Hangword!

Hangword! is a  game written in ugBASIC and that runs on various 8-bit home computers like  AMSTRAD CPC 664,  ATARI 400/800, ATARI XL/XEGS, COMMODORE 128, COMMODORE 64, DRAGON 32/64, MSX, OLIVETTI PRODEST PC128, TRS-80 COLOR COMPUTER 1/2/3,  THOMSON TO8.

Hangword! is the electronic version of a guessing game for one player. The computer chooses a word and the player tries to guess it by suggesting letters within seven (7) guesses. The game contains a vocabulary of 2.048 English words, and the repository contains more vocabularies that could be alternatively used, if recompiled. 

This game is participating in the Retro Programming Inside Challenge. The game has been written by Marco Spedaletti in ugBASIC. It was developed starting from just one single source code, and it supports many ugBASIC's targets.

GAME PLAY

The aim is to guess the word chosen by the computer within a limit of 7 attempts. For each failed guess, an additional element of the hanging man will be drawn. When the man is drawn in its entirely, the game ends.  

To select a letter to guess, simply press the corresponding key (A...Z).

Each time a letter is guessed, the player earns one point. After that, each time the letter appears in the word, an additional point is earned. Repeating the insertion of a letter already entered does not entail any advantage, in terms of points, as well as if a letter is incorrect. If the word is guessed, 24 points are earned. On the contrary, after 7 wrong attempts, 6 points are lost.

HOW MUCH HAS ugBASIC HELPED?

This cross-platform game would not have been possible without using ugBASIC: it is an isomorphic language and it has cross compilers that works on Linux and Windows, that directly converts high level algorithms into the assembly equivalent for the given CPU / computer.

ugBASIC is able to handle graphics with double buffering, to use directly PNG/JPG and other standard image formats, to manage additional RAM banks, to read multiple keyboard keys at the same time and to do inline assembly. The labor and time saving is such that it allows to create professional and high performance games in a short time.

Developing for multiple platforms requires very little effort because the source does not have to be adapted or, like this case, it can be adapted limited to the hardware dependent aspects. 

With a single source code you can obtain programs for multiple retro computers, even very different from each other. Moreover, each target can have a dedicated optimizer, which allows to achieve very interesting results while leaving the BASIC code fully readable.