B-side gaming

6 months ago

B-side gaming
6 months ago

B-side Gaming #7 Originally posted on !Bside@fedia.io in September 2025

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Welcome

A much-delayed August issue is finally ready. I was busy, so I could not work on it as often as I wanted to. Also, getting banned from lemmy.world for unknown reasons did not help, I was confused why there was less traffic in the community than usual until @Agent Karyo informed me that I was banned. I tried to contact the admins, but I never heard back from them. Eventually I made a new account on piefed and I am posting from there. Lemmy.world is missing about 10 days of posts because of the ban.

Anyway, this issue is focusing on the programming language BASIC. The history and its relation with early hobby and indie games. Of course we have the monthly gaming news, a free game, but this time not in Python but in BASIC. Furthermore, Blast from the Past returns with links to scans of an old book about programming in BASIC, and Indie Hard

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Welcome

Since it is already September, I am not sure if I will do another issue for September. I might wait until October for the next one or do a small issue with news only.

Finally, in the comments, I will link PDF files and Markdown files of all the issues.

RSS Feed: friendica.world/feed/bside/pos…

News

Open Source game news

Wake to Hell 0.5.0 (2025-07-17)

Gameplay

an interactive story game, self-proclaimed walking simulator, about a former surgeon, Lukifer Dredd, coming back to the hospital, only to realize something dark had occurred, then attempting to piece together just what happened. Being based on a webcomic, it shares similar themes of mental distress and plot connections.

Link

LinCity-NG 2.14.0 (2025-07-04)

LinCity-NG

LinCity-NG is a city building game that is the successor to and fork of LinCity.

Gameplay
- Fixed a bug that allowed uncompleted monuments to be bulldozed.
- Improved terrain/ecology generation algorithms.
User Interface
- Fixed duplicate click events in the new-game menu.
- Added warning dialogs when a construction cannot be built.
- Reworded most in-game pop-up dialogs.
- Fixed the "map size" configuration option so it no longer resets to 100 when
  loading a scenario.
- Added --config, --app-data, and --user-data command-line options for
- specifying custom paths.
- Removed support for restarting the game automatically. This means the user
  must restart the game manually if they change the language setting.

and more

Fear of View 0.1.1.0 (2025-08-15)

Gameplay

Constrained roguelike ("broughlike") game for colour terminals, played on a 5x5 grid of cells which are regenerated when out of view.

Revision history for fearOfView

0.1.0.0 -- 2025-08-10
First release.
0.1.0.3 -- 2025-08-12
Fix incompatibility with recent GHC. Thanks Francesco Ariis.
Fix WASD keybindings
- 0.1.1.0 -- 2025-08-15
Add bearlibterminal-based UI (enabled with -fbear)

Homepage

Pikifen 1.0.0 (2025-08-15)

Logo

a fan-made Pikmin-based engine, built with flexibility in mind.

Homepage

AAAAXY 1.6.283 (2025-08-21)

Gameplay

a platforming game with strange geometry.

Homepage

Indie game news

Tanuki: Pon's Summer Free Steam Demo

Tanuki post

Tanuki: Pon's Summer lets you deliver mail and explore a charming Japanese town.
Experience fun summer activities like bug catching, sushi making, baseball, and karaoke mini-games.
Befriend quirky villagers or annoy them using a unique emoji-based dialogue system.

More here

The Royal Writ Releases in Early August

The Royal Writ

The Royal Writ releases for PC via Steam.
Experience a lane-based deckbuilder where every decision is final, shaping your kingdom’s fate each run.
Lead an army of quirky animal warriors, each card with unique abilities and stories that impact your strategy.
Permanently lose cards that fall in battle, adding high stakes and memorable sacrifices to every adventure.

More here

Catto's Post Office Confirmed For August Steam Release

First a Tanuki post delivery now a cat, what's next?

Catto's Post Office releases on Steam, letting you deliver mail as an adorable feline postcat.
Explore a cozy open world, visit shops, and meet quirky cat residents in a whimsical town setting.

Memoria Wake Launches Free Demo on Steam

Memoria Wake

Play as Nilo, a tiny cat in a raincoat, battling nightmares with smart, parry-driven combat mechanics.
Experience two distinct biomes: a world of living toys and a mysterious, rundown university setting.
Face off against two challenging bosses, with over twenty planned for the full Memoria Wake release.

More here

Awaysis reinvents 16-Bit dungeon crawling with next-gen physics

17-Bit's Jake Kazdal shares how this indie adventure is reimagining retro.

Read here

Fractured Core Announces Mid-August Release

Fractured Core

Fractured Core launches on Steam, bringing classic JRPG gameplay to a cyberpunk setting.
Lead a team of mercenaries for Athena PMC, taking on high-risk missions in a conspiracy-filled future.
Squad-based, turn-based combat with unique abilities, psionic augments, and deep character progression.
Face challenging enemies.

Homebrew news

Lost Phoenix for GBC

Action in the sewers like old games

And on a bridge

In a world paralyzed by pandemic and unrest, a dark plot is being set into motion. A terrorist group known as the Absolvers, lead by the evil TALBOTT, are plotting to throw the city into chaos. The only ones who can stop them are a sword-wielding amnesiac named Isaac and a gun-toting femme fatale named Layla. Together, they must fight their way across the city to stop the Absolvers and resolve their own personal conflicts with the group.

Game

MUSKETEER for C64

Gameplay

Cardinal Richelieu has betrayed the queen of France!

To blackmail her into giving in to his wicked will, the cardinal has had his heartless agents steal Queen Anne’s diamond studs! Heeding the desperate pleas from the queen’s maid, four brave musketeers have sworn to foil the dastardly deeds of the cardinal and retrieve the royal gems, or die trying!

Game

The Layover Hit: Assassin's Run For GBC

Gameplay

Kill the helicopter!
Kill the helicopter

Action while riding a bike!

Wildcard hitwoman GEMMA and her handler SAM take on an assignment to kill 8 targets back-to-back. Travel all across the country while fighting bodyguards, killer drones and guard dogs to execute your targets and get paid!

Game

Featured article: History of BASIC Programming

BASIC

This time, instead of looking at the history of a game genre, we are going to take a look at the history of a programming language, and specifically the BASIC programming language.
The BASIC programming language played a big role in the early history of indie and hobby gaming, so I think it might be interesting learning its history.

BASIC is a family of programming languages originally developed at Dartmouth College in 1963. The goal of the BASIC was to make it use the main computer o darthmout university even if they had not knowledge of computer sciece. The first of version of BASIC was written by John G. Kemeny who was the chairman of the Dartmouth College Mathematics Department and Thomas E. Kurtz. The new language was heavily patterned on FORTRAN II; statements were one-to-a-line, numbers were used to indicate the target of loops and branches, and many of the commands were similar or identical to Fortran. However, the syntax was changed wherever it could be improved.

MSX Basic

With the advent of BASIC, students and faculty that had never touched a computer before were coming up with ideas about how to use it. What kind of programs could they write, like maybe help them in creating music or discovering new medical treatments. But the most popular use was for creating and playing games.

Simple BASIC

Wanting use of the language to become widespread, its designers made the compiler available free of charge. They allowed local high schools to connect with the university computer so young students could learn basic programming. Soon the BASIC programming language was available to college campuses all over the USA for thousands of students.
They also made it available to high schools in the Hanover, New Hampshire, area and regionally throughout New England on Teletype Model 33 and Model 35 teleprinter terminals connected to Dartmouth via dial-up phone lines. Furthermore, they put considerable effort into promoting the language.

The HP 2000 system designed to run BASIC

All those students that later entered the job market began to recommend the BASIC programming language, and soon many companies started to adopt BASIC.
Since the BASIC language was small, it was made for computers of the 60s, it could easily run on cheaper computers of the 70s used by companies or people who could not afford a high-end computer.

The first version of BASIC for microcomputers was co-written by Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Monte Davidoff for their newly formed company, Micro-Soft. Originally it was licensed for the Altair 8800 it was later licensed for the Apple II, TRS-80, Commodore range of computers, and the Japanese MSX computers. This meant that almost all home computers in the 80s came with the BASIC programming language. Meanwhile, members of the Homebrew Computer Club began circulating copies of the program, causing Gates to write his Open Letter to Hobbyists, complaining about this early example of software piracy.
In response to Gates's letter, and partially to make an even smaller BASIC that would run usefully on 4 KB machines, Bob Albrecht urged Dennis Allison to write their own variation of the language. How to design and implement a stripped-down version of an interpreter for the BASIC language was covered in articles by Allison in the first three quarterly issues of the People's Computer Company newsletter published in 1975 and implementations with source code published in Dr. Dobb's Journal of Tiny BASIC Calisthenics & Orthodontia: Running Light Without Overbyte. This led to a wide variety of Tiny BASICs with added features or other improvements.

Nibbles a snake game written in BASIC

While parents bought a computer for doing home accounts, their kids probably spend a lot of time playing games. While doing so, they also started playing around with the BASIC language to see what they could create. As the popularity of BASIC grew in this period, computer magazines published complete source code in BASIC for video games, utilities, and other programs. Given BASIC's straightforward nature, it was a simple matter to type in the code from the magazine and execute the program. Different magazines were published featuring programs for specific computers, though some BASIC programs were considered universal and could be used in machines running any variant of BASIC (sometimes with minor adaptations). While playing with BASIC and learning how easy it was to learn and use the language, some users attempted to go further and start trying to recreate the games that they had on their computers. Initially creating simple text-based games like text adventure games, but later having grasped how to program, they started learning other programming languages like machine code and C++, creating more complex and in-depth games and creating the first hobby and indie games.

DONKEY.BAS

GORILLAS

When Microsoft started to sell the first computers with MS-DOS, they came with GW-BASIC that was later replaced with QBASIC, a free version of Microsoft Quick BASIC. While on those computers BASIC was not as popular as on the early home computers, it still helped many users to get into programming and create their first games.

QBASIC

In the late 80s, the popularity of BASIC began to wane. But in 1991, Microsoft gave new life to the language by creating Visual Basic, which was object-oriented. Visual Basic made it easy to create simple form-based applications, and the integration with Microsoft Office apps like Excel allowed users that were familiar with BASIC from using it on early home computers to expand the capabilities of office software.

While better programming languages that are both easy to use and powerful exist today, like Python, BASIC has not completely died out. If you want to try playing with BASIC and get a better sense of how early indie games were created, there are a few options.

1. FreeBASIC: A modern BASIC compiler for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and even MS-DOS. FreeBASIC offers modern features like object-oriented programming and support for OpenGL and DirectX. By default, it is not compatible with older BASIC programs, but compatibility can be achieved by running FreeBASIC with the -lang qb parameter, which attempts to replicate QuickBASIC behavior and can compile many QuickBASIC programs without modification. Unlike QuickBASIC, FreeBASIC is a command-line-only compiler unless users manually install an external integrated development environment (IDE). IDEs specifically made for FreeBASIC include FBide and FbEdit. FreeBASIC is a free, open-source product.

FreeBASIC

2. QB64PE: A BASIC compiler for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, designed to be compatible with Microsoft QBasic and QuickBASIC. It offers a modern audio and graphics library, as well as networking capabilities. QB64PE maintains strong compatibility with QuickBASIC and QBasic, though not 100%, and includes a built-in IDE. QB64PE is a free, open-source product.

QB64PE

3. Visual Basic Net: A continuation of Microsoft's Visual Basic, implemented on .NET, Mono, and the .NET Framework. Visual Basic is often used in conjunction with the Windows Forms GUI library to create desktop applications for Windows. Programming with Visual Basic .NET involves dragging and dropping controls on a form using a GUI designer and writing the corresponding code for each control. The Visual Basic .NET compiler is open source, while Visual Studio is free with some commercial features.

4. Microsoft's Small Basic: A BASIC interpreter with a built-in IDE, designed to help students transition from visual programming languages like Scratch to text-based programming. The language has only 14 keywords and includes a "Turtle" graphics library inspired by the Logo family of programming languages. Small Basic is available for Windows and online, and is a free, open-source program.

Microsoft's Small Basic

5. Gambas: An object-oriented dialect of the BASIC programming language, accompanied by an integrated development environment. Available for Linux and FreeBSD, Gambas is designed to build graphical programs using the Qt or GTK toolkit. The Gambas IDE is written in Gambas and includes a GUI designer to aid in creating user interfaces in an event-driven style. Gambas can also create command-line applications and text-based user interfaces. It is a free, open-source program.

Gambas

6. SmallBASIC: Designed to run on minimal hardware, with primary support for platforms like Palm OS, where memory, CPU cycles, and screen space are limited. SmallBASIC supports applications similar to those of GW-BASIC and QBasic on the IBM PC, with capabilities for drawing graphic primitives, creating sounds, string manipulation, and displaying text in various fonts. It is also intended as a tool for mathematics, with built-in functions for unit conversion, algebra, matrix math, trigonometry, statistics, and two- and three-dimensional equation graphing.

7. Others: Several lesser-known implementations of BASIC exist, such as Dragon BASIC for the Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS, wwwBasic for embedding BASIC directly into web pages, Tiny-Basic, a BASIC implementation in Python, and Quite BASIC and qbjs, online implementations of BASIC.

Last Minute update:

Microsoft has released the version 1.1 source code of “Microsoft BASIC for 6502 Microprocessor” on GitHub

Sources:
Wikipedia,

Why every 80s home computer used BASIC (almost)

,
Reddit posts

Free Game In BASIC

2  print "treasure"
4  let c = 0
5  let s = 0
6  let m = 0
7  let k = 0
8  print "------"
9  print "|home|"
10 print "|l  j|"
11 print "|....|"
12 print "enter: "
13 print "1 explore, 0 exit"
14 input c
15 if c = 0 then goto 255
16 print "------------"
17 print "....road...."
18 print "------------"
19 print "enter: "
20 print "1 home, 2 mount"
21 print "3 forest, 4 city"
22 print "5 lake"
23 input c
24 if c = 1 then goto 8
25 if c = 2 then goto 29
26 if c = 3 then goto 46
27 if c = 4 then goto 55
28 if c = 5 then goto 70
29 print "---------"
30 print "/\/\/\/\/"
31 print "--mount--"
32 print "\......./"
33 if m = 0 then print "you do not know"
34 if m = 0 then print "where to search"
35 if m = 0 then print "you return"
36 if m = 0 then goto 16
37 if m = 1 then print "you found the spot"
38 if m = 1 then print "marked on the map"
39 if s = 0 then if m = 1 then print "you cannot dig"
40 if s = 1 then if m = 1 then if k = 0 then print "you dig and find"
41 if s = 1 then if m = 1 then if k = 0 then print "a chest you cannot "
42 if s = 1 then if m = 1 then if k = 0 then print "open you return"
43 if s = 1 then if m = 1 then if k = 0 then goto 16
44 if s = 1 then if m = 1 then if k = 1 then goto 250
46 if s = 1 then print "        ######"
47 if s = 1 then print "|* |* |* |  |"
48 if s = 1 then print "....forest...."
49 if m = 0 then print "you found a map"
50 if m = 0 then print "in a tree hole"
51 let m = 1
53 if m = 1 then print "nothing else"
54 goto 16
55 print "--- ---- --"
56 print "| | |  | ||"
57 print "| | city ||"
58 if s = 0 then print "you buy a shovel"
59 let s = 1
60 if s = 1 then print "need nothing else"
61 goto 16
62 if s = 1 then print "you do not need to buy"
63 goto 16
70 print "\~~~~~~~~/"
71 print " \~~~~~~/"
72 print "  ....."
73 if s = 0 then if k = 0 then print "you find a key"
74 if s = 0 then if k = 0 then print "in the lake but"
75 if s = 0 then if k = 0 then print "your hurt yourself"
76 if s = 0 then if k = 0 then print "trying to pull it out"
77 if s = 0 then if k = 0 then print "you go home to rest"
78 if s = 0 then goto 8
79 if s = 1 then if k = 0 then print "you use the shovel"
80 if s = 1 then if k = 0 then print "to fish out the key"
81 let k = 1
82 if k = 1 then print "nothing else"
83 goto 16
250 print "you dig and find"
251 print "chest you unlock"
252 print "with the key"
253 print "you found gold"
254 print "the end"
255 end

How to run:

Options:
1. Online
You can run the code online here. You will have to type in the code manually with the line numbers, it does not let you paste it. When done type RUN and press enter.

2. C64
I have tested it on a Commodore 64 Emulator VICE and it run, some ASCII characters are different. So it will probably run on a real machine. The VICE emulator lets you paste the code in but make sure you paste the code in lower case.

3. QBASIC/QUICK BASIC/QB64PE/FREEBASIC
If You can run it on an old DOS computer that has QBASIC/QUICK BASIC or using the DOSBOX emulator. It also runs QB64 Phoenix edition and Free Basic. FreeBASIC is another option but it needs to run in QBASIC compatibility mode with the '-lang qb' parameter.

4. FAMICOM (nes) BASIC
The japanese NES called FAMICOM had a keyboard and it's own version of basic the game runs on it with a small modification. The word LET needs to be remove so 'let c = 0' becomes just 'c = 0'

5. OTHER
It will run on any Tiny BASIC system and probably many other basic dialects with small modification.

Walkthrough

Game: Robot battle. Free python game of Issue #4

You have to battle 3 alien robots that have a weakness and use the correct type of missile for each robot's weakness.

The first robot has several 'V' on its robot face, which is the Latin numeral 5. So the correct answer is:

2. Missile type 5

The second Robot has a 'Γ' on its robot face, which is the Greek numeral 3. So the correct answer is:

1. Missile Type 3

The second Robot has two 'M' on its robot face, which is the Latin numeral 1000. So the correct answer is:

3. Missile Type 1000

Congratulations, you killed the aliens and beat the game.

Blast from the past

101 BASIC Computer Games

101 BASIC Computer Games was book published in 1978. The AtariArchives.org has scanned the book and made the pages available on the web. The sources can be found in many locations, for instance at Vintage BASIC.

Virtual disks C64 Disks images that can be used with an emulator like VICE

BASIC Computer Games Vol. 1 on D64 disk image

BASIC Computer Games Vol. 2 on D64 disk image

Indie Hardware

Mega 65

MEGA 65

I found this interesting project a modern continuation of the C64 called Mega 65. A new 8-bit computer running around 40x faster than a C64 while being highly compatible. C65 design, mechanical keyboard, HD output, dual SD cards support, Ethernet, extended memory and more features increase the fun without spoiling the 8-bit feel.

Designed to offer both C64 and C65 compatibility and highly compatible while introducing fantastic new features.

Includes the BASIC 65 Programming Language, based on BASIC10 but enhanced in many ways:
- about 30 new commands
- many bug fixes
- about 40% changed and optimised code:
- fast variables
- 32bit hex-constants
- byte variables and arrays
- binary read/write

Apparently you can also emulate it.

WEB SITE

Corner of Fun

What does a gamer look out for during match making?
Backwards Compatability
Why did the skeleton refuse to play any video games?
Because he had no “body” to play with!
Why did the console break up with the controller?
Because it felt like they were pressing all the wrong buttons!
Why did the mushroom go to the party?
Because he was a fungi.

Meme

I Like this one

INIDIE'D

#news, #games, #gaming-news, #humor, #walktrough, #top10, #indie, #indie-games, #foss, #fossgaming, #fossgames, #open-source, #opensource, #foss-news, #indie-news, #python, #free, #game, #free-game, #freegame, #code, #programming, #casual, #rpg, #demo, #top-10, #gameplay, #screenshots, #mames, #jokes, #comic, #homebrew, #gameboy, #game-boy, #zx-spectrum, #indie-gaming

Why every 80s home computer used BASIC (almost)

Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.

^{Little Car (YouTube)}

B-side gaming

B-side gaming 6 months ago •

B-side Gaming #7 Originally posted on !Bside@fedia.io in September 2025

Welcome

News

Open Source game news

Indie game news

Homebrew news

Featured article: History of BASIC Programming

Free Game In BASIC

Walkthrough

Blast from the past

Indie Hardware

Corner of Fun

INIDIE'D

Why every 80s home computer used BASIC (almost)

B-side gaming
6 months ago