Back in the 8- and 16-bit days, everyone was encouraged to try their hand at programming. The 8-bit microcomputers came with BASIC built-in, while 16-bit platforms played host to packages such as STOS.
Mouth Trap, part of a compilation called Games Galore, was put together by Darren Ithell as a demonstration of what the BASIC-like STOS programming language was capable of producing in the hands of someone who knew what they were doing. And the result was a rather convincing, enjoyable game that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an arcade.
Returning to it today, it’s still an enjoyable game, too — an interesting twist on the single-screen arcade game formula, with more than a hint of dot-eating funtimes, albeit without the maze. Check out the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!
While it’s primarily the 8-bit home microcomputer era that is associated with the “bedroom programmer”, thanks to the fact that most systems came with the programming language BASIC built into ROM, some of this still went on in the 16-bit era.
A popular platform for independent game development on Atari ST was STOS (short for ST Operating System). This was a BASIC-like language with a lot of features specifically geared towards game development: things like sprite handling, scrolling, music and sound generation, all that sort of thing.
STOS’ publisher Mandarin Software collected a bunch of impressive efforts from talented developers and bundled them together in a commercially available showcase compilation called Games Galore. One of those games was Yomo, which is the subject of today’s video!
The best of overlooked and underappreciated computer and video games, from yesterday and today.
