Gulpman

In Gulpland, a typical Gulpman dashes through a maze of apple trees to satisfy his voracious appetite for apples, but the Wormoids are constantly after him. In this maze game you steer Gulpman around the maze eating all the food, 10 points each, while four “grumpy chasers” hunt you; they only smile when they catch you, and you lose a life. Gulpman has a laser that sends any chaser in a direct line back to its corner. Clearing a maze earns bonus lasers and more to eat, and every 1,000 points the chasers get a little faster.

Between games a menu offers MAZE (one of 15 mazes), TEMPO (overall game speed), GRADE (the chasers’ starting speed), RESET (the best score back to zero), INSTR (instructions), DEMO, where the computer plays by itself and changes mazes, PLAY, and JS=Y/N to play with a joystick or the keys: 7 up, 6 down, 5 left, 8 right, 9 laser, and X to end the game. The title screen reads “GULPMAN © 1983 CAMPBELL SYSTEMS”.

Program Analysis

The game is all machine code. The tape holds a four-line BASIC loader, GULPMAN, which loads the 5,989-byte GM mcode block at 27136 and starts it with RANDOMIZE USR 27136; when the code returns, line 60 starts it again. The code holds the menu, the instructions, the score, best score, lasers and lives display, and the graphics for the mazes and characters. Line 50 is the save line used to make the tape.