3D VIP'r maze

Let me be very clear and up front that I didn't really make this game this October, but 6 months ago. But since this jam isn't really a competition, and more of a show-and-tell, I thought it would be fun to submit this as a "follow up" on my project from last year.

This game is an homage to the Sinclair ZX81 game 3D Monster Maze from 1981. That game was released just three years after the specification for Chip-8 was published, so it's from around the same era. In honour of the first computer that ran Chip-8, the Cosmac VIP, and its related magazine, the VIPer, I figured it was time for a viper version of 3D Monster Maze, and so last year I created 3D Viper Maze for Octojam 7.

The intention I had with 3D Viper Maze, although written using XO-Chip instructions to make it more fun as a game, was always to create a version of the game that can run on the original Cosmac VIP Chip-8 interpreter. This simplified version became 3D VIP'r Maze, and that is what you're looking at.

This version of the game runs at 30 cycles per frame, at the original resolution, in the space of 3.2K of memory, using the original instruction set. It's a game with an endless supply of randomly generated mazes, just like its namesake. The levels are generated in Chip-8, so you will have to be a little patient ;) Unfortunately there wasn't enough space to add any vipers this time around.

Your challenge, if you accept it: to find the exit in each maze! How far down the maze can you get?

If you're interested in the challenges I had to overcome to make this game fit and run on the original Cosmac VIP, check out my development notes on Github!