Intergalactic Space Rescue

Download: rescue.bas
Size 6kb, downloads 987.

"Fools! Don't they know that space is dangerous?"

In this game, you pilot a space rescue vessel looking for stricken starships to rescue their crew and passengers. Starting on a relatively easy mission, you must follow the signal from a rescue beacon to find the shipwreck sending the distress signal. You know how far away the wreck is by the strength of the signal, but not the direction, so you must move towards where the signal gets stronger.

This isn't easy though. Hazards prevent your ease of passage, just like they did for that starship you're looking for. Asteroids threaten to damage your ship, and navigation through them costs extra fuel. Hyperspaces are wormholes that will throw your ship into a random part of the galaxy if you should get sucked into them. To balance things out, there are friendly planets that can refuel your ship.

Your warp drive has enough fuel to return home, so if you run out of impulse fuel, you can warp home to refuel and then attempt the mission again. There are a hundred missions, each harder than the last. You don't have to play them all; performing your duties efficiently will fast-track you towards bigger challenges and a well-deserved retirement.

The BASIC code of this game takes full advantage of the optional line number feature of this project's Tiny BASIC variant, with few line numbers and those not in ascending order. It also shows how to do procedural generation to create a consistent game world without the need for arrays.