A Day At The Animal Races

A Day At The Animal Races is a BASIC 10 liner version for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K computer of the VIP Animal Race gambling videogame.

The original game was programmed by Brian Astle for the CHIP-8 interpreter running on the COSMAC VIP computer and published in the RCA COSMAC VIP Game Manual in 1978. In this video, you can see it in action on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum Next, running in my CHIP-8 virtual machine. 

A Day At The Animal Races is my second entry (here's the first) to the 12th edition (2023) of the BASIC 10 Liner Contest, PUR-80 category. The program source code and detailed description are included in the download.

How to play

Five different animals race against one another and you have the chance to test your expertise at picking the winner.

Wait until the animals are ready to start, then select an animal by pressing a number 1 through 5 and then Enter. Decide how much you want to bet (up to a limit of $9), then press that key, followed by Enter. You can change the selected animal by inputting an invalid bet. The selected animal and the corresponding number will be highlighted in cyan to remind you of your choice and the race will start.

After the race is over, your winnings or losses will be computed and the new total displayed. Press Enter to start the the next race.

You can win the game by accumulating $256 or more.

Hints for expert players

All animals move at approximately the same speed, but they start from different positions. The odds for each animal are related to the starting position but include a random element. Some races favor the player and you should bet up to the limit on these. Some races are unfavorable and you should bet carefully on these.

Love animals!

Emulation powered by JSSpeccy.

Sinclair and ZX Spectrum are © Amstrad / Sky In-Home Service Ltd.