Skate or Die!

01 · The event

A race where the other skater is a target

The Downhill Jam is a race for two down an alley, back yards, and a street, on side 2 of the disk. In practice the second skater is Lester, played by the computer. At the start, whoever presses fire first becomes the left-hand player ($325B), and both then choose REGULAR or GOOFY. The race starts when both have pressed fire ($14F0).

The stick works as in the Downhill Race: down pushes, up brakes, left and right lean, and fire with up jumps. Fire with left, right or a diagonal is an attack, one of twelve chosen by the stick and the way the skater faces ($2DC7). Goofy swaps the directions of the moves without fire, but not of the attacks.

02 · Fighting

A hit lands on the third frame of five

An attack starts only when the skater faces straight down or straight up the hill, and it costs a step of speed ($315C). The attack connects on its third frame ($3947), and only if the two skaters are within 16 pixels of each other both across and down ($0BCF). Four attacks are high and miss a ducking skater; four are low and miss a skater in the air ($0D98). A hit knocks the victim down for 200 frames, and the attacker scores 5.

When both skaters are mid-attack in the same frame, a table decides what happens ($3BC9): both are shoved, one falls, or both fall. Bumping without attacking has rules of its own ($0DD6). Head on, the skater with the lower reach falls and the other scores 5; side by side or from behind, the two swap speed and heading; crossing paths, both fall.

One attack can never land. Attack 12, fire with up and left while facing right, has $63 where its hitting frame should be ($3953).

03 · The course

Rubbish worth points, and a police car at the bottom

Like the race, the Jam's course is 255 rows of 40 characters, with a second map giving each cell a colour and a kind of ground ($5A00). Cans are worth 2 points, bottles 1, and bins 3, whether the skater hits them or, for cans and bottles, rides over them ($17AA). At the bottom of the hill is a police car. Hitting it low is a crash; jumping onto its roof ($1AAE) sets off the siren and adds $0D to the points waiting to be counted. The game adds in decimal there, so that is 13 points only when the waiting points end in 0.

04 · The time bonus

Slow skaters score nothing

Each skater starts with a bonus of 9,996 ($20CB). Every six frames it loses 6 and the race clock gains a tenth of a second ($23F8), so the bonus is gone at 2:46.6 on the clock. From then on, points are thrown away as they are earned ($0AD2). Whatever is left at the finish is added to the score, which makes the bonus most of a good score. The clock, as in the race, is set for 60 frames a second, so on a European machine its seconds are 1.2 real ones.

A skater left 120 pixels behind is dragged back into view ($28D4) and pays for it: five seconds on the clock and 300 off the bonus ($2476). At the end both scores go to the event manager, six digits each, the second skater's in its own slot ($15F8).

05 · Lester

Eleven waypoints and a right hook

Lester follows 11 waypoints down the course, each a row, a column, and a heading ($3BED). Lester holds his speed against the player's position rather than racing ($3397), and when the player is within 16 pixels and on their feet he attacks, always with fire and right ($33BD).