Bowing once again to relentless peer pressure, I grace the dear reader with another “befuddled mediocrity botches iOS development” blog. At the moment, it’s mostly intended to chronicle the progress of a game-changing project for my Professional iOS course at Madison College. Like, literally. Game-changing.

In 1982, one James D. Spain unleashed Lazer Maze on the ingenuous masses.  Widely regarded as a minor influence on my childhood, this Apple II tour de force is a high-stakes showdown between a pair of bloodthirsty idiots separated only by a tangled web of reflectors. The gameplay is simple enough: the player and his enemy are stationed at different points on the outer edge of a 10 by 10 grid, which is populated by said reflectors (see right). The reflectors make the lazer change its course to a different cardinal direction. The lazer-wielding player is then tasked with predicting where his lazer beam will wind up after it has bounced off all the reflectors in its path (e.g., from point 15 to point 12, below). If the player names the endpoint correctly, his alien nemesis is cruelly murdered; if not, the player gets deservedly ‘sploded by an extraterrestrial projectile. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Hypothetically, that would be a really rad game on to have on mobile, right? Well, I’m gamely (ha!) going to try bringing this crock of joy to iOS, with a design that’s…to be determined. I picked this guy as a project for a few reasons: a) the game is really fun and weirdly indelible (if you’re me), b) it seems simple enough that it’s not entirely outlandish to think that I could actually pull it off, and c) as far as I can tell, there’s nothing like it in the App Store, which is a shame (there is a game called “Lazer Maze” in the store, but it’s a totally different thing).

I’ll check in here at least weekly with exclusive behind-the-scenes coverage of the project. Alright then, I guess we’re set for now. Onward and phoneward!