(From an email Paul sent later on the day of submission...)


If you have Windows, then you should have csc.exe (the command-line C# compiler) included somewhere. It is probably in:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\vxxx

...where vxxx is the highest available version number e.g. mine is v4.0.30319.

It will only compile single-file programs, so I have attached "onefile.cs" which is the three C# files merged into a single file for this purpose. Put that in some folder (say "c:\test") and open the command prompt for that folder. Then run this command:

"C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\vxxx\csc.exe" onefile.cs

And it should produce an exe file which you can then run.

Note that before you compile, you will need to change these paths in the C# code:

const string IN_FOLDER = @"C:\Users\home\Desktop\CGC Balloonatix";
const string OUT_FILE = @"C:\Users\home\Desktop\CGC Balloonatix\test_output.tap";

The first one is the folder containing all of your map icon files, which must be named map1.ico, map2.ico and so on.

The second one is the location of the Spectrum tape file that you want it to generate. This will contain DATA statements for your levels, and you can then MERGE these into the game BASIC to replace the existing levels.

(If you *don't* have Windows then I'll assume you can work everything out on your own. Ha! But you would need to get a free C# compiler such as Mono.)

BTW: if the map icon format isn't correct, the C# program will crash.

Look at the existing map icons to get the idea. Basically it will ignore icon line 0 (where the wind direction indicator goes) and just read the following 20 lines. These lines must contain only the following colours:

black (0x000000) = sky
blue (0x0000ff) = spike v
red (0xff0000) = wall
magenta (0xff00ff) = spike >
green (0x00ff00) = spike <
cyan (0x00ffff) = spike ^
white (0xffffff) = goal point (top left of 2x2 exit): need exactly 2
grey (0x808080) = start point (top left of 2x2 balloon): need exactly 2

I didn't use yellow for some reason...

Eq. 