Q*Bert

Published in Dragon User January 1985.

King of the hill

Watch out for Splurge the homicidal cabbage in Q'bert by P Thompson.

THIS program is based upon the popular arcade game where you control a cute long-nosed character while he hops all over a three-dimensional pyramid.

Little Bert must travel the astral pyramid turning all the top layers of the cubes making the pyramid white. He does this by landing on them, and jumps from cube to cube diagonally. If he paints all the pyramid, he is transported to a new pyramid.

Bert's task is not easy. Coilly Cobra and Splodge the homicidal cabbage do their best to bring an end to Q*Bert by pushing him off the pyramid. Coilly can chase Q*Bert all over the pyramid. The higher the level the faster he travels. Splodge usually appears at the top of the pyramid and rolls down flattening all in his path, but is known for his slyness and will often teleport to a cube near Bert in order to flatten him.

As a last resort, the two floating discs at the side of the pyramid can be used to transport Bert to the top cube of the pyramid. However, this has its problems as Splodge has a habit of ripping intruders on the top cube to shreds.

The game is quite fast for Basic, and you load it by typing "CLOAD" and pressing the all powerful Enter key. Be very careful in entering the data in lines 56-125. If you make one mistake you could ruin all the graphics.

Copies of the game can be obtained for £3 plus a SAE from: P Thompson, 54 Pentyla, Port Talbot, West Glamorgan. The game works on both the 32 and 64.

Program notes