I've been working on this game for over 15 months, so I've found most (hopefully) of the bugs. Bug reports would be welcome, as I intend to support this game for those interested. As of 5/14/97, it's 422 bytes long (fits on two mag cards) and 222 lines. The game is fairly long so if you don't want to key it in, email me to get my mailing address and I'll send copies of the program either on bar code or two magnetic cards you provide for $5. (That's not designed to make me rich!) If you type it in and like it, drop me an email! HP-42 owners, of course, will have to key the game in anyway. :-(
Description: SKUNK is a 2 dice game of part strategy, part luck. I am unaware of the author of the original idea for the game, I think the game is ancient.
The game begins by asking you to enter a decimal seed. Then you are asked to enter the goal in points. 100 is the default if no entry is made, and trying to get to 200 is relatively hard. Then you are asked if HP should go first or yourself. Pressing R/S without an entry makes you go first. To make HP go first, type the letter Y. When it is your turn, flag 1 is set. When HP is playing, flag 2 is set. NOTE: Flags 1 and 2 do NOT determine who is player #1 or player #2. They are just a convenient way to indicate whether it's you that's playing or HP. Sorry if that turns out to be a little confusing, but....
At this point you begin play. Player #1 rolls first, and his options are to Roll or Pass. By pressing the A key, the dice are rolled, and by pressing the E key you may pass. The object is to roll as many times as you can without getting "Skunked". One is "Skunked" when a one is rolled on either die. If no ones are rolled, then the sum of the two dice is added to the pot. If you are "Skunked" then you lose your turn and the pot goes to zero. If you choose to pass at some time, then the current pot is added to your score. The pot then returns to zero, and the play passes to the next player.
It is extremely disastrous to be "Double Skunked". This is, of course, when a one is rolled on each die. At this point, the pot goes to zero, your score goes to zero, and you lose your turn. This is most undesirable.
The status of the game is shown in the display as:
0,0: PP YY HP or 0,0: PP HP YY
depending on if it's your turn or HP's, and where PP is the point total in the "Pot", YY is your point total (assuming it's your turn), and HP is the HP's point total.
Now, it is only fair that everyone get the same amount of turns, so if player #1 should reach or pass the goal score, then player #2 has one more turn to pass the score of player #1. Thus, if both players reach the destination score, the winner is the player with the highest score. You can see the advantages to being player #2. If player #2 reaches the destination score, and player #1 has not yet reached it, player #2 wins immediately.
If both players reach the destination score and are tied, then HP wins. This game is actually fairly tough to beat! If you can beat this game more than 6 times out of 10, congratulations! Game play hinges on your willingness to risk the points in the pot to roll again. Enjoy!
See: Press: (Comments in brackets)
XEQ "SKK" (Remember to clear flag 26 for a quiet game)
SEED? 0.987654321 R/S
GOAL? R/S (We'll play to 100, the default)
HP 1ST? N R/S (We'll go first and let HP have the final turn)
0,0:0 0 0 A (Press A or the Sigma+ key (HP-41) or XEQ A (HP-42)
5,2:7 0 0 A (A total of 7 points is in the pot)
1,6:14 0 0
SKUNK (A 1 showed up, so I got skunked. It's HP's turn now)
3,6:9 0 0
1,6:16 0 0
SKUNK (HP got skunked on it's second roll. My turn again)
0,0:0 0 0 A
3,4:7 0 0 A
6,6:19 0 0 E (I'll hold onto the 19 points, so I'll pass to the HP)
3,3:6 0 19
1,6:13 0 19
SKUNK (HP got skunked again. Notice my 19 points got moved)
0,0:0 19 0 A
4,2:6 19 0 A
1,6:13 19 0
SKUNK (I got skunked again)
2,6:8 0 19
2,1:11 0 19
SKUNK (HP got skunked again)
0,0:0 19 0 A
6,4:10 19 0 A
3,3:16 19 0 A
2,2:20 19 0 A
6,4:30 19 0 E (I'll keep the 30 add'l points)
2,2:4 0 49
6,1:11 0 49
SKUNK (HP continues to get skunked. Maybe I'll win 100 to 0?)
0,0:0 49 0 A
3,6:9 49 0 A
3,4:16 49 0 E (I'll keep the 16 add'l points)
4,1:5 0 65
SKUNK (HP sure is getting skunked alot)
0,0:0 65 0 A
4,2:6 65 0 A
4,3:13 65 0 E (I'll keep the 13 points)
3,4:7 0 78
5,1:13 0 78
SKUNK (Skunked again! Will HP ever score?)
0,0:0 78 0 A
1,5:6 78 0
SKUNK (Now I got skunked)
6,1:7 0 78
SKUNK (HP is skunked again)
0,0:0 78 0 A
3,2:5 78 0 E (I want HP to score sometime!)
5,1:6 0 83
SKUNK (Oh well)
0,0:0 83 0 A
1,3:4 83 0
SKUNK (Depending on starting seed, you can have lots of skunks!)
5,4:9 0 83
4,5:18 0 83
5,3:26 0 83 (How about that! HP scored!)
0,0:0 83 26 A (I'll go for the kill now!)
5,6:11 83 26 A
6,5:22 83 26 E (I'll be over 100 points now, so HP has to beat me!)
3,5:8 26 83
1,2:3 26 83 (Oh well)
SKUNK
You win
Y:105 HP:26
A few lines of the program below might need some explanation. The symbols "->" means APPEND alpha characters. When you see X NE Y? that is X is not equal to Y? RDN is roll down. Line 80 is append 1 space. So is line 86.
X-functions are used in only a few places. The X<>F instruction is used to set/clear flags in lines 5, 32, and 153. ATOX is used in line 22. If someone wants a version that doesn't use these, email me. It doesn't take much extra programming to mimic what these would do, if you have a vintage HP-41C, for example. Otherwise, use the X-functions. ;-)
Technical specs: This game requires Size of 008 and uses flags 0, 1, 2, 6, 7, and 10. Memory 0 holds the random number seed. Memories 1 and 2 hold the two dice. Memory 3 holds the sum of the two dice. Memory 4 holds the human's score while memory 5 holds the HP's score. Memory 6 holds the goal point total being played to. Memory 7 is a counter used to determine HP's move (that I could probably get rid of if I did a proper analysis of the stack! Well, there's only so many hours in the day!)
Line Instruction 01 LBL "SKK" 02 LBL 07 03 SF 27 04 CLX 05 X<>F 06 CF 10 07 FIX 0 08 CF 29 09 "SEED?" 10 PROMPT 11 CLRG 12 STO 00 13 "GOAL?" 14 2 15 10^X 16 PROMPT 17 STO 06 18 "HP 1ST?" 19 AON 20 STOP 21 AOFF 22 ATOX 23 89 24 X=Y? 25 GTO 20 26 SF 10 27 LBL 99 28 CLX 29 STO 01 30 STO 02 31 STO 03 32 X<>F 33 SF 01 34 XEQ C 35 TONE 9 36 STOP 37 LBL A 38 XEQ 00 39 TONE 9 40 FS? 06 41 GTO 13 42 FS? 07 43 GTO 09 44 RTN 45 GTO A 46 LBL 13 47 FS? 07 48 GTO 10 49 LBL 09 50 XEQ 14 51 FS? 10 52 GTO 20 53 RCL 06 54 RCL 05 55 X < Y? 56 GTO 20 57 RCL 04 58 X > Y? 59 GTO 90 60 LBL 98 61 "TOO BAD" 62 AVIEW 63 TONE 3 64 TONE 1 65 LBL 08 66 PSE 67 "Y:" 68 ARCL 04 69 ->" HP:" 70 ARCL 05 71 PROMPT 72 GTO 07 73 LBL C 74 CLA 75 ARCL 01 76 ->"," 77 ARCL 02 78 ->":" 79 ARCL 03 80 ->" " 81 RCL 04 82 RCL 05 83 FS? 01 84 X<>Y 85 ARCL X 86 ->" " 87 ARCL Y 88 AVIEW 89 RTN 90 LBL 10 91 PSE 92 "DOUBLE SKUNK" 93 AVIEW 94 TONE 0 95 TONE 0 96 FS?C 00 97 GTO 90 98 CLX 99 FS? 02 100 STO 05 101 FC?C 01 102 GTO 99 103 STO 04 104 GTO 20 105 LBL E 106 RCL 03 107 ST+ 04 108 RCL 04 109 RCL 06 110 X < = Y? 111 SF 00 112 FS? 10 113 GTO 20 114 FC? 00 115 GTO 20 116 LBL 90 117 "YOU WIN" 118 AVIEW 119 BEEP 120 GTO 08 121 LBL 00 122 XEQ 00 123 STO 01 124 XEQ 00 125 STO 02 126 1 127 X=Y? 128 SF 07 129 RCL 01 130 X=Y? 131 SF 06 132 RCL 02 133 + 134 ST+ 03 135 GTO C 136 LBL 00 137 RCL 00 138 997 139 * 140 FRC 141 STO 00 142 6 143 * 144 1 145 + 146 INT 147 RTN 148 LBL 20 149 CLX 150 STO 03 151 FS? 00 152 1 153 X <> F 154 SF 02 155 3 156 STO 07 157 LBL 06 158 XEQ 00 159 FS? 06 160 GTO 11 161 FS? 07 162 GTO 04 163 TONE 7 164 PSE 165 RCL 03 166 RCL 05 167 + 168 RCL 06 169 X<=Y? 170 GTO 05 171 FS? 00 172 GTO 06 173 RCL 07 174 3 175 X NE Y? 176 GTO 02 177 RCL 06 178 RCL 04 179 - 180 10 181 X>Y? 182 GTO 02 183 RCL 03 184 X > Y? 185 GTO 03 186 LBL 02 187 DSE 07 188 GTO 06 189 LBL 03 190 FS? 00 191 GTO 06 192 RCL 03 193 ST+ 05 194 GTO 99 195 LBL 05 196 RDN 197 STO 05 198 FC? 10 199 GTO 99 200 RCL 04 201 X < = Y? 202 GTO 98 203 RCL 03 204 ST- 05 205 GTO 06 206 LBL 11 207 FS? 07 208 GTO 10 209 LBL 04 210 XEQ 14 211 FC? 10 212 GTO 99 213 FS? 00 214 GTO 90 215 GTO 99 216 LBL 14 217 PSE 218 "SKUNK" 219 AVIEW 220 TONE 7 221 TONE 0 222 END