#Day 179 of the year 2020;


BLITZWAYS
... or:
How to write a game
over the span of 28 years.

(Free download below)

Game Logo


BlitzWays is an oldschool puzzle game inspired by the mechanisms of titles like Mahjong or Lin-Wu's Challenge and was written in the Blitz BASIC programming language. The game was released exclusively for the Amiga 500, one of the most popular and iconic computers of the 1990's, sold by Commodore Business Machines, who also created the Commodore C=64. The Amiga series of computers has a cult following among retro-computer enthusiasts, and many games and demos are still being created for it, to this very day.

IMPORTANT NOTE
When you insert the disk into your Amiga (or emulator) and boot from it, the first progam you will see is a socalled "cracktro". This is a reference to the days when "crackers" removed the copy protection of games and put their own little advertisement infront of the game. You can skip the cracktro by clicking the left mouse button. The game will start automatically afterwards, all instructions are displayed on your screen.
Do not write-protect the disk. Do not remove the disk until the game has properly quit (as described below), or else the game might crash and/or all your progress is lost. If the game finds your highscores corrupted, new ones will be created without notice.


DOWNLOAD:

Minimum hardware: Amiga 500+ (ECS), 1MB Chip-RAM, Kickstart 2.0 or higher.
Or a computer with Microsoft Windows 7/8/10 installed.

BlitzWaysV1.3 ADF zip <-- This is for people who own a real Amiga.
BlitzWaysV1.3 FILES zip <-- Files for your Amiga-Harddisk. (see .readme)
BlitzWaysV1.3 WINDOWS <-- For people using MS-Windows, who don't have an Amiga and just want to try the game out. You don't need to install or know anything. Simply click the link and download, then right-click 'extract to BlitzWaysWin\' and then double-click on "Start_BlitzWays.bat" - the game will automatically start (follow on-screen-instructions). It is very easy.
(Click to skip intro, press ALT+F4 to exit the emulator at any time)


Caution: if you terminate the game prematurely (by quitting the emulator ALT+F4), neither scores nor unlocked levels will be saved! Always exit the game by pressing the ESC key and wait until the game tells you that it's safe to turn the computer (emulator) off.


Official mirrors: [scene.org]
Sourcecode: https://github.com/wertstahl/blitzways <<<<<<<


BlitzWays is intended for kids also, probably from the age of 12+. I'd have loved to play it when i was 12.

BlitzWays is Freeware, but copyrights apply.
(c)1996, 2020 Sebastian I. Hartmann aka Wertstahl/Genesis*Project, all rights reserved. No sale or redistribution without permission. Do not download this game from anywhere else but the sources mentioned above, for safety reasons.



grumpy ide cursor

BACKSTORY

BlitzWays was originally called "Stone", and a heavily MahJong inspired concept by ISK. He and MK had coded a basic functioning version in Amiga assembler, for which ISK asked me to do the graphics and music. We knew each other from a highschool context. In the summer holidays of 1992, whilst fanatically listening to Cabaret Voltaire's Body And Soul, i spent about 6 weeks to create the original graphics and music (full soundtrack included in the .zip file above). Shortly after my work was completed, ISK encountered some very unfortunate personal events, and lost all interest in anything coding-related and subsequently, the project was abandoned, since MK also had lost interest in the project.

Later, in 1996, whilst archiving my Amiga files, i rediscovered the game assets and remembered. In view of the effort put in, i decided to finish the game on my own, now in the last released version of the programming language BlitzBasic, Blitz2. I began to re-write the entire codebase. And was distracted by events like life and i let the game rest 70% finished, in my archive again.

Stones

In 2004, a newly 3rd party coded mobile-phone-version was made, which i initiated. Most of the levels the game features now come from that version. The mobile version flopped, due to lack of interest and it took another 15 years for me to look at the sourcecode again, because i considered the topic concluded.

Time passed at an inconceivable pace. I fixed my lukewarm Amiga emulation and tried to get into Blitz2 again. And one magic night in 2019 i discovered earoks BlitzBasic2 extension for Visual Studio Code. Insert TA-DAA here: you can actually Blitz2 in a cross-development setup?

And thats when i thought, well, "hold my beer while i finish this, quickly."

Additional eight nerve-racking months plus a very steep learning curve later, including recapping and restaurating my good old 1989 Amiga 500, here we go: BlitzWays is finished. After 28 years from start to finish. Phew.


On June 27th. BlitzWays was officially released at the Demoparty Gubbdata 2020 in Lund, Scania, - for the first time to the public, shown 'out of compo' prior to the demo competitions.



ABOUT THE GAME / MANUAL

BlitzWays is a concentration-demanding puzzle-deconstruction game in the fashion of MahJong and Lin-Wus Challenge. You pick pairs systematically from a large set of tiles and respect certain rules of alignment or accessibility.

BlitzWays actually focuses on finding a way through a set of tiles that can be arranged in various formations, obstacles, traps and also dynamic diversions.
The key to mastering BlitzWays is to quickly assess how many duplicates of certain tiles are there, what special dynamic factors and traps are in the map, and how to remove tiles in the best order, taking the shortest WAYS possible.
Once you completed all levels, you would want to master the entire set of levels in the fastest time possible, resulting in the ultimate high score, rewarding you with the confidence of a truly focused mind.



#HOW TO PLAY
Insert disk and let your ECS Amiga 500+ boot from it.

Use Mouse to play. You will need to focus. This is a game that demands all of your concentration. To get a good idea how the game works, wait for the 5th main game screen (autoplay demo) or play the tutorial.

Click left to start playing at any time during the main-screen-show.

All levels are arranged in a 8 by 8 tiles matrix.

Click the first tile of the outer margin of any group of tiles and then select the matching identical tile, if it can be connected by a pathWAY that turns 90 degrees TWICE in any direction.

The rule is: think around two corners. (A corner being 90 degrees)

If the pathWAY between both tiles is not blocked by any other tile and has two 90 degree turns in any direction, the pick is valid and both tiles will be removed from the playfield. There are no guides except other tiles in the playingfield.

If you clear the playingfield before time runs out, the level is completed. Bonuses for remaining time and accuracy of picking pairs of tiles apply. Misclicks, as well as impossible paths are counted as "NO WAY!". You need to focus more! NO WAYs are forgiven after some time, when the game notices you are focused again. NO WAYs result in a penalty, which is deducted from your score after each completed level. To deselect a tile, click on the tile you selected in the first place, again.

These are examples of the basic valid pathWAYs which can ofcourse vary in segment lenght:    O   = tile    +   = turn    -   = way segment

Valid Ways

These pathWAYs for example are obviously INVALID:

Invalid Ways

If the same tile appears more than two times, be careful in which order you pick them, because the level can become unsolvable. (Those are traps.)
Only quitting (hit `ESC`) and trying again harder, will help you, then.



#KEY COMMANDS
Press `ESC` at any time to cancel or quit the game.

Press M to toggle between Music and Sound Effects.

Press P to pause and unpause.

Please always exit the game by pressing 'ESC' until you get back to the AMIGA DOS window. Only then will your highscores and level progress be saved.

Do not write-protect the disk.
Do not remove the disk from your amiga while playing.
Do not alter any file or filename on the disk.



CREDITS AND THANKS

(c) 1992,1996,2020 Sebastian I. Hartmann aka Wertstahl/Genesis*Project
BlitzWays is freeware. No sale or redistribution without permission.

If you found a bug and you know what you are talking about, send me an email until the year 2045 to: wertstahl(at)gmx.de

Last but not least - my thanks go to all the testers and people who helped me make this game possible. Special thanks to Hedning, Phreedh and the entire Gubbdata posse! Also a huge thanks goes to Bonefish for making the `cracktro` in an inhumanely short amount of time (3 Days!)! Rrrispeck!

enjoy the game,
beat the highscore,
best,
SIH

karlstein a.main, bavaria, 27-JUN-2020


Sebastian
A surprised me in 1992, playing Turrican II.

©1998, 2020 wertstahl | wertstahl is a battlecommand.org product | all rights reserved
administrative contact || e-mail: wertstahl[at]gmx.de || Datenschutz
Impressum: [Privatperson] sebastian i. hartmann, wuerzburger str. 1, d-63791 karlstein am main, bavaria