akbasic/docs/18-tutorial-breakout-artwork.md

# 18. Tutorial: Breakout with artwork

[Chapter 17](17-tutorial-breakout.md) built Breakout out of text and two `DATA` sprites.
This chapter builds it again out of **downloaded artwork**, with powerups, a coloured HUD
and three voices of sound — and almost nothing about the shape of the program survives the
change. The finished listing is
[`examples/breakout/sprites/breakout.bas`](../examples/breakout/sprites/breakout.bas).

Read Chapter 17 first if you have not. The rules it teaches — declare every name up front,
loop with `GOTO`, parenthesise mixed `+` and `-` — all still apply here and are not
repeated.

```sh norun
$ ./build-akgl/basic examples/breakout/sprites/breakout.bas
```

| Key | Does |
|---|---|
| left / right | move the paddle |
| space | start a game, launch the ball, release a stuck ball |
| P | pause |
| S | sound on and off |
| Q or escape | quit |

A broken brick drops a gem about one time in seven. Catch it with the paddle; the colour
tells you which it is.

| Gem | Name | Does | For |
|---|---|---|---|
| red | EXPAND | doubles the paddle's width | 20 seconds |
| yellow | MULTI | throws two more balls off the one in play | until they are lost |
| green | SLOW | drops the ball's speed to about two thirds | 16 seconds |
| blue | STICKY | the ball sticks where it lands; space fires it | 18 seconds |
| purple | CATCH | a second bar appears higher up the field | 24 seconds |

---

## Step 1: Put the artwork on the screen

`SPRSAV` loads an image file straight into a sprite slot, and a sprite loaded that way
keeps **the image's own size** rather than being forced to 24 by 21 — see
[Chapter 8](08-sprites.md#from-an-image-file).

```basic requires=akgl setup=breakout_art screenshot=breakout-artwork
I# = 0
SPRSAV "art/paddleBlu.png", 3
SPRSAV "art/paddleRed.png", 4
SPRSAV "art/ballBlue.png", 5
SPRSAV "art/element_red_polygon_glossy.png", 6
SPRSAV "art/element_green_polygon_glossy.png", 7
SPRSAV "art/element_purple_polygon_glossy.png", 8
FOR I# = 3 TO 8
  SPRITE I#, 1, 2
NEXT I#
MOVSPR 3, 20, 20
MOVSPR 4, 20, 60
MOVSPR 5, 160, 30
MOVSPR 6, 30, 120
MOVSPR 7, 130, 120
MOVSPR 8, 230, 120
```

![](images/breakout-artwork.png)

That is the whole game's cast: two bars, a ball and five gems. The path is tried against
the working directory first and then against the directory the program was loaded from,
so a `.bas` stored beside its `art/` runs from anywhere.

The artwork here is Kenney's [Puzzle Pack 1](https://kenney.nl/assets/puzzle-pack-1),
released under [CC0](http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/);
`examples/breakout/sprites/art/PROVENANCE.md` records which file is used for what.
Crediting Kenney is not required by CC0 — do it anyway.

**`SPRITE n, 1, 2` turns a sprite on in colour 2.** A sprite's colour *multiplies* the
artwork rather than replacing it, so colour 2 (white) is what leaves the artwork looking
like itself.

## Step 2: Budget the eight sprite slots before you write anything else

There are eight sprites. That is not a limit you will design your way around, so decide
what they are first:

| Slot | Is |
|---|---|
| 1 | the HUD strip — a captured drawing |
| 2 | the playing field — a captured drawing |
| 3 | the paddle |
| 4 | the catcher bar (the purple gem) |
| 5, 6, 7 | up to three balls |
| 8 | the falling gem |

Two of the eight are **the screen**, and Step 3 is why. That leaves six for everything
else, which is the reason **the bricks are drawn rather than made of artwork** — sixty of
them will not fit in six slots, and there is no way to get artwork onto the screen other
than a sprite. `GSHAPE` cannot stamp a sprite and `SPRSAV` cannot read one back out.

It is also the reason for "one gem at a time": there is one slot for it, so a brick
broken while a gem is falling drops nothing.

## Step 3: Turn what you drew into a sprite

In the standalone SDL build the text layer repaints every row of the window, opaque,
after your program's steps have run and before the frame is presented — so **anything
`DRAW`, `BOX` or `CIRCLE` puts on the screen is painted over before anybody sees it**.
Sprites are drawn after the text layer. A sprite is the only thing on the screen a
program can rely on being visible. (`TODO.md` §9 item 3; the figures in this chapter are
rendered by a tool that omits the text layer, which is why they can show a drawing at
all.)

That leaves exactly one way to put a picture up: **draw it, capture it with `SSHAPE`,
install the capture with `SPRSAV`.**

```basic norun
SSHAPE Z$, 0, 60, 800, 600
SPRSAV Z$, 2
SPRITE 2, 1, 2
MOVSPR 2, 0, 60
```

Four lines, and they are the last four of every draw routine in the game. `Z$` holds a
handle rather than pixels — see [Chapter 6](06-graphics.md#saving-and-stamping-regions) —
which is all `SPRSAV` needs.

### Stamp the bricks; do not paint them

Draw one brick per colour, capture the six of them, and stamp them with `GSHAPE`:

```basic requires=akgl screenshot=breakout-stamps size=100x130
DIM BRC#(6)
I# = 0
R# = 0
K# = 0
T1# = 0
T2# = 0
FOR I# = 0 TO 5
  READ BRC#(I#)
NEXT I#
GRAPHIC 1, 1
WIDTH 1
FOR R# = 0 TO 5
  COLOR 1, BRC#(R#)
  T1# = R# * 20
  T2# = T1# + 8
  FOR K# = 0 TO 7
    DRAW 1, 0, T1# + K# TO 67, T1# + K# : DRAW 1, 0, T2# + K# TO 67, T2# + K#
  NEXT K#
NEXT R#

DATA 3, 9, 8, 6, 4, 5
```

![](images/breakout-stamps.png)

Six 68 by 16 bricks, filled **two scan lines at a time** so the set costs about a hundred
and thirty lines rather than the two hundred and seventy a line-at-a-time loop would take.
Step 4 explains why that number matters.

**`PAINT` would be one statement instead of sixteen and is not an option.** It costs
nearly four milliseconds a call; sixty of those is seven frames.

`SSHAPE` has sixteen slots, nothing gives one back, and `GRAPHIC 5` gives back all of
them at once. So the game counts what it has spent and rebuilds the stamps from scratch
whenever the pool runs dry:

```basic norun
LABEL DRAWJOB
IF SHN# < 14 THEN GOTO DRAWJOB2
GOSUB DRAWPROTOS
RETURN
```

### Flatten the field before you draw it

The draw routine should not be deciding anything. When a brick breaks, walk the grid and
write out a **list of the bricks still standing**, row by row — so a row is a contiguous
run of that list, and drawing it is a stamp and an advance:

```basic norun
LABEL BUILDLIVE
LN# = 0
FOR R# = 0 TO 5
  RS#(R#) = LN#
  RC#(R#) = 0
  GOSUB BUILDROW
NEXT R#
RETURN

LABEL BUILDROW
FOR C# = 0 TO 9
  IF BRK#(R# * 10 + C#) > 0 THEN BEGIN
    LX#(LN#) = BRKX# + C# * 72
    LY#(LN#) = BRKY# + R# * 24
    LN# = LN# + 1
    RC#(R#) = RC#(R#) + 1
  BEND
NEXT C#
RETURN
```

`RS#(R#)` is where row `R#`'s run starts and `RC#(R#)` is how long it is. This costs about
four lines a brick and has all the time in the world; the draw costs two and has a
deadline. **That trade is the spine of this program** and it comes back in Step 6 for the
lettering.

Now the whole screen, drawn and captured and dressed with artwork:

```basic requires=akgl setup=breakout_art screenshot=breakout-screen size=800x600
DIM BRC#(6)
I# = 0
R# = 0
C# = 0
K# = 0
T1# = 0
T2# = 0
Z$ = ""
FOR I# = 0 TO 5
  READ BRC#(I#)
NEXT I#
GRAPHIC 1, 1
WIDTH 1
FOR R# = 0 TO 5
  COLOR 1, BRC#(R#)
  T1# = R# * 20
  T2# = T1# + 8
  FOR K# = 0 TO 7
    DRAW 1, 0, T1# + K# TO 67, T1# + K# : DRAW 1, 0, T2# + K# TO 67, T2# + K#
  NEXT K#
NEXT R#
SSHAPE Z$, 0, 0, 68, 16 : S0$ = Z$
SSHAPE Z$, 0, 20, 68, 36 : S1$ = Z$
SSHAPE Z$, 0, 40, 68, 56 : S2$ = Z$
SSHAPE Z$, 0, 60, 68, 76 : S3$ = Z$
SSHAPE Z$, 0, 80, 68, 96 : S4$ = Z$
SSHAPE Z$, 0, 100, 68, 116 : S5$ = Z$
GRAPHIC 1, 1
WIDTH 2
COLOR 5, 16 : COLOR 1, 4
BOX 5, 2, 62, 797, 597
BOX 1, 6, 66, 793, 593
FOR C# = 0 TO 9
  Z$ = S0$ : GSHAPE Z$, 42 + C# * 72, 108
  Z$ = S1$ : GSHAPE Z$, 42 + C# * 72, 132
  Z$ = S2$ : GSHAPE Z$, 42 + C# * 72, 156
  Z$ = S3$ : GSHAPE Z$, 42 + C# * 72, 180
  Z$ = S4$ : GSHAPE Z$, 42 + C# * 72, 204
  Z$ = S5$ : GSHAPE Z$, 42 + C# * 72, 228
NEXT C#
SSHAPE Z$, 0, 60, 800, 600
SPRSAV Z$, 2
SPRITE 2, 1, 2
MOVSPR 2, 0, 60
SPRSAV "art/paddleBlu.png", 3
SPRSAV "art/ballBlue.png", 5
SPRITE 3, 1, 2
SPRITE 5, 1, 2
MOVSPR 3, 348, 540
MOVSPR 5, 389, 517

DATA 3, 9, 8, 6, 4, 5
```

![](images/breakout-screen.png)

Everything above the last four lines is a drawing nobody would ever see. `SSHAPE` and
`SPRSAV` are what make it the screen.

The game keeps its six stamps in **six separate scalars** rather than an array, and that
is not a style choice — see the fourth trap at the end of this chapter.

## Step 4: Find the frame boundary

The host runs **256 source lines and then presents the frame**, and presenting throws the
drawing buffer away. So everything between a `GRAPHIC 1, 1` and its `SSHAPE` has to
happen inside one of those batches. Draw more than that and the capture comes back
holding only the tail of what you drew, over whatever the frame before it left behind —
which looks exactly like a ghost.

`TI#` is refreshed from the host's clock once per batch, so **the step on which `TI#`
changes is the first step of a batch**. Spinning until it changes is the only way a
program in this dialect can locate a frame boundary:

```basic norun
LABEL PACE
LASTT# = TI#
LABEL PACEEDGE
IF TI# - LASTT# < 2 THEN GOTO PACEEDGE
RETURN
```

Two jiffies is thirty frames a second. **`LASTT#` is sampled on entry rather than carried
over from the last frame, and that is the whole correctness of the routine.** Carried
over, a frame whose work ran long finds the time already spent, returns immediately from
somewhere in the middle of a batch, and the capture that follows is ruined. Sampling here
means the loop always sees `TI#` change under it, and a change is only ever seen on the
first step of a batch.

Measured on one machine: after a jiffy edge, 220 lines of drawing survive the capture
intact and 250 do not. Every draw routine in the game is written to stay near 200.

**Arithmetic is free.** A routine that computes for two thousand steps costs frame rate
and nothing else. Only drawing has a deadline — which is what makes Step 3's flattening
and Step 6's stroke lists worth their complexity.

## Step 5: Do at most one capture per frame

The frame loop paces first, then draws at most one thing, then plays the game:

```basic norun
LABEL FRAME
GOSUB PACE
GOSUB DRAWJOB
GOSUB READKEYS
IF STATE# = 0 THEN GOSUB TITLETICK
IF STATE# = 1 THEN GOSUB SERVETICK
IF STATE# = 2 THEN GOSUB PLAYTICK
IF STATE# = 3 THEN GOSUB LOSTTICK
IF STATE# = 4 THEN GOSUB CLEARTICK
IF RUNNING# = 0 THEN GOTO SHUTDOWN
GOTO FRAME
```

`DRAWJOB` is a queue of one, chosen by dirty flags — stamps first because everything else
draws with them, then the field, then the HUD:

```basic norun
LABEL DRAWJOB
IF SHN# < 14 THEN GOTO DRAWJOB2
GOSUB DRAWPROTOS
RETURN
LABEL DRAWJOB2
IF DPLAY# = 0 THEN GOTO DRAWJOB3
GOSUB DRAWPLAY
DPLAY# = 0
RETURN
LABEL DRAWJOB3
IF DHUD# = 0 THEN RETURN
GOSUB DRAWHUD
DHUD# = 0
RETURN
```

The game sets `DPLAY# = 1` or `DHUD# = 1` when something changes and never draws
directly. One consequence is visible and deliberate: **the score lags the bricks by one
frame**, because the field goes first. At thirty frames a second nobody can see it.

Those are `LABEL`s and `GOTO`s rather than `BEGIN` blocks, and again that is not a style
choice — a `RETURN` inside a block leaves the interpreter with no `GOSUB` to return from.
The last trap in this chapter is exactly that.

## Step 6: Draw the lettering, because text has no colour

The interpreter's text sink is white and has no verb that changes it; `CHAR` parses a
colour argument and ignores it. A coloured HUD therefore has to be *drawn*, which means
carrying a font.

The one here is four units wide and seven tall, one glyph per `DATA` line: how many
strokes, then that many pairs of points. **A point is coded `X * 10 + Y`**, so 0 is the
top-left corner, 30 the top right and 36 the bottom right.

```basic requires=akgl screenshot=breakout-lettering size=260x110
DIM FNC#(5)
DIM FNI#(5)
DIM FNS#(60)
I# = 0
K# = 0
N# = 0
D# = 0
GP# = 0
GX# = 0
GX2# = 0
P1# = 0
P2# = 0
X1# = 0
Y1# = 0
X2# = 0
Y2# = 0
FOR I# = 0 TO 4
  READ N#
  FNC#(I#) = N#
  FNI#(I#) = GX#
  GOSUB READGLYPH
NEXT I#
GRAPHIC 1, 1
WIDTH 2
COLOR 1, 8
SZ# = 9
FOR I# = 0 TO 4
  GOSUB DRAWGLYPH
NEXT I#
END

LABEL READGLYPH
FOR K# = 1 TO N# * 2
  READ D#
  FNS#(GX#) = D#
  GX# = GX# + 1
NEXT K#
RETURN

LABEL DRAWGLYPH
GP# = FNI#(I#)
GX2# = 20 + I# * SZ# * 5
FOR K# = 1 TO FNC#(I#)
  P1# = FNS#(GP#)
  P2# = FNS#(GP# + 1)
  GP# = GP# + 2
  X1# = GX2# + (P1# / 10) * SZ#
  Y1# = 20 + MOD(P1#, 10) * SZ#
  X2# = GX2# + (P2# / 10) * SZ#
  Y2# = 20 + MOD(P2#, 10) * SZ#
  DRAW 1, X1#, Y1# TO X2#, Y2#
NEXT K#
RETURN

REM S
DATA 5, 0,30, 0,3, 3,33, 33,36, 6,36
REM C
DATA 3, 0,30, 0,6, 6,36
REM O
DATA 4, 0,30, 6,36, 0,6, 30,36
REM R
DATA 5, 0,6, 0,30, 3,33, 30,33, 13,36
REM E
DATA 4, 0,6, 0,30, 3,33, 6,36
```

![](images/breakout-lettering.png)

`SZ#` is the scale, so the same table draws a 12-unit `BREAKOUT` on the title screen and
a 4-unit `SCORE` in the HUD. The game reads a character to a glyph number with
`INSTR(ALPHA$, MID(TX$, TXI#, 1))` over a 41-character alphabet, which is why the order of
the `DATA` lines matters.

**Building the strokes and drawing them are separate jobs, on different frames.** Turning
a string into strokes costs about sixteen lines a character and happens when a number
changes; the draw routine merely replays the list at two lines a stroke, and it is the
one with the deadline:

```basic norun
LABEL DRAWHUD
GRAPHIC 1, 1
WIDTH 1
COLOR 0, 1 : COLOR 1, 4 : COLOR 2, 8 : COLOR 3, 5
COLOR 4, 11 : COLOR 5, 16 : COLOR 6, 6
BOX 5, 0, 56, 799, 57
IF HN# = 1 THEN DRAW HC#(0), HX1#(0), HY1#(0) TO HX2#(0), HY2#(0)
IF HN# < 2 THEN GOTO HUDONE
FOR I# = 0 TO HN# - 1
  DRAW HC#(I#), HX1#(I#), HY1#(I#) TO HX2#(I#), HY2#(I#)
NEXT I#
LABEL HUDONE
SSHAPE Z$, 0, 0, 800, 60
SPRSAV Z$, 1
SPRITE 1, 1, 2
MOVSPR 1, 0, 0
RETURN
```

Each stroke carries its own colour source, so one pass over the list draws in as many
colours as it likes: labels cyan, the score yellow, the lives green, the level red.
**Seven colour sources is the ceiling** — which is why the purple gem's banner is the
closest purple the palette has rather than the gem's own.

The one-stroke case is written out beside the loop. That is the second trap below, and
every loop over a list in this program has it.

## Step 7: Bounce the ball without a square root

There is no `SQR` in this dialect, so the game never computes a magnitude. Eight landing
zones across the bar, each holding **very nearly a unit vector**, and a velocity is
always one of them times the current speed:

```basic norun
DATA -0.85, -0.62, -0.40, -0.18, 0.18, 0.40, 0.62, 0.85
DATA -0.53, -0.78, -0.92, -0.98, -0.98, -0.92, -0.78, -0.53
```

```basic norun
LABEL HITBAR
IF BLY%(B#) + 21 < T2# THEN RETURN
IF BLY%(B#) > T2# + 23 THEN RETURN
IF BLX%(B#) + 21 < T1# THEN RETURN
IF BLX%(B#) > T1# + T3# THEN RETURN
T4# = (BLX%(B#) + 11 - T1#) * 8 / T3#
IF T4# < 0 THEN T4# = 0
IF T4# > 7 THEN T4# = 7
BLVX%(B#) = ZVX%(T4#) * SPD%
BLVY%(B#) = ZVY%(T4#) * SPD%
BLY%(B#) = T2# - 23
RETURN
```

A bounce off a wall or a brick only ever flips a sign, so a ball is always travelling at
exactly the `SPD%` that was in force when it last left a bar. That makes the SLOW gem a
**ratio of two speeds** rather than a change of magnitude:

```basic norun
LABEL RESCALE
IF BSPD% < 0.1 THEN BSPD% = SPD%
RAT% = SPD% / BSPD%
BSPD% = SPD%
FOR B# = 0 TO 2
  IF BLON#(B#) = 1 THEN BEGIN
    BLVX%(B#) = BLVX%(B#) * RAT%
    BLVY%(B#) = BLVY%(B#) * RAT%
  BEND
NEXT B#
RETURN
```

`RAT%` is a **float** variable on purpose: an integer one holds the 0.75 of a slowdown as
0 and stops the ball dead. That is the first trap below, and it is the expensive one.

Scaling by the vertical component instead — which is what this routine did first — is not
a slowdown at all. A shallow ball's small vertical gets stretched up to the new speed and
drags the large horizontal with it, so SLOW made the ball *faster*. Sixty degrees of the
eight zones are shallow enough to do it.

Brick collision reflects off whichever face the ball has less of itself past, which is the
standard box resolution and the reason a ball clipping the end of a row goes sideways
instead of straight back down:

```basic norun
T1# = RGT# : IF BX1# + 67 < T1# THEN T1# = BX1# + 67
T2# = LFT# : IF BX1# > T2# THEN T2# = BX1#
T3# = BOT# : IF BY1# + 15 < T3# THEN T3# = BY1# + 15
T4# = TOP# : IF BY1# > T4# THEN T4# = BY1#
IF T1# - T2# < T3# - T4# THEN BLVX%(B#) = 0.0 - BLVX%(B#)
IF T1# - T2# >= T3# - T4# THEN BLVY%(B#) = 0.0 - BLVY%(B#)
```

`T1#` to `T4#` are the overlapping rectangle; its width against its height is the whole
test. A ball can only be over four cells at once, so the cells are worked out from its box
rather than by walking sixty bricks.

## Step 8: Gems and powerups

A gem is one sprite, one type number and two timers. The type picks the artwork, the
banner colour and what `TAKEGEM` does:

```basic norun
LABEL SPAWNGEM
RNMAX# = 5
GOSUB NEXTRAND
GMTYP# = RNVAL# + 1
GMX% = BX1# + 10
GMY% = BY1#
IF GMTYP# = 1 THEN SPRSAV "art/element_red_polygon_glossy.png", 8
IF GMTYP# = 2 THEN SPRSAV "art/element_yellow_polygon_glossy.png", 8
IF GMTYP# = 3 THEN SPRSAV "art/element_green_polygon_glossy.png", 8
IF GMTYP# = 4 THEN SPRSAV "art/element_blue_polygon_glossy.png", 8
IF GMTYP# = 5 THEN SPRSAV "art/element_purple_polygon_glossy.png", 8
GMON# = 1
SPRITE 8, 1, 2
MOVSPR 8, GMX%, GMY%
RETURN
```

**Reloading slot 8 is how one sprite becomes five gems.** `SPRSAV` over a live slot
replaces the artwork; there is no need for a slot per gem, and there was never a slot to
spare.

Every timer is a frame count decremented in one place, so an expiry is where the effect is
undone:

```basic norun
IF PDEXP# > 0 THEN BEGIN
  PDEXP# = PDEXP# - 1
  IF PDEXP# = 0 THEN BEGIN
    PDW# = 104
    SPRITE 3, 1, 2, 0, 0, 0
  BEND
BEND
```

EXPAND is `SPRITE 3, 1, 2, 0, 1, 0` — the x-expand bit, which is the only scaling a sprite
has, and doubling the artwork is exactly what it wants.

The CATCH bar **mirrors** the paddle rather than following it:

```basic norun
CTX% = 0.0 - PDX% + WALLL# + WALLR# - 104
```

That is deliberate. A second bar directly above the first is worth nothing; a mirrored one
turns a dive across the field into a save at both ends. Note the leading `0.0` — trap one
again, and this line was wrong before it was right.

## Step 9: Three voices, and a mute that costs nothing

Voice 1 is the ball hitting things, voice 2 is the gem and the ball being lost, and voice
3 is reserved for `PLAY` so a brick going cannot cut a tune off mid-note.

**`SOUND`'s frequency argument is a SID register value, not hertz.** The pitch is
`register * 1022730 / 16777216` — see [Chapter 7](07-sound.md#sound) — so work the notes
out once and write them down: 17175 is C6, 8579 C5, 4298 C4, 3609 A3. The brick tone is
pitched by the row it came from —

```basic norun
SOUND 1, 17175 - R# * 2100, 4
```

— so the top row rings at C6, each row down drops about a third, and a wall coming apart
plays itself down a scale.

Mute with `VOL 0` rather than a flag tested at eleven call sites:

```basic norun
LABEL PRESSMUTE
SNDON# = 1 - SNDON#
IF SNDON# = 1 THEN VOL 8
IF SNDON# = 0 THEN VOL 0
RETURN
```

A silenced voice costs nothing to issue. One line beats eleven scattered through the game.

## Five things in this dialect that do not do what they look like

Each of these cost an evening. All five are filed in `TODO.md` §9 with a reduction and
the file and line of the cause.

### 1. The left operand decides integer or float arithmetic

```basic
LEVEL# = 4
SPD% = 5.6 + LEVEL# * 0.45
PRINT "INTEGER FIRST " + SPD%
SPD% = 5.6 + 0.45 * LEVEL#
PRINT "FLOAT FIRST   " + SPD%
V% = 6.4
PRINT "0 - V%        " + (0 - V%)
PRINT "0.0 - V%      " + (0.0 - V%)
FOR I# = 0 TO 0
  PRINT "THE BODY RAN"
NEXT I#
PRINT "AFTER THE LOOP"
```

```output
INTEGER FIRST 5.600000
FLOAT FIRST   7.400000
0 - V%        -6
0.0 - V%      -6.400000
AFTER THE LOOP
```

**This is the dangerous one, because nothing fails.** The program computes something else
and carries on. Two live bugs in this game came from it: `SPD% = 5.6 + LEVEL# * 0.45` was
a flat 5.6, so no level ever got faster than level one; and `0 - BLVX%(B#)`, the obvious
way to reverse a ball, quantised its velocity to whole pixels on every bounce and bled
speed out of it. Neither produced a diagnostic.

**Put the float on the left, and put the answer somewhere with a `%` on it.** A float
expression landing in a `#` variable truncates.

### 2. A `FOR` whose bounds are equal does not run its body

The last two lines of that output are the second trap: `FOR I# = 0 TO 0` runs zero times.
Knowing it and remembering it while writing a loop over "the bricks still standing" are
different things, and the last brick of a row is exactly that case — which is why every
loop over a list in this program has its one-item case written out beside it:

```basic norun
LABEL STAMPROW
IF T2# < 1 THEN RETURN
IF T2# = 1 THEN GSHAPE Z$, LX#(T1#), LY#(T1#)
IF T2# < 2 THEN RETURN
FOR I# = T1# TO T1# + T2# - 1
  GSHAPE Z$, LX#(I#), LY#(I#)
NEXT I#
RETURN
```

### 3. A skipped `BEGIN` block containing a loop breaks the enclosing `RETURN`

```basic
T# = 0
GOSUB DOIT
PRINT "CAME BACK"
END
LABEL DOIT
IF 1 = 0 THEN BEGIN
  FOR I# = 0 TO 2
    T# = T# + 1
  NEXT I#
BEND
RETURN
```

```output
? 11 : RUNTIME ERROR RETURN outside the context of GOSUB

```

The routine plainly *was* called by a `GOSUB`. `FOR` creates its environment when the
line is **parsed**, and the block skip is decided when it is **evaluated**, so a skipped
loop pushes a scope that its skipped `NEXT` never pops — and the orphan sits between the
routine and its caller. Outside a routine the same thing exhausts the pool of 32 after
thirty-two skips instead.

Guard loops with `GOTO` rather than wrapping them in a block, which is what every draw
routine in this game does.

### 4. `SSHAPE` and `GSHAPE` ignore the subscript on a string array

```basic requires=akgl
DIM SH$(4)
SSHAPE SH$(2), 0, 0, 61, 4
PRINT "[" + SH$(0) + "] [" + SH$(2) + "]"
```

```output
[SHAPE:0] []
```

The handle lands in element zero whatever subscript you write, and `GSHAPE SH$(2)` then
stamps whatever is in `SH$(0)`. Ordinary assignment and `PRINT` honour the subscript, so
this is the two verbs reading their leaf directly rather than evaluating it. The symptom
is that every brick comes out the colour of the last stamp captured.

**Keep saved shapes in separate scalars.** The six brick stamps are `S0$` to `S5$` for
this reason, and the field is drawn as six runs of one colour rather than brick by brick
— which turned out to be cheaper anyway.

### 5. `READ` walks one cursor through every `DATA` item in the file

```basic
DIM T#(3)
DIM F#(3)
I# = 0
GOSUB LOADFONT
GOSUB LOADTABLE
PRINT "TABLE " + T#(0) + " " + T#(1) + " " + T#(2)
PRINT "FONT  " + F#(0) + " " + F#(1) + " " + F#(2)
END

LABEL LOADTABLE
FOR I# = 0 TO 2
  READ T#(I#)
NEXT I#
RETURN

LABEL LOADFONT
FOR I# = 0 TO 2
  READ F#(I#)
NEXT I#
RETURN

DATA 11, 12, 13
DATA 21, 22, 23
```

```output
TABLE 21 22 23
FONT  11 12 13
```

The `DATA` written first went to whichever routine ran first, not to the one it was
written for. Two loaders means the one whose `DATA` comes first in the file has to be
called first — obvious in hindsight, and not obvious when the symptom is a font table
full of brick colours. `RESTORE` to a label is the way out when the order cannot be
arranged; Chapter 17 uses it to pick a level layout.

## The budgets

This program sits close to four ceilings at once, and knowing where they are is what
stops a feature costing an afternoon before it is abandoned:

| Resource | There are | This game uses |
|---|---|---|
| Sprites | 8 | 8 |
| Variables | 128 | 121, plus 4 the interpreter makes |
| Labels | 64 | 61 |
| `SSHAPE` slots | 16, none reclaimed except by `GRAPHIC 5` | 6 stamps plus 1 capture a frame |
| Value-pool slots | 4096, none reclaimed | none after startup — see [Chapter 17](17-tutorial-breakout.md#step-3-create-every-name-before-the-game-starts) |
| Scopes | 32 | 6 deep at most |
| Tokens on a line | 32, and the 33rd kills the interpreter rather than raising | short lines, temporaries instead of long conditions |

That is also why several things are **not** in the game, and they are worth naming
honestly rather than leaving to be discovered: no music under the play, only event sounds
and two four-note stings; one gem at a time; sticky and multiball share one offset, so two
balls stuck to the paddle sit on top of each other; and no high score on disk, because
there is no disk.

## Where to go next

- **[Chapter 8](08-sprites.md)** is the sprite reference: every form of `SPRSAV`, the
  `MOVSPR` forms, collision and what `RSPPOS` reads back.
- **[Chapter 6](06-graphics.md)** is the drawing reference, including `SSHAPE`, `GSHAPE`
  and what a shape handle is.
- **[Chapter 7](07-sound.md)** is `SOUND`, `PLAY`, `ENVELOPE` and `VOL`.
- **[Chapter 14](14-architecture.md)** explains the step loop and the pools this chapter
  keeps running into, from the interpreter's side.
- `TODO.md` §9 is the eight defects this game found, each with a reduction, the cause and
  what a fix would touch.