Introduction
Hello. This is my first game coded 100% in assembler. The idea comes from an old game I coded in Basic long ago for MSX as well. I used to play quite a lot to this game with my brother so when I saw there was a competition I decided to code this little game and add some music and sounds. The graphics have been improved too. 

Code: I started to code it in an MSX2 8235 till it crashed and 'burned' when I tried to copy a cartridge I have. No 8235, no cartridge and no 1 mega Padial's cartridge anymore ... so, I kept coding in a 8280 with 128k and Compass ... I was able to code only a few k's because of the 128k. Then I used a Turbo-r ST with 512k and everything was OK. Then -the most important part- I wanted to test it on my MSX1 so I bought an external disk drive. I received one from Japan and used it with a transformer but I plug it the wrong way ... so I had a MSX1 and a Japanese toaster. After being fixed I could test it, at last. Since not much speed is needed, I used Bios calls, except for the music routine. 

Graphics: Only SCREEN 1 is used. The main tool has been a character designer coded in Basic and a pen and paper. Then I dumped the datas in VRAM to a file to be inserted in COMPASS as a ASCII file. 

Music: Well, I know is quite short. But it's very memory consuming since the AY registers are updated in every interrupt. No Bios call here, obviously. I didn't use any SID effect since I thought I was going to have too much raw data for a 16k game so I don't update R11, R12 and R13. At the end, I realized I had some more space in the game for music but everything was done and I had had enough error-and-try with the Bassdrum and samples. 

Game modes
There are two modes, actually. 

MODE 1: The best of five. The players have to bet for a penguin from 1 to 3. The winner will be given a white square in one of his/her three empty boxes. The one who gets three white squares is the winner. The player (human) can play against a friend (human) or against the MSX (MSX1). 

MODE 2: Bet your fish. It's a only two players mode. You have to play against a friend of yours. You both are given 25 fish to start with. Then, again, you have to bet for a penguin but, firstly, you are asked for betting some fish; you can bet from 1 to 4 fish. The one has no fish left loses and the one who has 83 fish wins. I decided to set 83 as the maximum because the MSX was created in 1983, 20 years ago, which is the leitmotiv of this competition. 

Keyboard
SPACE: Whenever you see the symbol '>'.
1/2/3: Whenever you are asked for betting for a penguin and in the options.
CURSORS: For betting fish. Right cursor = more fish, left cursor = less fish.
ESC: In menu options for quitting.


Technical data
Game name: Penguin Race
Format: MSX 16 KB ROM
Type of game: Bet
Programmer: Alfonso D.C.
e-mail: dioniso072@yahoo.es
Year: 2003