obsolete.computer

the-maze/.

An old project originally written in QBasic, currently working on porting to QB64 and/or FreeBasic.

Directory Listing

total 160K
drwxr-xr-x 4 4.0K Jul 26 23:28 ./
drwxr-xr-x 4 4.0K Jul 26 23:31 ../
drwxr-xr-x 2 4.0K Apr 14 08:59 original-code-and-data/
-rw-r--r-- 1 9.7K Jul 26 18:18 AGENTS.md
-rw-r--r-- 1 16K Jul 26 20:13 edit.bas
-rw-r--r-- 1 766 Jul 18 2011 edit.ico
-rw-r--r-- 1 32 Oct 3 2022 editicon.rc
-rw-r--r-- 1 60K Jul 26 23:28 game.bas
-rw-r--r-- 1 20 Jun 25 14:27 .gitignore
-rw-r--r-- 1 248 Oct 1 2022 LICENSE
-rw-r--r-- 1 1.5K Jul 26 22:29 Makefile
-rw-r--r-- 1 766 Jul 18 2011 maze.ico
-rw-r--r-- 1 32 Oct 3 2022 mazeicon.rc
-rw-r--r-- 1 9.6K Jul 21 11:36 play.bas
-rw-r--r-- 1 3.9K Jul 21 12:48 README.md
-rw-r--r-- 1 100 Sep 27 2022 summary.md
-rw-r--r-- 1 3.9K Jul 2 12:13 themaze.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 4.0K Jul 26 16:04 tiles.til

Download

  • Git clone URL: https://obsolete.computer/static/code/the-maze/.git
  • Download Tarball (Built 2026-07-26): the-maze.tar.bz2

Readme

the-maze

Originally a DOS Game written in QBasic, now a FreeBasic in "QB Mode" project. My initial goal was to get it working again and on Linux, without the need for DOS nor actual QBasic. After some manual and code-agent-driven updates in 2026, it's compiling using -lang fb and has a revamped, somewhat modernized code base, including a more robust Makefile. Sound uses QB-style Play over SDL2; custom tiles load from editable text .til files at runtime.

Building

Install FreeBASIC and SDL2 (e.g. libsdl2-dev on Debian/Ubuntu). Then type make in the code directory. A directory called out will be created with the executables and game data... cd into it and run ./game. That's it, there's no install target. (You can also type make run in the code dir and it'll build/run everything)

Display options

The game opens a modern ScreenRes window with an 80×25 logical text grid (same layout as the original). Defaults: windowed, 2× scale (~1280×800).

```
./game [options]

--fullscreen, -f Fullscreen
--windowed, -w Windowed (default)
--scale=N, -s N Pixel scale 1–6 (default 2)
--ascii, -a ASCII playfield glyphs (default)
--tiles, -t Custom tile graphics from a .til file
--tilefile=FILE Tileset file (implies --tiles); default tiles.til
--help, -h Show help
```

Examples: ./game --scale=3, ./game --tiles, make run ARGS='--tilefile=tiles --scale=3'.

Always run from the out/ directory (or use make run) so game.ini, world1.dat, and tiles.til are found. make game / make run copy those assets automatically.

--scale keeps a fixed 640×400 logical framebuffer (80×25 text cells) and enlarges the window with FreeBASIC's OpenGL 2D mode (SET_GL_2D_MODE + SET_GL_SCALE) when available.

Playfield collision uses a logical tile map. --ascii / --tiles only change how those cells are drawn.

game.ini holds two lines: the level .dat path, then the tileset .til path (updated when you change either in-game).

Tile files (.til)

Custom graphics are plain text (INI-style), parsed at runtime into 8×16 pixel sprites:

```
; comments start with semicolon
[palette]
0=8
1=yellow

[wall]
color=7

##

++++++#

...
```

  • [palette] — shared accents 0–9, each a CGA index 0–15 or name (yellow, light_blue, …).
  • [tile_name] — one section per sprite (wall, key, player_right, monster, …).
  • color= / primary= — that tile’s primary CGA colour (used for # / +).
  • Pixel grid — up to 16 rows of 8 characters:
  • # primary colour
  • + dimmed primary
  • . black / empty
  • 0–9 global palette entry

Missing tiles fall back to a simple solid placeholder. Ship/edit tiles.til (copied to out/).

Keys

In the game: Arrow keys move. E switches to the level editor. L loads a new level file (8 characters or less; default world is world1.dat — don't overwrite that lightly). T loads a new tileset the same way (enables custom graphics if you were in ASCII mode). Esc quits the game.

In the editor: Input is mainly mouse-driven, so you can select object modes at the bottom of the screen and place them with the left button. Erase an object of the current mode using the right mouse button. Use the arrow keys to move rooms. Click PLAY to save your world and switch to the game. Esc exits to the OS.

Personal Notes

This has been mostly a learning / tinkering exercise and so far I really like building with FreeBasic. Is it going to build the most efficient code? No, but that doesn't really matter for this type of game. What's nice is that you can achieve some C/C++ style structured programming but it's easier to understand due to the BASIC syntax. A perfect fit for smaller, concept-learning projects and games. Also a plus that it can still build DOS binaries.

Recent Changes

  • [0fe327d] 2026-07-26: Fixed world wrapping logic
  • [286d250] 2026-07-26: World wraps infinitely (to avoid segfaults)
  • [52674e8] 2026-07-26: Remove ini file saving from editor
  • [c4d58c2] 2026-07-26: Remove ini files from makefile assets
  • [5c31eaf] 2026-07-26: removed unneeded .ini files; world files are only passed from command line now (with the default being themaze.dat

License

This project is in the public domain.

Contributing changes back to this codebase and giving attribution when reusing this code are both wonderful things, but neither are necessary.

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