SSS: The Silent Soviet Stacker

A block-stacking game written in the number-stacking language Forth, for the Commodore 64. Pause a game in progress then tinker with the live game state in the interpreter.

Explore the design	Start tinkering

Try It Out

1. Get the VICE C64 emulator.
2. Load the durexForth cart or disk. SSS is developed in v4 but sometimes I also test v5.
3. Copy sss.fs contents then Edit > Paste in VICE. Takes a minute to compile.
4. Type help then new.

Warning

Not a product for general audiences: No sound, no high scores, no menus, and weird controls:

Keys

• S F - Shift left and right.
• E D - Hard drop, soft drop.
• J K - Rotate left and right.
• L - Store piece in hold slot on bottom right.
• Anything else - Pause game and return to Forth.

My own strong preference. See input rationale for a(n admittedly not easy) reconfiguration option.

This thing:

• Is my personal code garden optimized to bring me joy, which among other things means a 50fps target with as little assembly code as necessary, because Forth is fun!
• Explores creative constraints. durexForth is fast, but not as fast as hand-rolled 6502. Arbitrary source text constraints, too. They're my muse.
• Is a document suite, because I think it:
• Wants to be tinkered with, so it:
• Might motivate the Forth- or C64-curious, but:
• Is NOT a Tetris product! No sound, no menus, weird keys. General audiences will balk, but I play until Game Over to pass the time.
• Is basically complete. I'm married to my tradeoffs but still poke when fancy strikes. Maybe you can show me an angle I hadn't considered though? Would love to make it even denser somehow!

Further Reading

• Design Tour: Understand the code.
• Tinkering: Make your own dev environment.
• Forth source: Damn dense, beware dragons.