TI-83+ game ideas

How about a mystical game where players must roam around, sorting out number problems and forming equations, and to win they must find the Magical Key which causes all their work to be graphed on-screen in an amazing almost-animated display of graphical finesse?

That would rock!

[/good-humoured sarcasm]

how bout a 3D game like that mable game thats included with all the macs now.

I used to tinker with a TI-83 in the back of my calculus class in high school. I managed to write a working version of Snake, Black Jack and Poker.

I managed to code a game were you'd pilot a ship through various rotating squares. I stopped working on it as I soon surpassed the realm of playable due to poor frame rates.

While not a game, I was able to figure out how to exchange variables between different calculators so multiplayer games are theoretically possible.

While not a game, I was able to figure out how to exchange variables between different calculators so multiplayer games are theoretically possible.

You do realize of course, how unfair it is to simply hint at it without divulging the information. Please continue with details.

I did the smae kinda thing about ~'95 or so in high school. I might have my source code around in a folder somewhere, but I got the same results. It was a very basic Star Trek based game where each player controls the movements of a ship on the screen and can fire a shot at the oppenent. It used Get and Send for known variables, ie. cords and if a shot was fired or not, IIRC. IT was rather slow and error prone as it was all looped BASIC. If done on a more modern clc (mine was an 82 at the time) it might be done quite easily in assy.

There are some user accessible functions for moving variables between two calculators in the TI-83's version of BASIC. I used them to create a proof of concept application where each calculator had control of one pixel on the screen. Player 1's pixel would move via inputs form player 1's calculator and player 2's pixel via player 2's control. Nothing fancy at all but it worked.... slowly. There was significant lag between the calculators as my code had no provisions for synchronization. Without the ability to run multiple threads or interrupts, you'd have to be clever at coding to do anything remotely action packed. Running a game like chess or poker where players simply trade moves would be simple. You also have to be aware that every Send(a) has to have a corresponding Get(a). The variable names had to be the same for my little application to work. This resulted in me having two slightly different versions, one for Player 1 and the other for Player 2.

I haven't missed around with Z-80 assembler that the TI-83 would use. I image that an assembler program would have access to the components necessary for I/O between calculators.