Repton Infinity

Since the first Boulderdash-like Repton was released in 1985 Superior Software had had a string of hits featuring the iconic character but by 1988 the series had fallen into a familiar pattern of updates using the Repton 3 engine. Updates had been made easy by the inclusion of sprite and map editors in this game that allowed anyone to create new maps and change the look of the game and Life of Repton, Around the World in 40 Screens and Repton Thru Time were all created in this way. However as well as being useful to Superior themselves (there was an almost insatiable demand for Repton games from fans) the sprite and level editor recieved a great response from Repton players who showed the same enthusiasm for the creativity these tools allowed as members of the mod-scene that sprang up around PC gaming later would.

Seizing on this enthusiasm Repton Infinity was an attempt to further empower Repton gamers as creators. While not a complete game construction kit it allows games with a Repton like scrolling map to be created through the use of a map editor called Landscape, a sprite editor called Filmstrip and the behavior of game objects to be scripted using a language called Reptol in the Blueprint editing tool. In many ways it can be likened to an 8-bit Neverwinter Nights for the puzzle genre and was certainly an extremely ambitious undertaking for the time.

Filmstrip is a pretty basic sprite editor allowing you to work a pixel at a time. Repton Infinity allows for upto forty eight sprites however a number of these are reserved for the animation of the main character and four for "special" sprites such as a blank space and a wall while fourteen other sprites can be composed of two frames of animation. Each sprite can also be given a smaller iconic equivelant which will be displayed on the ingame map and in the palette of the various editors (filmstrip included). Having defined the look of your sprites you then place them using the Landscape editor. Again this is fairly basic but gets the job done: the map is viewed using the small sprite icons and you can place the sprites of your choice on the map grid. This is all very similar to the editors available in Repton 3 but its in Blueprint where the difference between the two games becomes dramatically apparent.

Blueprint allows you to associate scripts written in the Reptol language with the various game objects. For example in Repton 3 there is a spirit that runs along the left wall of the map and opens a cage if it runs into one. Whereas in previous games in the series this behaviour was hardcoded into the game engine by the developer in Repton Infinities version of Repton 3 the spirits behaviour is implemented in Reptol as shown in the script on this page.

NAME Spirit

DEFINE TYPE
  SolidToMonster
  Deadly
  Animate
  One
DEFINE ACTION
  LOOK(L)
  IF NotSolidToSpirit
    MOVE(L)
    END
  ELSE
    LOOK(F)
    IF NotSolidToSpirit
      MOVE(F)
      END
    ELSE
      LOOK(R)
      IF NotSolidToSpirit
        MOVE(R)
        END
      ELSE
        LOOK(B)
        IF NotSolidToSpirit
          MOVE(B)
        ENDIF
      ENDIF
    ENDIF
  ENDIF Reptol is based around the idea of assigning game objects types, actions and hits. The type section is used to assign flags to each object that tell the system something about that object for example that it can be squashed by rocks. Some of these flags are predefined however the user can create as many flags of there own as they like. The system continually scans the map and applies the action section as it comes across each object. Within the action section the script placed there can examine the map, move the object around and check object states amongst other things. Finally the hits section enables you to script what happens when other objects hit this object. Through these various sections reasonably complex scripts could be built up.

After creating your graphics, maps and scripts you must compile the whole package using the File Linker. If you are using a Model B then this step is necessary to both test and share your game with others however if you are using a BBC Master there is no need to compile the package to try out your changes.

Loading Screen To serve as examples of what could be accomplished with the tools and to provide something to play immediately the game shipped with four example games. Two of these games feature Repton as the hero the first being Repton 3 Take 2 which is basically a version of the original created using the Infinity tools. The second game to feature Repton is titled Repton 4 and adds the kind of things to the classic gameplay that you would imagine Superior would have done if they'd produced a more straightforward sequel including more monsters and new puzzle features. The other two examples are Robbo and Trakker which are yet further twists on Repton style gameplay. Of the two Trakker is the more interesting featuring an assistant and Repton as a villain. All the graphics, maps and Reptol scripts are supplied and freely editable for these games which makes them a perfect starting point for creating your own games.

In practice the complexity of the tools does have an impact on gameplay. Games created in Repton Infinity run noticeably slower than previous Repton games - presumably the cost of running the Reptol code rather than code written in assembler and optimised entirely for a specific game. Furthermore even on a BBC Master there were large borders to the top and left of the playing area though this is a somewhat minor complaint as there is still a large viewing area. The game was also released before the Internet made sharing files easy and cheap and this meant that many gamers were never able to try out other peoples creations. Bulletin boards did exist but modems and telephone costs were expensive.

In many ways Repton Infinity was a game ahead of its time and appearing so late in the BBCs life its takeup was always going to be small but its worth checking out today if for no other reason than to see just how far ahead of its time it really was and for what can be done with a 32k 8-bit micro.