Love this. Great backstory too. @bedroom coder, it's possible to have the loading screen not be obscured by the following load message. I've put a TAP together demonstrating this, and a randomise idea. Are you interested in seeing it?
Yeah the loading POKEs can make a BASIC game go funny. It took me a few tries! In the TAP below, check out the first loader, which I restructured to just one line. The loading message POKE is 23739,111. Then in your main game, check line 3. I moved your POKEs there, and a PAUSE 0 so it waits for a keypress for all the people using turbo loaders.
The CLEAR is to reset the system variables, because the POKE 23739 can mess things up sometimes.
I put RANDOMIZE there too, because it looks like you get the same game every time in the original version.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1URnxyn7e3zQPCFdq72gH9ebp5bnlS0II/view?usp=shari...
If that link doesn't work, then I could upload it at the Spectrumcomputing forum, but you'd need to join.
RANDOMIZE fixes what the random number sequence that RND uses will be. If you RANDOMIZE a number more than zero, it sets the same (for that number) series of 'random' numbers every time. If you RANDOMIZE 0 (or just RANDOMIZE) it sets a different series every time based on the spectrum's clock. If you try the following with RANDOMIZE number versus RANDOMIZE you'll see the difference. The former will give the same sequence every time you RUN, the latter will be different every time.
10 RANDOMIZE 50
20 FOR A=1 TO 10: PRINT RND: NEXT A
I look forward to reading it. I will update the release with your updates and I think for now it is the final release, unless anyone flags any bugs that need fixing.
I have produced a cassette version of the game that I was considering offering, but not put this out there yet.
They are produced on brand new cassette tapes. The inlay and labels are home printed.