Beast (video game)

Beast is an ASCII game written and developed by Dan Baker, Alan Brown, Mark Hamilton and Derrick Shadel in 1984.

Game introduction

The object of this arcade-like game is to survive through a number of levels while crushing the "beasts" (represented by the character H) with the movable blocks. The H's are attracted to the player's position (represented by a "diamond-like" character) every move. The beginning levels have only the common beasts ("H"), however from level H and forth the more challenging "super-beasts" appear. These are represented by a "double h" character. There is no good way to describe it, except from that it is taken from the part of the DOS code page intended for drawing tables. These "super-beasts" are harder to kill as they must be crushed against a static block. At level P the eggs are introduced, implying greater challenge. These enemies are dormant at the beginning of each level, but will in time hatch into a "hatched beast". These beasts are the hardest to kill, as they can also move blocks to crush the player. They can however be killed as easily as the regular beasts, against any object.

Controls and game physics

While at the main screen the player can press F1 to see high scores, F2 to set game speed and F10 to exit to DOS. Selecting difficulty level is done by pressing any English letter (A-Z). Note that the four levels L through O are user definable. Pressing the space bar at the main screen will start the game at the selected level, or at the default level E if no level has been selected. When the game has started the player can control the diamond-shaped character by using the arrow keys or the numeric keypad to move around and/or push blocks. To push blocks, simply move into them. To pull blocks, the player must be adjacent to a block, then hold down the space bar while moving into an empty square. The ability to pull blocks is only available on the easier levels (A-I). Using the numeric keypad to move around allows for better movement, because it allows the player to move in all eight directions without combining the arrow keys. Pressing F10 while in game will immediately return to the main screen.

In Beast there are two kinds of blocks; the normal green block and the yellow static block. While the normal block is movable, the yellow block cannot be pushed or pulled. These static blocks also become "explosive" from the advanced levels and forth. This means the player will lose a life by moving into one.

trategies

HARD

*Winning level: 6

EXPERT

*Winning level: 15

PRO

*Winning level: 20