Ducky Egg

Posted on by

One of the joys of shielding from the Covid-19 pandemic is that it’s given me time to dust off and repair my Sharp MZ-80K. After 40 or so years in the wild, the tantalum bead capacitors in the power supply failed, but were simple enough to replace. Hopefully it will be good for another 40 years.

But of course, it’s not much use having a computer in working order if you don’t do something with it. I stumbled across the 10 line BASIC game contest and decided to write something for it.

The result is Ducky Egg. It’s not going to win the contest (some of the other entries are truly amazing) but it kept me amused for a few hours.

The aim is to catch the eggs released from the duck in flight into a blanket. 5 points for each one caught, with a penalty of -1 point for each egg that reaches the ground, or -7 points if it hits you. 30 points or more wins the game; -10 points or less and you lose.

Ducky Egg action – another point about to be lost!

And if you’re still reading, here’s the code:

Who needs structured programming, comments and documentation?

It was developed on the EmuZ-80K emulator using the SP-1002 monitor ROM, standard EU font ROM and Sharp SP-5025 BASIC. And best of all it runs on the real kit, even though I’m not very good at playing it one handed …