It's time for a racing game on the BBC Micro, and...ugh. This could have been better.
Race Track is a racing game for the BBC Micro by Roland Kitching and published in Acorn Magazine, December 1984, Issue 8.
The aim of the game is simple enough. Complete ten tracks, each lap being more difficult than the last without going off the track, running into a wall or another race car, or running out of time before completing a lap. Your blue car can crash, but the red ones cannot.
Z goes left, X goes right, : goes up and / goes down. The space bar is supposed to accelerate, but it does nothing, and Escape takes you back to the help page. To start the race, press S.
When you get to the gameplay screen, the amount of laps you have, your current fuel (time) and your score are on the white area on the top. You also get to see how many lives out of three that you left below your current lap number.
Some tracks are more narrow than others, especially near the end.
When you complete a lap, a red wall will appear somewhere on the race track. You will have to avoid the red wall in addition to everything else on the next lap. When you complete another lap, another red wall will show up. The enemies can go through the red walls; you cannot.
There's also a glitch in this game, too. If you get a high score and your name is more than six letters long, the game crashes the next time you play it, and you'll have to press the Break key to reload the game. Also, you have to turn Caps Lock on for lowercase letters when putting your name in. Weird.
The game could use some work. I can't complain about the graphics and the sound, but the controls require me to hold buttons down to move and the race track itself is enough of a hindrance to make even getting one lap completed a chore. There is a good game in here, but there is stuff holding it back. Play at your own risk.
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