HEALTH: ♥♥♥♥♥ AMMO: 12 WANTED:
GRAND THEFT APPLE DOWNTOWN
A top-down crime game for the Apple IIgs

Steal a car.Lose the police.Take the job.

GRAND THEFT APPLE

Solana Bay lives: traffic keeps to its lanes, people cross at the zebras, and every crime puts a star on your HUD and another black-and-white on your tail. The payphones have eight jobs, from WHEELS for $500 to THE BIG ONE for $5000. Written from scratch in 65816 assembly, in flat 16-colour pixel art on the Super Hi-Res screen.

Screenshots The city
A chase at four stars: two police cars at a junction downtown, a police shot in the air
IN DEVELOPMENT

The whole game plays, from the title to the ending: the city, the police, the eight jobs and the save game. It has yet to be tried on a real IIgs, and there's no download yet.

256×192tiles of city
40parked cars
5stars at most
8jobs
2radio stations
5hearts
The game

A city that lives around you

You walk or run in eight directions and drive anything you can get into. Traffic and people turn up just out of view around you, and the view runs ahead of your car the way it's going.

Downtown: cars at a junction, people on the sidewalks
Cars

Take any car

Forty cars are parked by the curb and in car parks. Walk up to one and press Return. Or stand in the traffic's way: a car stops, Return pulls the driver out, and it's yours.

Cars speed up, brake, back up and coast, and steer more sharply the faster they go. Hit something hard and your car takes damage. It smokes grey, then black, and a wreck burns for three seconds before it goes up.

Police cars closing in at four stars
The police

One car per star

Jacking a car makes you wanted, and knocking someone down adds a star, up to five. For each star a black-and-white comes in from out of view, ignoring the lanes and taking whichever road brings it closer. From three stars they ram you and shoot.

Caught on foot, or boxed in while you sit still, you're busted: a $500 fine. Keep every police car out of reach for ten seconds and a star goes. Or drive into one of the three spray shops for new paint and no stars at all.

The pistol fired along the sidewalk at a smoking car
Fists, a pistol, five hearts

Cartoon stars, no blood

Control punches or shoots, and Tab switches between your fists and the pistol. The gun shops sell the pistol and 12 rounds for $500. A shot knocks people down, though they get up again, and enough shots wreck a car.

Get hurt and you lose hearts. With none left you're out cold and wake up at SOLANA GENERAL with a $1000 bill. Press Return at its doors and $200 buys all your hearts back.

A wrecked car goes up in a cartoon blast
And the rest

A boom, a boing, a jingle

The engine hums higher the faster you go, and the siren wails while the police are after you. There's a horn on H, a cartoon boing when someone's knocked down and a bleep for every new star. Payphones ring when a job's waiting, a ka-ching pays you, and a jingle tells you you're busted.

Answering a payphone saves the game to the disk, and C on the title screen carries on from it.

The city

Where to go in Solana Bay

256 by 192 tiles, about 13 by 17 screens, made up for this game. The HUD always names the district you're in.

Sunset Beach

The west coast: sand, palms and beach umbrellas along the coast road.

Palm Hills

Houses with lawns and pools in the north, and a pickup for THE DROP.

Downtown

Glass towers, plazas, the hospital and a gun shop. You start here.

The Docks

Basins, cranes, containers and warehouses along the south coast.

Oil Fields

Pumpjacks on the dirt of the north-east, and not much else.

Solana Island

Across the bay in the south-east, reached by the Solana Bridge.

H  Solana General$200

The white building with a big blue H on its roof, just west of the start.

Gun shops$500

Downtown and at the docks, each with a target on the roof. 12 more rounds cost $100.

Spray shops

Downtown, the docks and the beach. Drive in at the hazard door.

The map of the whole city, with the districts named
Press M

The whole city at once

The map shows Solana Bay with your blinking mark, and everything you might be looking for. On the HUD, an arrow and a distance in tiles point the way.

  • The police, flashing blue and red
  • The spray shops
  • The hospital
  • The gun shops
  • The waypoint, flashing yellow
The payphones

Eight jobs, one at a time

There are payphones downtown, at Sunset Beach and at the docks. Press Return at one and the HUD tells you what to do, while its arrow points the way. Some jobs run against a clock. Get busted or run out of time and the job waits at the payphones for another go.

1WHEELS$500Steal a car and bring it to the docks.
2THE DROP$750A pickup in Palm Hills, a drop at the beach.60 S
3HEAT$1000Two stars out of nowhere: lose them.
4ISLAND RUN$1000Get a car and drive it to the island.90 S
5HOT PAINT$1250A hot car: get it a respray.60 S
6OIL MONEY$1500A pickup at the oil, brought downtown.75 S
7HOT WHEELS$2000A stolen car to the docks, with three stars on you.
8THE BIG ONE$5000A pickup on the island, four stars, then back downtown.120 S
A job on the HUD: 59 seconds to pick up in Palm Hills
On the HUD The job's words, its clock, and an arrow with the tiles to go.
The ending: THE END, SOLANA BAY IS YOURS, over the sunset
And then After the last job comes the ending, to the title's tune, and Return takes you back to play on.
Screenshots

Straight from the IIgs

320 by 200 pixels in 16 colours, as the Super Hi-Res screen shows them. Click one to see it bigger.

The title screen: Solana Bay at sunset
THE TITLE · painted for the game
Downtown traffic and people
DOWNTOWN
Police cars at four stars
FOUR STARS
Sunset Beach: sand, palms, an umbrella
SUNSET BEACH
Palm Hills: houses, lawns and a pool
PALM HILLS
The docks: basins, cranes and containers
THE DOCKS
The oil fields: pumpjacks on the dirt
OIL FIELDS
On the Solana Bridge over the bay
SOLANA BRIDGE
The map of the city
THE MAP · M
A job from the payphone with its clock
A JOB · against the clock
The pistol fired at a car
THE PISTOL
A wreck going up
A WRECK GOES UP
The radio

Two stations and a title tune

Each car is tuned to one of the stations, and R switches to the next one or turns the radio off. The tunes here are rendered by the game's build tools the way the IIgs's sound chip plays them.

THE TITLE SCREENSOLANA BAY

C major at sunset, 120 beats a minute with a lilt. It settles on A minor, the lead answers itself, and a bridge falls from F.

CAR RADIO · 1PALM DRIVE

E minor, four on the floor, with the bass bouncing in octaves and open hats on the off-beats. A sunny verse, then a chorus that lifts to A minor.

CAR RADIO · 2HARBOR NIGHTS

D minor after dark, slow and loose: a sparse bass, a late snare, and a soft lead over a two-chord vamp.

All the music and sounds are synthesized by the game's own Python tools and played by the Ensoniq chip. Nothing is sampled.

Controls

The keys, or a joystick

The Apple keyboard reports one key at a time, so speeding up while you steer has keys of its own.

On foot

←↑→↓ or WASDWalk
QEZCWalk diagonally
Shift or button 1Run
Return Space or button 0Take a car, a job at a payphone, the pistol at a gun shop's door, your hearts at the hospital
Control, or hold button 0Punch, or shoot with the pistol in hand
TabFists or the pistol

In a car

↑ W / ↓ SSpeed up / brake, then back up
← A / → DSteer
Q E / Z CSpeed up / back up while steering
Button 1Brake
Return Space or button 0Get out, once nearly stopped
H / RThe horn / the next station

Anywhere, M shows the map. Esc asks QUIT? Y OR N, and on the title it quits at once.

Inside

How it's made

A new game, written from the ground up for the IIgs.

What you need

  • An Apple IIgs with 8 MB and an accelerator, such as a 16 MHz ZipGS. It also runs on a stock IIgs, slowly.
  • Or MAME (on the Mac it comes with Ample), set up as a IIgs with a 16 MHz ZipGS.
  • An 800K ProDOS boot disk, which has to be writable for the save game.

How it's built

  • 65816 assembly, assembled with Merlin 32.
  • Python tools draw the tiles, the sprites, the city and the title picture, and write the music and the sounds.
  • 27 tests run in MAME on a stock IIgs and on a ZipGS, and a bot plays the timed jobs with the keys alone.