ASCII graphics games have been around forever, but one thing that always bugs me is the aspect ratio problem. In a fixed-width font display, a character cell usually has an aspect ratio around 1:2, and the result is that up-down movement is too fast, and left-right movement is too slow, and it’s not easy to tell how far apart two things are. Games like Rogue and ZZT exhibit this issue.
I attempted to rectify the problem. Since each Op Nine grid cell is two characters wide, the aspect ratio is approximately 1:1. It will vary based on font settings, but you can tell from the bounding box. The grid is 15x15 cells, so the bounding box has about the same aspect. It might be a little tall or a little wide, but it should be close to square.
This change makes the ASCII gameplay feel significantly better to me.
A side effect is that individual cells can have more variety. In this game most tiles are just doubled characters like @@ or XX, but some are other combinations. I just want to point out that the lawnmower faces the direction you’re mowing – well, for left-right mowing anyway.
(And by the way, the PC makes me think of the old Atari Haunted House, if anyone remembers that.)