D&D Track

TRACK is a combat-tracking utility for tabletop role-playing games, designed to manage hit points and status effects for multiple creatures simultaneously. It stores data in five parallel arrays (A through E) covering current HP, maximum HP, regeneration rate, regeneration delay, and bind status for up to Q creatures. The program implements D&D-style rules including troll regeneration (10 HP/round), general per-round regeneration, wound bleeding for creatures at negative HP, and a “bind wounds” mechanic that freezes HP loss. A dice-roller sub-mode accepts any die size and roll count, displaying results before returning to the main menu.

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Program Analysis

Program Structure

The program is organized as a menu-driven application with a central dispatch at line 200 and subroutines branching out to labeled REM blocks. Execution begins at line 100 and jumps to the initialization section at line 210. After setup, control falls to line 130 (which is a missing line — a deliberate technique to fall through to 140). The main menu loop lives at lines 140–200, and each menu option jumps to a dedicated REM-labeled section.

Menu Dispatch Technique

Line 200 uses a compact arithmetic dispatch idiom common in Sinclair BASIC:

GOTO (360 AND J=1)+(590 AND J=2)+(1140 AND J=3)+...

Because boolean expressions evaluate to 1 (true) or 0 (false), multiplying the target line number by the condition and summing them produces exactly one non-zero addend, acting as a computed GOTO. This avoids a cascade of IF/GOTO statements and is a well-known space-saving technique on memory-constrained systems.

Data Arrays

Five parallel arrays are dimensioned at lines 220–224, all of size Q (number of creatures):

Array	Purpose
A()	Current hit points (0 = dropped/dead)
B()	Maximum (base) hit points, used as heal ceiling
C()	Regeneration amount per round (10 = troll)
D()	Round number when slow regeneration next fires
E()	Bind/bleed state (1 = bleeding, 10 = bound)

Game Mechanics Implementation

The regeneration/round loop (lines 690–870) encodes several layered rules:

• Bleeding: If A(F) < 0 and E(F) is not 10 (bound), the creature loses 1 HP per round. The first negative round sets E(F)=1 as a bleed flag.
• Fast regeneration (trolls): If C(F)=10 and current HP is below maximum, a 3-HP-per-round slow-regen schedule via D(F) fires every 4 rounds (line 790: D(F)=Z+3). There is an apparent bug here — troll fast regen (C(F)=10) actually routes to the slow-regen path at line 780 because the condition C(F)<10 is false, so trolls only regenerate 3 HP every 4 rounds rather than 10 HP/round.
• Other regeneration: Creatures with 0 < C(F) < 10 heal C(F) HP every round (line 850).
• Bind wounds: Setting E(F)=10 (option 5, line 1350) prevents both bleeding and regeneration checks.

Healing Special Case

At line 1210, entering N=1000 as the cure amount is treated as a “full heal” sentinel, restoring A(F) to B(F) (maximum HP). Any other value is added directly. This avoids a dedicated “full heal” menu option at the cost of an undocumented magic number.

Regeneration Base Reset

When the Regenerate option (J=4) is chosen, lines 900–904 iterate through all creatures and reset B(F)=A(F), making the current HP the new maximum before assigning regeneration rates. This means a creature’s heal ceiling is recalculated from its current (possibly damaged) state at the time regeneration is registered, not from its original full HP.

Display Layout

The status display (lines 370–580) prints creature numbers and HP in a grid across the screen, with 4-character column spacing (H=H+4) and 3-row vertical spacing. It handles up to 7 columns (H wraps at 28) before moving down. If more than 42 display rows’ worth of creatures are shown, a “CONTINUE PRINTOUT?” prompt appears via the subroutine at line 510.

Dice Roller

Lines 1380–1520 implement a general-purpose dice roller. The user inputs the die size F and number of rolls G; the result is INT(F*RND)+1 for each roll. A PAUSE 4E4 (approximately 27 minutes on a 50 Hz machine, effectively waiting for a keypress via key-interrupt or the user pressing a key) holds the display before looping back. Entering 0 for die size exits to the status display.

Utility Subroutine

The subroutine at line 1530 clears rows 20 and 21 by printing 31 spaces at each position, providing a clean input area before prompting. It is called before most input prompts throughout the program.

Notable Anomalies

• Line 350 jumps to GOTO 130, which does not exist. This is a deliberate fall-through technique — execution continues at the next defined line, which is 140 (the main menu).
• The round counter Z is incremented inside the Damage routine (line 600) rather than in a dedicated end-of-round handler, meaning rounds advance only when damage is applied.
• Line 1600 (STOP) is unreachable dead code, as is the commented-out RAND USR 14336 at line 1610, suggesting a machine-code helper was once planned or used in an earlier version.
• The PAUSE 4E4 at line 1495 is effectively an indefinite pause on most hardware configurations; the program relies on the user pressing a key or waiting out the timer.