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- KELLY'S BEACH
- by Ed Bolton
-
- Kelly's Beach is an imaginary beach
- microworld which can be populated
- with people and things by the player.
- The beach scene is manipulated by
- first naming an object to be
- manipulated. There are currently 15
- objects:
-
- house tree bush cloud sun
- bird plane dog boy girl
- pony car truck boat fish
-
- Having named the object, the object
- may be manipulated by naming one or
- more action words. There are
- currently 21 action words:
-
- red yellow orange green blue
- purple brown small big tall
- wide left right up down
- fast slow go stop zap
- free
-
- When the program begins, there is an
- empty beach scene. In the foreground
- at the bottom is the ocean, behind
- (and above) that is the beach
- followed by a strip of grass,
- followed by a road, another strip of
- grass and the sky. Some objects are
- only allowed in certain parts of the
- scene; i.e. the boat and the fish can
- only be in the water; and the car and
- truck can only be on the road. All
- other objects can be anywhere but the
- sky and the water. Objects are named
- and manipulated by typing the
- appropriate words. The syntax is very
- simple. Action words always apply to
- the last object named. Up to 40
- characters may be entered at one
- time. The only edit keys allowed are
- cursor left and right, insert and
- delete. Press the RETURN key to pass
- that line of text to the program for
- evaluation and action. Example input:
-
- boy <return>
-
- A picture of a boy will appear in the
- scene. His color will be alternating
- between blue and gray. This alternate
- flashing between the color selected
- (blue is the default) and gray
- indicates the last or current object
- named. The current object is the one
- to which all action words apply.
-
- red up <return>
-
- The boy will turn red and move up a
- little (unless moving up would put
- him into the sky - little boys can't
- fly).
-
- sun yellow go cloud purple go fast
- boat big left fast <return>
-
- A yellow sun will appear in the sky
- moving slowly left. A purple cloud
- will appear in the sky moving rapidly
- left. When the sun and the cloud
- reach the left of the display they
- will go around the microworld and
- reappear at the right edge of the
- display. Everything else that can
- 'go' fast or slow will turn and go
- back the other way when it reaches
- the edge of the display. The tree,
- bush and house cannot 'go'; they
- cannot be set in motion. Some of the
- laws of physics apply even in a
- microworld. Finally a large blue boat
- will appear in the water moving
- rapidly to the left. Actually, this
- line is more than 40 characters long
- so it could not be all entered at the
- same time. The point here is that
- many words can be entered on the same
- line - up to 40 characters.
-
- Only eight objects (sprites) are
- allowed in the beach scene a one
- time. In this case the laws of the
- C64 rather than the laws of physics
- apply. If a ninth object is named,
- the oldest (first named) object is
- removed before the new one is placed
- in the scene. This choice won't
- always be to the players liking. So
- the action word ZAP is provided. Zap
- will remove the current object;
- making room for some other object.
- Sometimes a player will want to just
- watch the beach scene he/she has
- created without having the current
- object changing color. The action
- word FREE does that.
-
- If only action words are entered
- without naming an object (or
- following free), they are simply
- ignored. If the action words go,
- slow, fast or stop are applied to
- tree, bush or house, they too are
- simply ignored. On the other hand, if
- a word is entered with is not in the
- list of objects or action words, all
- words up to that word are acted on,
- then the remainder of the line is
- displayed again with the offending
- word in red.
-