FORT DEFIANCE are good REVIEWS a murder mystery. Actually, a person examples, are games which emphasize could stumble on the solution on the mental aspect of a strategy game their first or second try, but it will while also requiring the agility so take most people a LONG time. Four important to the arcade game. To a DEADLINE friends and I worked on it as a group degree BEZ-MX falls into this hybrid and solved it in about a month. game category. BASIC INFORMATION On the bright side, this is a BEZ-MX is a two player wargame thoroughly intriguing adventure. It in which the players try to destroy NAME: Deadline has some very good features that each other's military-industrial strength TYPE: Adventure/Mystery aren't apparent--for instance, if you while preserving their own. There is SYSTEM: Apple II, Atari 400/800. arrest someone, you had better have a basic game and an advanced game. IBM PC. NEC PC-8000, evidence--you won't really find out if In the basic game players deal with CP/M, PDP-11 you have enough evidence until they two variables; the deployment of FORMAT: Disk are on trial. Once, I got the correct their MX missiles and the utilization PRICE: $49.95 murderer, but didn't have the right of BEZ-1 bombers. The MX missiles PUBLISHER: Infocom evidence, so the person got off free. can be moved between silos or fired 55 Wheeler St. You do indeed have to prove they did at enemy targets. The BEZ-1 bombers Cambridge, MA 02138 it beyond a reasonable doubt, and can be used to fly bombing missions had a motive. This is something Deadline is a classic adventure or to intercept enemy planes (which many detective shows on TV lack-- results in the destruction of both program by INFOCOM, the people they don't follow up the case. currently publishing Zork and Zork planes). Bombing missions are exe- II. Happily, it uses the same type of In all, I thoroughly recommend cuted by entering the coordinates of command parser as the Zorks, and the adventure, despite my dislike of the target and sending the bomber it's specialized vocabulary gives you the solution. After all, I have no say on it's way. Intercept missions can the feeling of really being there. It is in who murdered who, it's merely be flown with the aid of paddles (the frustrating, involved, and realistic. my job to find out "who done it." arcade element of the game) or by Much of my recommendation lies on entering a flight plan through the The documentation for this pro- the excellent command parser, as keyboard. gram is excellent, taking such forms well as my love for mysteries. This as a lab report, police statements, Movement of MX missiles seems made me feel like a detective, frustra- coroner findings, and the like. That to serve but one purpose. MX missiles tion and all. I'm waiting for the next in launch sites closer to the center of gives you the basic evidence you one. need to proceed. the country have a better chance of Deirdre Maloy intercepting enemy planes as they Some of the commands available cross the border (that's right, the are new, and are extremely useful. missiles can perform either You can catch someone's attention BEZ-MX ground-to-air missions or strategic bombing (if they are moving away from you) missions). Earthquakes can occur by calling their name. You can in- which can destroy launch sites and/or terrogate them by saying something roads which lead from site to site. along the lines of "Glenda, tell me about Fritz". It can either be a person The real strength of BEZ-MX is in or an object you ask about. Also, the the advanced game which requires "show me" (as in "Fred, show me planning. In addition to the elements the keys") is useful. There are many in the basic game, players of the other questions you can ask, too. advanced game must maintain in- dustrial production in a war situa- Other commands available are: tion. Players assign the population ACCUSE someone OF something, of their countries to work on the ANALYZE something (gets police farm, factory, airfield, or city. You lab to check for common things), can have the people work in these ANALYZE something FOR some- areas (which will help keep military thing (more specific and usually goods in production) or you can hide more accurate), ARREST someone(s), BASIC INFORMATION your population in shelters (per- ASK someone ABOUT something, NAME: BEZ-MX serving population but ending pro- FINGERPRINT something, LOOK TYPE: Wargame/arcade duction). Strategy entails keeping BEHIND something (LOOK UNDER SYSTEM: Apple II production up while exposing also works), and SHOW something FORMAT: Disk the smallest amount of population TO someone (usually to provoke a # PLAYERS: 1 to 2 to destruction as possible. For example, reaction) all add to the flavor of the AUTHOR: John Besnard if you put a large percentage of game. The command structure is PRICE: $29.95 population in the factory, you will also a bit freer than that of their PUBLISHER: BEZ increase production but could suffer previous adventures, which makes 4790 Irvine Blvd., Box 19633 a terrible loss if the enemy bombs the game almost conversational. Irvine, CA. 92714 the factory that turn. While BEZ-MX is a two player cavalry, or infantry in making his game version. One of the most valu game, a solitaire version is available courageous (defiant?) stand. The able is with the infantry attack. When for human vs. computer play. The game is simple in game mechanics, your fire is effective enough to en- computer opponent is smart enough but has some wicked facets to danger the morale of the infantry, to analyze human strategy on prior master. they halt, dress ranks and fire off a turns and plan it's move accordingly. volley. This develops a smoke screen There are several interesting Therefore a variety of strategies is which disrupts your aim for two to variables which keep this from being needed to successfully compete with three shots. Then, when you do just another arcade game. First, the computer. successfully rout the infantry, the there is a handicap. This number, figures run away, leaving muskets Documentation is adequate. The ranging from the simplest (1) to the and packs behind them. The smoke- rule book does a good job of describing most difficult (63 on the Apple, 64 on screens enhance the play of the game most of what you need to know. The others) determines how difficult the and the graphics enhance the joy of rules include a page of strategy tips scenario will be in terms of am- winning. Another interesting "Ap- but there are a lot of techniques left munition available (type and amount) ple" graphic is the ability to adjust for the players to discover on their and casualties needed to inflict for a the tint so that the player may fight own. There are still plenty of ideas rout. When the player routs the either British (redcoats) or American that the players will have to develop enemy, the handicap is increased (bluecoats) troops (Anglophiles take on their own. A hardcopy of the map and, of course, when the player's heart!) is included for plotting coordinates crew runs away, the reverse is true. of attack. The physical presentation Although I haven't gotten beyond Graphics aside, the Apple enables of the game (i.e. rule book, zip-lock 53 yet, the computer does seem to players to take turns and keep their bag, intro screen) is not as glossy as figure in how quickly and efficiently handicaps up-to-date by repeating the larger software houses but is one deals with a given situation as it the briefing prior to each game. Also, adequate. revises the handicap after the conclu- the audible beep when a shot ef- sion of each scenario. This is a fectively hits the enemy howitzer is The pure arcadist will probably feature to keep the game challenging, most helpful. not find BEZ-MX his cup of tea but long after the basics are down pat. for those of you who like strategy GUNS OF FORT DEFIANCE is games with a little arcade flavor, at an exciting addition to a game library $29.95 BEZ-MX is worth considering. Second, one of the most important because: 1) it offers a challenging decisions for a gun commander to game without tying the player up for Luther Shaw make is selecting which type of long time periods; 2) it's easy to rounds to fire. The basic ammunition teach the mechanics to a beginner; is ball and canister. The program and 3) the handicap system enables GUNS OF FORT DEFIANCE also has allowances for double the game to grow with your own canister. Beyond these basic ammo ability. types, the player may opt for spheri- cal case or shell ammunition. These by Johnny L. Wilson last two types add another variable —fuse length. One can choose the TSUNAMI right ammo and range and the wrong fuse length will still produce negligi- ble results. The player can use these ammo types in conjunction with one an- other to a good strategic advantage. For example, the player may fire the more readily available ball am- munition until he finds the range BASIC INFORMATION and then switch to the more ef- NAME: Guns Of Fort Defiance fective, but less plentiful, spherical TYPE: Strategy/Arcade case ammunition. Further, experi- SYSTEM: APPLE II, TRS-80. PET, ence soon teaches one that ball ammo ATARI is not very effective in counter- FORMAT: Tape and disk artillery fire and that it is foolish to BASIC INFORMATION wait for cavalry to reach double # OF PLAYERS: 1 NAME: Tsunami AUTHOR: David A. Wesely canister range. TYPE: Arcade PRICE: $20.00 to $25.00 Finally, the gun commander must SYSTEM: Apple II PUBLISHER: Avalon Hill Microcomputer determine range and deflection (i.e. FORMAT: Diskette (DOS 3.3) Games aim). As the handicap increases, # PLAYERS: 1 to 4 4517 Harford Road this seems to be more and more AUTHOR: Rodney McAuley Baltimore, Maryland 21214 important. The cavalry, especially, PRICE: $29.95 have a tendency to be able to close PUBLISHER: Creative Computing Software In GUNS OF FORT DEFIANCE range faster than my befuddled 39 E. Hanover Ave. the player commands a gun crew fingers can type orders. Hence, one Morris Plains, NJ 07950 which protects a partially unfinished often has to think ahead in terms of (800) 631-8112 American stockade from the on- range estimation. slaughts of those imperialistic "lob- Here is yet another derivative of ster-bellies" in the War of 1812. The The "Apple" version has some SPACE INVADERS. This one is player may be faced with artillery, interesting differences with the basic actually 12 games in 1; selectable from a menu that also lets you turn exciting and challenging game. The Continued from pg. 1. the sound off and choose either game is based on miniature golf, paddle. Each game consists of a meaning that bounce shots come The single most common response sequence of "attacks" with the aliens into play and are very important. on the comment section of the coming at you in a different pattern Play is controlled with paddles or READER INPUT DEVICE is "please each time. Most of the games use keys. You control the angle at which run more articles on... (you fill in the eight attack patterns (which repeat you will hit the ball and how hard blank)". You readers want more ad- predictably); but some use sixteen. you will hit it. The game comes with venture articles, more arcade articles, They may move horizontally, they three 18-hole courses, plus the ability more wargame articles, more Atari may bounce, jitter, or weave sine to make your own courses. This is an articles, and on and on. That excites wave patterns. Sometimes the only excellent feature because you can us and we hope to do more. But the danger is from bombs they drop, really get creative with these courses number of articles is not only limited while at other times they come at and play them in any shape you by space; to a larger degree it is you like kamikazes. At other times want like ships, people's faces, or limited by the number of good articles the aliens have defensive barriers whatever. we receive. With each issue we enjoy which protect them from your shots; You can play the game with one to a larger supply of good, interesting sort of like SPACE INVADERS in four players. Playing alone is fun, articles, but we still need more. Keep reverse. but with more players, it can be them coming. Write us letters. Fill While the difficulty level ranges really exciting. The program keeps out the READER INPUT DEVICES. from very easy to moderate, things track of everyone's score and par for Enjoy the magazine. are complicated by the presence of a each pole. Of the three courses, two timer. If time runs out, you lose your are miniature golf type shapes with base anyway so you have to be lots of banking coming into play. quick! The timer resets for each new The third course is a really beautiful wave, with any time left on the timer course where you play on animal- after you shoot the last alien converted shaped holes, everything from pigs into bonus points. to dragons. These seem very complex, PLEASE but many of them can be scored Although you can always abort hole-in-one with the right angle on the game with RETURN or the your tee shot. TAKE TIME spacebar, there is no pause function. I don't see this as a drawback since Creating your own hi-res course is TO FILL OUT you always get a pause between at first somewhat complex, but it is attacks. Perhaps more important is not hard to get the hang of it. This is READER INPUT the inability to play the game without what will make the game remain a paddle. interesting after the time when you get so you know all of the courses DEVICE What is most interesting about and how to beat them. You can TSUNAMI is the fact that the actions create your own courses, making (P. 40) of the aliens are similar to a number them as easy or as hard as you wish. of different arcade games that fall in When creating your courses, you the SPACE INVADER family. The decide where the ball will be to start, player will recognize several familiar where the cup will be, the position of patterns in the various attack patterns any obstacles, and par for the course. of TSUNAMI. Some of those that After you have created your master- will occur are: Centipede, Space In- pieces, you then save it on disk. This vaders, Galaxian, and Circus. For may either be the MICRO GOLF those who like "Invader" games, disk itself or a back-up disk created TSUNAMI will be of great interest by the program. Once you have saved due to it's variety and professional on disk, you can go to the golf program quality. itself and try out your hole. Bob Proctor One feature that you have to look out for — the person who scored the MICRO GOLF lowest on the last hole shoots first on the next. This is in the spirit of BASIC INFORMATION real golf, but if you don't know this NAME: Micro Golf is going on, the score will be all TYPE: Arcade sports game jumbled. SYSTEM: Apple II ((48K) One of the best features of this FORMAT: Disk game is that it is not limited to a 4 PLAYERS: 1 to 4 special age or interest group. It is PRICE: $19.95 great for showing people your com- PUBLISHER: Creative Computing Software puter because there aren't hefty rules 39 E. Hanover Ave. to learn, you can just start playing, Morris Plains. NJ 07950 and it is still very challenging for everyone. Though the name sounds rather ordinary, MICRO GOLF is a very Bob Boyd Continued from pg. 8 is going to attack with six or more is to use two Alliance Dreadnoughts ships then it will be better to parry and a Cruiser. Use the Cruiser as the blow by turning to a heading of your decoy by moving it slowly enemy is coming straight at you. 090 degrees and reinforcing shields toward the Starbase. All extra ener- Maneuver your Fighter directly 4, 5, and 6. gy should go to the front shield. behind the Freighter and have both After this the game becomes a free You'll have to stop about 16 to 17 ships launch drones at the enemy's Mk. from the Starbase which will be lead ship. for all with ships everywhere. How- ever, because its ships are scattered, good enough. In the second turn the enemy ships the computer has lost the initiative. While you're positioning your will swoop down on your Freighter. You should just keep moving, turning Cruiser, the Dreadnoughts should The lead ship may hold its position and firing. It will be like shooting be overcharging their photon tor- and reinforce its shield but it can't fish in a barrel. pedoes and picking up speed by defend against two drones. Move Attack on an Outpost by Fighters running in a circle. When your both your ships forward at 8 Mk. Cruiser is positioned you want to and put all your Freighter's extra In this scenario you will use four maneuver your Dreadnoughts so energy into the front shield. Launch or five Fighters to create a drone they finish their turn behind your a drone at the two remaining enemy swarm. To achieve a decisive victory Cruiser facing the Starbase about 18 ships and lock your phasers on the you would use four Fighters, which to 23 Mk. away and with a speed of closer ship. The Freighter should will give a higher victory point total, 20 Mk. fire at a range of 5 Mk. and the but I suggest you use five because Fighter, last instant. If the enemy the two extra drones can mean the In this next turn set the speed of eludes the drone then it will take the difference between success and each Dreadnought so you wind up Freighter's phasers in the rear as it failure. just short of the Starbase. Energize flys over. If it peels off it will still get all transporters, including the Crui- hit in the side by one of the phasers Normally you would use fleet ser's, and fire your photon torpedoes along with your Fighter's phasers. orders, but on the first turn give at a range of 3 Mk. and your board- individual instructions to your Fight- ing parties aboard. You may also If any of the enemy do get through, ers so you can rendezvous in a tight find the Starbase firing its photon Freighter's front shield may be badly cluster about 35 Mk. from the Out- torpedoes at your lead Dreadnought. damaged or destroyed. If there are post. On turn two set speed at 11 Mk. any surviving enemy ships then and use any extra energy for rein- With luck you should knock out have your Freighter hold his posi- forcing the front shield. On turn most of the Starbase weapons but tion and turn around while your three, charge one phaser, launch a you may still lose one of your Dread- Fighter moves out to intercept. drone and set speed to 15 Mk. You noughts on this next turn. Hold your will finish this turn at a range less position, recharge your phasers and From here on it will be best to than 15 Mk. and will lose one ship to transporters and put all additional move your Freighter backwards phaser fire. Don't bother reinforcing energy into your facing shield. Fire while reinforcing its rear shield. shields because at this range the immediately to knock out general Remember, when you are allocating effort is futile and the energy wasted. shield support and get your second energy and moving, it takes fifty wave of boarding parties aboard. percent more energy to move back- Now on turn four, charge your Your Cruiser is no longer in danger wards and you have to input head- second phaser, launch your last of being fired upon, so you can start ings that are 180 degrees off from drone, accelerate to 19 Mk. and fire bringing it up to add its fire power to the direction you want to move. your phasers using the last instant your attack. command. Move your fleet on the Dreadnought vs. nine Imperial heading toward the Outpost for In the next turn you will want to Raiders twelve time points. This should put time your fire to hit the open shield This should be the easiest victory you past the Outpost where you as it comes around. The Starbase you'll ever score. The enemy has want to make a hard right turn to rotates 200 degrees in a turn and the twice as many total Starship points bring you facing the Outpost. This same point you hit before will be facing your ship about time point as your ship and with a little care will, hopefully, put you in position 12 or 13. Your Cruiser should be in you shouldn't even lose a shield. You to fire into the open shield on your range by that time to fire its photon can use either Dreadnought but I next turn. prefer the Klarson because you can torpedoes. The Starbase will be so The drones and perhaps your attack a fourth ship each turn by crippled by now that it is only a phaser fire will not all hit the same matter of time before it is destroyed, launching a drone. shield, but enough damage should so keep firing your phasers each Maintain a steady speed of 6 to 8 be done to cripple the Outpost. If you turn to destroy a shield and inflict Mk. for the duration of the game. fail to destroy the Outpost, then use additional damage. Start by moving straight at the what fighters you have left to fire at * * * enemy and launch a type two drone the beginning of the next turn. If at the lead ship. you hit an open shield you should The strategies presented in this destroy the Outpost. The computer doesn't handle large article can be applied to most any numbers of ships very well and will scenario; I hope they lead you to Attack on a Starbase probably only mobilize half its fleet. great victories and increased enjoy- If this is the case then continue Attacking a Starbase is a difficult ment from THE WARP FACTOR. moving at the enemy and put your task if you limit yourself to ships SSI will be releasing a new space extra energy into the front shield. that have a total starship value of wargame this summer written by Lock your weapons on three ships so twenty-four points. You may not THE WARP FACTOR'S designer, they fire at a range of 5 Mk. If, on the achieve a decisive victory against a Paul Murray. Fans of THE WARP other hand, it looks like the computer Starbase but your best chance to do so FACTOR won't want to miss it. Continued from pg. 29 Continued from pg. 30 anti-tank strengths are printed directly on the couple seconds when a tank is around. Fortunately, counters, with a review accessible on the back the tanks can only hit you while you are on the page of the rules booklet. Mechanized units have ground. You can take off and begin to fire back. the ability to fire on enemy mechanized units The trouble is that at times it seems like you have during the enemy movement phase. Artillery run into a whole armored division instead of the units can fire indirectly at targets up to five few you might expect to meet. Once the immediate squares away if they haven't been moved or area is cleared of tanks you can land and take on attacked, and are in static mode. hostages. The 'copter can hold 16 persons (by coincidence the same as the number of hostages in The Game as Game each barrack). When you get as close to a full load The flow of play is fast with victory being won as you can (or want to) you high-tail it back to your by possession of geographic objectives. There are side of the border and disembark the rescued six possible sites that represent strategically vital hostages at the U.S. Postal Service distribution areas. The only possible criticism of DNIEPER center (you read it right!--Your helicopter was RIVER LINE by this reviewer is the exclusively smuggled into the center, disguised as a mail territorial nature of the victory conditions. A sorting machine). possible alternative could have been another On your first trip you have only the tanks with algorithm (yet more complex!) incorporating gener- which to contend. After your first trip, however, al disruption levels and territorial control for the the jet fighters come into play and a little later the victory conditions, reported each turn. drone air mines begin to pursue you. The jet With skill and pluck, victory is possible a fighters can either shoot you down with missiles majority of times. Critical decisions have to be or bomb you on the ground. You will find they will made early, and these decisions have a critical be bothersome on your way in if you keep your gun effect on later play. Infantry-based units have firing at the edge of the screen where they are good defensive abilities, but have difficulty runn- likely to appear. The real tricky part is the flight ing between emergencies. Mechanized units are back. They seem to be more numerous and more fast and useful for "fire-brigades", but have deadly then. There is nothing more frustrating in limited staying power. Odds of 2 to 1 or better are this game than to successfully rescue 16 hostages necessary for a reasonable chance of success, odds on the ground in the midst of hostile tank and which (unfortunately for the German player) are fighter fire only to have all 16 die in a firey crash difficult to attain in counterattacks. on the way back to base. While the fighters are The basic problem for the German player is quite dangerous when you are airboard, they are having to run between emergencies (that are less a problem when you are on the ground. When immediate and unpredictable) with insufficient your 'copter is on the surface the fighters will forces; or, in other words, "how can you be two make a bombing run. Most of the time they will places at once when you're not anywhere at all?" miss your plane (although the bomb it drops will Often objective sites simply cannot be held with often take out a hostage). I tend to ignore the thinly-dispersed forces, and must be yielded up to planes when they are on their bomb runs which the maws of the Russian juggernaut. The timely gives me more time to get hostages aboard. arrival of desperately needed reserves and art- The drone air mines will pursue your 'copter illery interdiction can save the situation, however. once they find you, however they are fairly easily A typical level 3 (difficult) or level 4 (very difficult) avoided and can be shot down without too much game can last the entire 8 turns, with the outcome trouble. The most dangerous time of mission will completely unpredictable, as German units are be when you are in transit from the rescue site to decimated while trying (in vain) to hold major the base (and vice-a-versa). It is very common to be objective squares. The presence of partisans and flying along and have a fighter or a drone streak paratroopers can add even greater frustration to in without warning and send you and your would the predicament of the German player, as weak be survivors to a firey grave (even the burning Russian units slip into ungarrisonned objectives 'copter is realistic enough to remind one of the U.S. by the back door (objectives once taken are fiasco in the Iranian desert). irretrievably lost to the Russians). There are 64 hostages each of which is worth one DNIEPER RIVER LINE incorporates the point if transported safely to the distribution elements of historical accuracy, as well as fast- center. Thus the high score is 64. But don't scoff at paced situation-in-doubt play to produce a well this low "scoring ceiling". Getting all 64 home developed game which computer wargamers should safely is a task that few garners are likely to ever "check out". accomplish. Continued from pg. 5 Sentient Software 6619Sensible Software Box 4929 Perham Dr. The Software Farm, Inc. Aspen, CO 81612 West Bloomfield, NI 48033 3901 So. Elkhart St. CONGO: You are on a raft in the QUADRANT 6112: This is a Aurora, CO 80014 Congo River and must avoid space combat game similar to the CRICKETTER: Similar to the rapids, natives, and other assorted coin-op game Omega Race. Rebel popular arcade game FROGGER, dangers as you rescue survivors ships enter space through star- CRICKETEER involves getting on the way to saving yourself. In gates. Your task is to shoot them your cricket safely across a busy this arcade game you must make down while patrolling the quadrant. highway and a dangerous river. use of the flow of the river along Scores go up as you complete laps Hazards are birds which can swoop with your ability to paddle upriver around the quadrant while blasting down and eat the cricket, fast to avoid danger and reach your the enemy. moving vehicles, and flotsam which goal. Krell Software Corp. doesn't always float. Along the 21 Millbrook Dr. way your apparently male cricket GOLD RUSH: A graphic game Stony Brook, NY 11790 can get extra points for pairing in which the player makes his SUPER STAR/ALL STAR up with a lady cricket and getting way from the train station to a BASEBALL: A rather poor her safely across the river. Ad- mine. His way is blocked by attempt at a stat baseball game. ditional points can be had for several evils including a claim Players select their team members jumping into a home box contain- jumper. The game requires quick from lists of stars, past and ing food particles. reflexes. To relax even a brief present. Once the teams are Riverbank Software Inc. moment will most liking result in selected the gamers have performed Smith's Landing Road death. their primary task in the game. P.O. Box 128 CYBORG: Written by the author The computer plays the game Denton, MD 21629 of the popular Oo-TOPOS ad- allowing limited user interaction. INTERNATIONAL GRAN venture, CYBORG is an adventure Your starting pitcher stays in the PRIX: A very well done game of game with a twist -- there are no whole game. Runs on the Apple, GRAND PRIX car racing. You sit treasures or scores. CYBORG con- PET, and TRS-80. behind the wheel while running tains real-time graphics simula- ISSAC NEWTON + F.G. any one of five different courses. tion and character development. NEWTON: ISSAC NEWTON is Courses include Oulton Park, War- You play the character of a a game of logic in which players wick Farm, Karlskoga, Monaco, CYBORG, complete with a second must assemble evidence and dis- and one fictional course, River- opinion running around in your cern the "Laws of Nature" which bank. We hope to print maps of head provided by the electronic have produced the evidence. FULL the courses in a future issue. brain which NASA II planted in GRAPHICS NEWTON presents Taaumi Software your brain (thanks, guys). Well- the same game in graphic form 8 North Grosvenor Ave. done. and is suitable for children. Burnaby, B.C. V5B 1J2 CE Software HAL LABS 801 73rd St. 4074 Midland Rd. Suite 23 HORSE RACING CLASSIC: Riverside, CA 92505 The best looking horse racing Des Moines, IA 50312 SHEILA: SHEILA contains ad- game on the market. HRC is a SWORDTHRUST 6: "The venture game elements in what is simulation of thoroughbred horse Eternal Curse" -- Don Brown's basically an maze-chase type racing and track betting. The sixth game in the ongoing series. simulation includes a history of arcade game. Your task is to fight the most recent races for each SWORDTHRUST 7: "The Hall through five levels of a castle and horses in the race (set up like the of Alchemie" -- the seventh game rescue SHEILA who is locked in a racing form). There are 100 horses in the series and the first by a tower. A variety of weapons and in the program's data file. A very writer other than Don Brow, Peter magical items can be found which good party game. Wityk. can assist you.

Continued from pg. ' by inputting information into a disk addition to this book of adventurers. data file and then reading it back as Although the $19.95 price tag is a basic statement lines. If you still have doubt about the bit steep (considering the economy wisdom of buying a book full of Admittedly, it's an experimental level quality of the printing and previously published programs, design. The finished adventure pro- binding), the book is still a great "Captain 80" offers one more in- gram which it produces is as bare- value if you really intend to make centive: Part two offers a particularly boned as an underweight Greyhound use of all the program listings. The unique program. Computer programs and may require debugging. But the bad news, of course, is that it will designed to create other programs novelty of this generator program take you about three months of are receiving attention throughout outweighs its handicaps. Even at its steady typing to input the listings the industry, evidenced by recent current stage of development, the and another three months to debug demonstrations at computer fairs "Adventure Generator" can be used your typographical errors. I'm still and exhibitions. The "Adventure to quickly create a series of simple, working on this task myself, so I Generator", provided in part two, is personalized mini-adventures. And can't tell you if all of the programs an experimental entry in this field. it may provide a glimpse of the run as advertised. If I find any Authored by freelance programmer future, when humans will simply errors, I'll let you know in future David Huntress, it is a previously write computer programs which, in issues. In the meantime, watch out unreleased program which creates a turn, will produce other programs. for sleeping dragons, and have fun basic language adventure program It's an interesting and appropriate adventuring! READER INPUT DEVICE #3

GAMES Rate the following games using a scale of 1 (terrible) to 9 (outstanding) for each of the categories below; PRESENTATION: Rate overall presentation of the game. This in- cludes such factors as graphics, sound, packaging, documentation. GAME DESIGN: Rate the game design itself. Apart from the pre- sentation is the game well designed, playable, interesting? Are there pro- blems in the design which make the MISCELLANEOUS game less than it should be?; LIFE: (Use "PRS" box) Does the game wear well? Does one bore of the game easily or does it still command interest after multiple plays? Enter "0" in the first box for any game which you have not played or have not played enough to have ARTICLES formed an opinion. Rate the articles in this issue on a scale of 1 (terrible) to 9 (outstanding). If the article does not interest you enter 0. Use "PRS" box.

RESULTS OF R.I.D. #2 There were 121 Reader Input Devices turned in by press time for this issue. Of this number 64% were Apple users, 26% Atari users, 6% TRS-80 users, 4% others. All but two of the 29 games offered for review in R.I.D. #2 received enough responses to be included in the results. If a game is not evaluated by at least 10% of the user group to which the game belongs (i.e. Apple, Atari, TRS-80, etc.) it will not be included in the R.I.D. Results. The "% Play" column indicates what percentage of the respondents which have the appropriate machine have played the game. For example, EASTERN FRONT was played and evaluated by 89% of the respondents who have an Atari 400/800. Our special question last issue had to do with PIRACY. We asked you to tell us which of the games listed you had bought and which you had pirated copies of. The total percentage of pirated games were 27%. The Apple games were 30% pirated, the Atari games 9%, and the TRS-80 games 8%.

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