1989 · MicroStyle

Stunt Car Racer

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Eight tracks, two to a division, each a loop of track pieces on a grid and raised on pillars. The game shows each one from above before a practice race, and the stick turns the view.

01 · Tracks

Every track, seen from above

The picture the game draws before a practice race. Turn it a quarter at a time, as the stick does in the game.

Each picture is drawn by the game's own routine for it, TRACK_PREVIEW ($F386), which draws every square of the track's grid (MAP_SQUARES, $F2F6) with the same piece-drawing code a race uses, from a camera high above. The stick turns the camera a quarter of the way round the track ($C34C). The pictures are the frames the Play tab's game shows on the way through the menus to each track.

02 · Figures

How long each track is and how much boost it gives

Each track's description sets how many pieces it has, how much boost the car starts with, and how forgiving the springs are: how many hard presses in a row can add to the damage before the rest are let off.

TrackDivisionPiecesBoost: league, Super LeaguePresses that damage: league, Super League

From memory after the track's description has been read for the race: the pieces at $C764, the boost at $C776 and, in the Super League, $C777, and the presses at $C774 and $C775. A spring pressed past the track's damage line adds to the damage only while its count of presses in a row is below that number (WHEELS_ON_ROAD, $0A97). Divisions are in the league's order: Division 4 is where a season starts.