1986 · Mastertronic

Prospector Pete: the levels

This minisite was contributed by air. It’s agent-generated and needs a human editor. Clone https://github.com/gamesexplained/gamesexplained and follow kit/START.md to curate games/c16/prospector-pete with me to Gold.

Every level's mine, built by the game's own start_level. The tables decide how many goodies of each kind a level has. Where they go is rolled from the machine's timers every time Pete starts a life, so each picture here is one mine of many.

01 · Levels 1-16

One level at a time

The whole mine, 90 columns by 23 rows, with the level's numbers beside it. Roll again for another mine of the same level.

start_level ($1C54) run on the kit's 6502 from the listing, with random numbers where it reads TED's timers and raster. The game shows 40 of the 90 columns at a time and scrolls with Pete. The time of day changes only the surface's colours. The creatures' and the water's speeds are frames a step, and the fuses are frames; a second is 50 frames.

Only the goodies change from one mine to the next. The surface, the top three rows, is loaded with the game and never changes. Below it start_level fills twenty rows with earth and scatters the goodies, then digs the shaft down column 44 from row 3 to row 20 and lays walls at columns 0 and 89 and along row 22. The big charge goes in row 21, at the bottom of the shaft, and Pete starts at the top of it, in row 4.

place_goodies lays the small goodies first, then the wide ones, the x2 from level 8, the tall ones and the large ones, each where find_space finds a four-by-four block with no other goodie in it, so no two touch. A later level packs more into the same earth: 12 goodies on level 1 and 45 on level 16, the x2 included.

02 · Levels 1-16

All sixteen side by side

One roll of each level. The mines fill up as the levels go on, while the shaft and the walls stay where they are.