whackem_game.romwhackem_game.bas
The game! It's starting to resemble a game! I'm excited. So far I've got a working mallet, a working score (built from one 16-bit variable and one 8-bit variable; when both are full the score rolls over), a working timer, and one to three Byrons that pop out of holes when the timer "interval" reaches "intervalmax." There is still no collision detection; I'll need to squeeze that in there in a later update.
The game is probably way too fast at the moment, but I'm planning to include a dynamic difficulty adjustment based on the stage reached. The higher the stage, the faster the action and the more Byrons that appear. Butts will also appear more frequently in later stages, as well as deadly bombs that end the game instantly. As with your standard whack-a-mole style video games, the player is expected to reach a target score for that stage, which raises depending on the difficulty level.
Everything's running well so far, even if the code is an absolute mess. One sticking point is that swinging the mallet noticeably slows the game down, and spamming it will reduce the action to a crawl. I'm not sure if this can be fixed, but I certainly hope there's a solution.