TOWNSCAPE – a new program for small children

[arnolde]

I made a "kind of game" for my nearly four year old son to show him how computing used to work back in my childhood. It's inspired by a german card/jigsaw game which is even older than the CPC, so in a sense it's "double retro".  This was made mainly for my son, but your kids might enjoy it as well, it's pretty self explanatory.

Download it on Ich.io

...and have fun!

[cwpab]

Interesting... How does this "special" German jigsaw game work? I can't deduce much from the screenshots.

[Gryzor]

Heh, really nice! Too bad my little one doesn't seem to comprehend how the fuck a screen can be not a touch screen

[arnolde]

Heh, really nice! Too bad my little one doesn't seem to comprehend how the fuck a screen can be not a touch screen

That's exactly what this is about ;-)

[arnolde]

Interesting... How does this "special" German jigsaw game work? I can't deduce much from the screenshots.

It's not so much a game but rather an activity. Kids can put together their own pictures of cities or towns with ready-made tiles, showing cars, houses, streets, park etc. It was a toy with square cardboard tiles that could be arranged in a frame back then and I loved it as a kid.

I might post some kind of "making of" later if anyone is interested.

[Gryzor]

Interesting... How does this "special" German jigsaw game work? I can't deduce much from the screenshots.

It's not so much a game but rather an activity. Kids can put together their own pictures of cities or towns with ready-made tiles, showing cars, houses, streets, park etc. It was a toy with square cardboard tiles that could be arranged in a frame back then and I loved it as a kid.

I might post some kind of "making of" later if anyone is interested.

Funny thing, that's a 'game' mine has been playing since yesterday on his iPad

[genesis8]

Heh, really nice! Too bad my little one doesn't seem to comprehend how the fuck a screen can be not a touch screen

That's exactly what this is about ;-)

I see a good solution to make past and present united, add support in your game for the Amstrad Magnum Phaser, double fun for your kid and showing how we did it the good way !

:-)

Why using touching support when we can shoot it ?

[XeNoMoRPH]

[ervin]

This is very nice!

If I could offer one suggestion... the scrolling of tiles would be more comfortable if it moved one tile row at a time, rather one character row at a time. 

[arnolde]

This is very nice!

If I could offer one suggestion... the scrolling of tiles would be more comfortable if it moved one tile row at a time, rather one character row at a time.

Yes, in principle I agree, but I thought that this way, the concept of scrolling through multiple rows of tiles might be easier to understand for modern kids.

[arnolde]

add support in your game for the Amstrad Magnum Phaser

Wow, that's a crazy idea! I never had a shooter back then and I was never really aquainted or used to that input method. But I will think about adding supprt...

[seanmcmanus]

This looks like a lot of fun. Thanks for sharing it with the community.

[cwpab]

FUN FACT: Unlike Bruce Lee, the Saboteur series and many other games, Townscape has scrolling... and it's better than the one in Gryzor, Ghost N Goblins and Green Beret!

[arnolde]

Townscape has scrolling... and it's better than the one in Gryzor, Ghost N Goblins and Green Beret!

...and the nice thing is that it's just the the firmware routines – the same ones that are responsible for scrolling in text windows in Basic... Generally, i used a lot of firmware for this program and I was again astonished how efficient it is and how well it can be incorporated in custom software! 

[eto]

Townscape has scrolling... and it's better than the one in Gryzor, Ghost N Goblins and Green Beret!

It's perfect for Townscape and based on what I see it definitely should have been used more often but I'm not sure if character size scrolling is feasible for all games. If I am not mistaken e.g. Roland on the Ropes or Roland in the Caves used this type of scrolling. 

[eto]

I made a "kind of game" for my nearly four year old son to show him how computing used to work back in my childhood. It's inspired by a german card/jigsaw game which is even older than the CPC, so in a sense it's "double retro".  This was made mainly for my son, but your kids might enjoy it as well, it's pretty self explanatory.

This is absolutely amazing. This would have been a hit in the 80s. 

Too sad my kids are no longer in the right age :-) But if I ever have grand kids, they will definitely love it. 

Maybe some (optional) sound effects would make it even more appealing. Nothing too fancy of course. 

[cwpab]

While I was 8-11 years old when I had a 6128 in my room (and not 4 years old as the target audience for this), I wouldn't have minded having Townscape as an example of a CPC application as opposed to my 80, mostly pirated, games.

There was something relaxing about 80s and 90s applications because they let you do whatever you want with no fixed objectives. I had Deluxe Paint for MS-DOS (first time I used a mouse), Music 2000 for the Playstation... and nothing for the PS2, and those and the CPC were my main gaming platorms in my life (with arcades and Game Boy on a secondary tier).

My dad had a few applications, but I wouldn't mess with them. But it's about, you know, the feeling that you can control these tiles, choose the one you want... Oh I remember I experienced something similar with the awesome track editor in Stunts/4D Sports Driving.

As a kid or teenager in the pre-Interwebs era, that feeling was cool.