"Impossible" retro game

Sometimes the current level of development of video cards, VR helmets and other "hardware" is not enough to implement the intended game. Technology lags behind ideas. But there is also a reverse situation: the concept of the game looks very tempting, I want to play right now, but there are almost no technologies for its implementation.

Let me share the “impossible” game for dot-matrix printers that I really want to play.

My hobby is ASCII animation and games in text mode. On Habré and Geektimes I have several articles on this topic:
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• Habr | Going deeper into the Underground: the story of one extreme game design
• Geektimes | [Friday] Text console in the cyberpunk world

With the development and creativity in this style there are no problems. There are text editors, there are emulators. There is, albeit a small, but enthusiastic and grateful audience. But emulators are not always able to convey those feelings ...

More than 30 years ago, I first saw a dot matrix printer. He looked fantastic. It was a complicated robot. Cyborg! Moving the printhead wildly, the noisy machine knocked out dots with needles, folding them into symbols and squandering the roll paper meters. These were not boring A4 white sheets. Having unfolded a couple of meters of paper, it was possible at one glance to cover extensive pieces of printed source codes. And you could easily hang on the wall. Full height.

The game for dot matrix printers could start like this:

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night from the sound of a printing matrix printer, which has been gathering dust in your closet for over a decade! It turns out that manufacturers of almost all matrix printers used a chip from a little-known manufacturer. This chip can be “flashed” with a special radio signal. And now, for the first time, such a radio signal “flashed” a game into all dot-matrix printers on the ground. The power source hidden in the chip was activated and the printer started working.

This is a turn-based game. It is controlled by three buttons on the printer. After clicking on one of them, a new situation is printed.

No one knows where the signal came from. And what levels will be in the game ...



Sometimes, in order to make a better move, you may need to look at previous game states. This is where the “roll” of paper comes in handy. Particularly tense and important points can be hung on the wall.

The game, of course, multiplayer, so the paper stores not only the state of the player at different points in time, but also contains information about opponents. The chronology, captured on paper tape, is an important source of information and the key to survival!

Character. The game itself will assign you a name based on the location of the printer and the history of its use. Your level and proficiency will be displayed directly in the character name. For example:

AndRey is a third-level character who has improved the main skill - the first letter ' A ' (attack) , as well as the skill ' R ' (rage, for example) . Initial level - andrey , fully pumped - ANDREY .

As you progress, you can get legendary status. Then the name is added to the name. For example:

AnDrey FOmin - a legendary fourth-level character with the pumped skills ' A ' (attack) , ' D ' (defense) , ' F ' (force) , ' O ' (observe)

Thus, the potential level and set of skills depends on the length of the name and the composition of letters. Long names are not always good. in some situations it will not be easy to cope with a wide range of possibilities

Character race is the alphabet. For example, my name is in Cyrillic:

Andrei is a character of the Cyrillic race of the first level with a skill “ Y ” (the spell “Yoharny babai”) . This spell is not available to characters of the Latin race.

I do not know about you, but I already want to play this game. I would even buy a matrix printer and connect it to the control unit - a box with a Raspberry Pi, for example, in which the game will be “stitched”. Would be a baker on Kickstarter. However, the implementation of this project is hardly possible. This is an "impossible" game.

Returning to quite “possible” in terms of the implementation of games in text mode, I propose to evaluate just such a game for mobile phones on a grid of 13x16 ASCII characters.



' R ' - (right) to hit the right boss, ' L ' - (left) to hit the left, ' % ' to add life points, ' 5 ' to add mana points, when full, there will be a magic strike number 5, ' $ ' - add money that can be used to upgrade beats, magic, etc.

Mechanics: move either rows horizontally or columns vertically. A group of two or more identical symbols is reduced.

The screen of ASCII characters is probably not very compatible with modern smartphones. However, for example, I want to download it right now and play. Maybe someday I will find time and take up the implementation of this project, continuing to plan the creation of an "impossible" game for cyborgs from the past - dot-matrix printers!