When #Barbarians was finished on the #OrganiserII, I moved on to the 16-bit range of #Psion computers, the #Series3 and its related models (3a/c/mx, Siena and workAbout), updating the user interface and graphics to suit the new machines, but leaving the game play intact. These machines featured more memory, from 128k to 2 megabytes, and had graphics resolutions from 240x80 to 480x160. http://damian.cyningstan.org.uk/downloads/215/barbarians #gamedev

A final limitation was partly down to the speed of the #OrganiserII, and partly down to my own skill limitations. Despite #Barbarians being one player against the computer, there was no AI as such. The computer moves at random, and the game was designed such that these random computer decisions were still a challenge. http://damian.cyningstan.org.uk/downloads/215/barbarians #barbarians #gamedev

OPL on the #Psion #OrganiserII had another limitation: there was no facility to write binary data files, so the game data had to be compatible with the Organiser II's database file format. That meant that strings couldn't use all 256 byte values, because some of those values were special characters in the database format. So many values were limited to 240 so that special characters could be avoided. http://damian.cyningstan.org.uk/downloads/215/barbarians #barbarians #gamedev

The #Psion pocket computer for which the game was designed was the Psion #OrganiserII. This computer with an 8-bit HD6303X processor came in several models, from the CM with its 8k RAM and 16x2 character display, to the LZ64 with 64k RAM and a 20x4 character display. http://damian.cyningstan.org.uk/downloads/215/barbarians #gamedev