The 14 tracks
Here are all fourteen tracks in the game, drawn from the bytes of the tape. Not one capture.
Each is laid on its side: the start on the left and the finish on the right, and top to bottom the five tiles the track is wide. The colours are the eight kinds of tile the engine understands, not an interpretation: they come from the dispatcher at 0x8E65, which compares the tile against those values and no others.
| colour | what it is | what it does |
|---|---|---|
| black | hole | the ball falls through |
| blue | track | nothing |
| green | speed up | pushes speed to 6 |
| red | slow down | drops it to 2 |
| white | bounce | starts one of the jump curves |
| yellow | controls reversed | left and right swap |
And what is stored on the tape is not these tiles: it is fourteen lists of indices into a table of rows. How, is worked out in The code.
The names come from the game itself, in the list at 0xA4CB. And it is no accident that they sound like people's names: the tracks are named after the people who made them.
1. EASY GOING
219 rows. It carries 265 holes, 75 tiles that speed you up, 8 that slow you down, 58 that bounce and 0 that reverse the controls.
2. WOOLY JUMPER
227 rows. It carries 327 holes, 50 tiles that speed you up, 48 that slow you down, 139 that bounce and 10 that reverse the controls.
3. TERRY'S TEST
220 rows. It carries 197 holes, 39 tiles that speed you up, 5 that slow you down, 165 that bounce and 17 that reverse the controls.
4. PETE STREET
279 rows. It carries 521 holes, 39 tiles that speed you up, 7 that slow you down, 56 that bounce and 20 that reverse the controls.
5. HACKERS EVIL HOLES
326 rows. It carries 636 holes, 5 tiles that speed you up, 10 that slow you down, 78 that bounce and 195 that reverse the controls.
6. GREG THE NIPPER
371 rows. It carries 1140 holes, 10 tiles that speed you up, 6 that slow you down, 232 that bounce and 0 that reverse the controls.
7. SHAUN NOT SEAN!!
319 rows. It carries 681 holes, 103 tiles that speed you up, 29 that slow you down, 119 that bounce and 174 that reverse the controls.
8. JASON'S JUMPABOUT
335 rows. It carries 854 holes, 0 tiles that speed you up, 0 that slow you down, 262 that bounce and 31 that reverse the controls.
9. MARK'S MOTOROLA
335 rows. It carries 506 holes, 5 tiles that speed you up, 0 that slow you down, 454 that bounce and 43 that reverse the controls.
10. CHRIS'S CUL-DE-SAC
155 rows. It carries 449 holes, 0 tiles that speed you up, 0 that slow you down, 46 that bounce and 59 that reverse the controls.
11. WELL I NEVER
115 rows. It carries 286 holes, 25 tiles that speed you up, 4 that slow you down, 47 that bounce and 30 that reverse the controls.
12. SHRIGGLES'S SHRIGGLE
175 rows. It carries 342 holes, 54 tiles that speed you up, 5 that slow you down, 172 that bounce and 116 that reverse the controls.
13. BOING BOING SPLAT!!
175 rows. It carries 538 holes, 9 tiles that speed you up, 13 that slow you down, 73 that bounce and 50 that reverse the controls.
14. LAST BUT NOT LEAST!
239 rows. It carries 374 holes, 123 tiles that speed you up, 22 that slow you down, 193 that bounce and 38 that reverse the controls.