Date: 2019-11-26 21:05:51

Cubist BASIC Version

Cubist from Tim Hartnell's Giant Book Of Computer Games is like a 2D rubiks cube.

Cubist CoCo

You can grab the BASIC source setup for a Color Computer running on a 32x16 text display. If you wanted to run on a different BASIC, line 30 and 410 are the two places to look.

30  REM RANDOMIZE VAL(RIGHT$(TIME$,2))
410 PRINT @0,; : REM OR CLS OR LOCATE 0,0 OR HOME 

On a PC using GWBASIC you would want uncomment line 30 to get random numbers that are different each time you run the program. You can also use HOME or LOCATE 0,0 in place of PRINT @0,; to put the cursor at the top of the screen. You could also just use CLS to clear the screen instead.

The cube starts off looking like the what you see on the left. After the computer mixes it up, you would see something like what you see on the right.

        Start            Mixed

        1 1 2 2          1 2 1 2
        1 1 2 2          3 3 3 2
        3 3 4 4          3 1 4 1
        3 3 4 4          4 2 4 4

You need to solve it by rotating (aka twisting) the faces. The rotation is clockwise. In the following example, if we started with #1 and you twisted once, you get #2. If you twist again, you get #3.

        1      2      3

        1 2    3 1    4 3
        3 4    4 2    2 1

Using the following guide, you enter a number to rotate the elements of the cube.

        Puzzle         Guide

        1 1 2 2       2  3  4
        1 1 2 2       6  7  8
        3 3 4 4      10 11 12
        3 3 4 4



Copyright © 2020, Lee Patterson