Buffalo Roundup

Buffalo Roundup
Title screen of the game
Game No.	510
Voting	6.00 points, 6 votes
Developer	Laszlo Mero, Andras Joo, Zoltan Joo, Csaba Andor
Company	Andromeda Software
Publisher	Commodore
Release	1983
Platform	C64
Gamemode	Single player
Operation
Media
Language
Information	Published as part of the "Fantasy Five (Collection)".

Description

In the game "Buffalo Roundup", the player takes on the role of a cowboy who must drive a herd of buffalo into a corral on horseback within a limited time. He must ensure that none of the animals escape through a gap in the fence into the desert. If the cowboy succeeds, he is given a new herd in the next round, in a pasture with an even more sparsely fenced enclosure. If, however, any animals escape and are lost, the game ends after the current round, once all the buffalo have either been contained or fled into the desert.

Design

The cowboy...

...and one of the buffalo

During the game, the screen displays a herd of buffalo grazing near a watering hole. A narrow, rectangular area on the left side of the screen is reserved for displaying the game score; furthermore, the entrance to the corral, into which the player must drive the buffalo, is located here. The pasture is bordered on the other sides partly by mountains and partly by fences. In the first round, one of the fences is already missing, giving the animals an escape route. In the second round, two fences are missing, in the third three, and in all subsequent rounds, four fences are missing, making it increasingly difficult to prevent the buffalo from escaping and, at the same time, drive them gradually toward the corral within the limited playing time.

Graphics

During the game, the multicolor bitmap mode is used for the screen display (graphics memory from address $2000, video RAM at $0400). Only the cowboy and his horse are each represented by a sprite (Sprite 0 and Sprite 1); all other objects—especially all the buffalo—are part of the graphical representation. The title screen and the high score list, however, are displayed — presumably for simplicity — in monochrome text mode, using the video RAM at address $0400 and the character set from the ROM at address $1000.

The display of the title screen is repeatedly interrupted by short scenes from the game.

Don't dawdle, or the buffaloes will make a run for it!

After each of the first three levels, another fence is removed (compilation).

Sound

While the title screen is displayed, a pretty but very short two-part melody plays intermittently (see section "Theme"). During gameplay, the sound output is limited to underscoring in-game events, such as successfully herding a buffalo into the pen or an animal escaping into the desert. The following gallery illustrates these sounds by plotting the temporal evolution of pitch at a resolution of 5 ms (200 pixels/s in the original resolution) on a musical staff diagram. The scale at the top and bottom of the diagrams is divided into 10 ms segments.

Sound sequence during penning (500 ms)

Sound sequence during a buffalo's escape (490 ms)

Sound sequence at the end of a level (7.93 s)

Hints

At the start of each round of the game "Buffalo Roundup," the player-controlled cowboy is located on the left side of a pasture where 21 buffalo are grazing around a watering hole. By riding toward these buffalo and cornering them from the side, above, or below, the player can selectively drive one or more of the animals forward. In this way, the player can prevent the buffalo from escaping into the desert through gaps in the fence at the top and bottom of the screen, and can also drive the animals toward the corral, which can be reached through a gate on the left side of the screen. The player only has about 100 seconds to complete this task; therefore, they should hurry and keep a close eye on the timer, which counts down from 999 to 000 in the upper left corner of the screen.

Each buffalo that trots off-screen toward the corral is awarded 100 points. If all the animals are penned before the timer expires, the player also receives the remaining timer value as a point bonus.

If all 21 buffalo are in the pen before the timer expires, a new round begins. After the first three rounds, one of the remaining fences at the top or bottom of the screen is removed, gradually increasing the difficulty. If one or more buffaloes escape or the time limit is exceeded before the task is successfully completed, the game ends. In this case, the player can enter their initials in a high score list with a total of six entries, provided they are ranked.

Screen Layout

Typical scene from the game

Controls

The game can be controlled either via a joystick in any port or via the keyboard. Pressing the fire button or the SPACE  key starts a new game. In each round, the player character must then be guided across the pasture to drive the buffalo, preventing them from escaping and pushing them towards the corral. The cowboy can move horizontally, vertically, and — by pressing two keys simultaneously when using the keyboard — diagonally. The game can be controlled either with a joystick in any port or via the keyboard. Pressing the fire button or the SPACE  key starts a new game. The player character must then be controlled in each round across the pasture to drive the buffaloes, preventing them from escaping and moving them towards the corral. The cowboy can move horizontally, vertically, and — in the case of keyboard controls, by pressing two keys simultaneously — diagonally:

• or SPACE : Cowboy rides left
• or 2 : Cowboy rides right
• or ← : Cowboy moves up
• or 1 : Cowboy moves down

Tips

• To save time, the buffaloes should not be driven individually, but in groups towards the corral. To do this, simply nudge one buffalo towards a previously uninvolved animal so that it joins the group.
• Likewise, the buffaloes do not need to be driven all the way into the corral entrance. Instead, it is sufficient to place them at the beginning of the passage and then let other animals, brought in later, drive them all the way through.

With a little skill, several buffalo can be herded into the corral at once.

Complete solution to the first level (the timer runs in increments of 10 to save memory).

After finishing the game, you can enter your initials in a simple high score list.

Solution

The game doesn't have a "solution" where, for example, all the buffalo herds are safely locked up and the cowboy rides off happily into the sunset. Instead, the goal is to drive each herd into the corral as completely as possible, thwarting any escape attempt by even a single animal.

Cheats

On CSDb, there's a crack by Hokuto Force with a trainer function. It allows you to either disable the time limit or continue the game even if some buffalo have escaped.

Selection options in the Crack of Hokuto Force

The trainer offers an additional title screen that was not included in the original.

Internal Data Structures

For developing custom trainer functions and for analyzing or manipulating the data used by the game, knowledge of memory allocation and internal operation is helpful. The following table therefore compiles some information about Buffalo Roundup. Interestingly, some of the parameters are present in duplicate, both in binary and BCD representations: The BCD representation is used internally for the screen display, while the binary numbers are used to calculate the scores. Both representations of these parameters are incremented and decremented independently.

Address	Content	Range of values	Remarks
$7022—$7024	Elapsed time	000..999	BCD encoded, low/mid/high
$7027—$7028	Time remaining	999..0	little endian (low/high)
$7FBA	Number of buffalo in the pasture	21..0	—
$7FBB	Number of buffalo in the corral	0..21	—
$702B—$702C	Number of buffalo in the corral	0..21	BCD encoded, low/high
$7030—$7031	Number of escaped buffalo	0..21	BCD encoded, low/high

Votes

Voting of the C64-Wiki users (10=the best vote):
6.00 points at 6 votes (rank 876). You need to be logged in to cast a vote.
C64 Games	5	December 1, 2025 - "befriedigend" - 240 downs
Lemon 64	6,27	December 1, 2025 - 33 votes
Rombach	7	September 1984 - "Verdict 3"

Critics

Stephan64: "Buffalo Roundup is a simple but nicely made game with a neat gameplay idea from the early days of the C64. The buffaloes you're looking after tend to wander off, but they're easy to catch and herd back, so the task is fun and the main enemy is usually just the all-too-short time limit. 5 points for a game that may not captivate for hours, but can still entertain for quite a while."

Rombachs C64-Spieleführer: " The game idea is original, but the execution isn't exactly top-notch. The difficulty of the first level is moderate, mainly due to the limited time; it can be mastered after several practice rounds. (verdict 3)."

Miscellaneous

Cover

Cassette cover

Cassette back cover

Inlay

Cassette inlay

Cassette

Buffalo Roundup cassette, front cover

Buffalo Roundup cassette, back cover

Video Recording

Longplay recording of the game

Theme

The following gallery shows the game's theme song and the ending sequence in standard musical notation. For creative use, the sheet music is also available as a PDF document (File:BuffaloRoundup Theme PDF.pdf) and in ABC musical notation (File:BuffaloRoundup Theme.abc.txt).

Musical notation of the title theme, reconstructed by logging all write accesses to the SID

Game ending sound sequence

Accesories

The "Fantasy Five" game collection includes an 8-page user manual. The following image shows the user instructions for the game "Buffalo Roundup." The complete manual can be found here: File:FantasyFive Manual.pdf.

User manual for the game "Buffalo Roundup"

User manual for the game "Buffalo Roundup," continued

Emulator Settings

If you find the game too hectic at its original speed and would prefer to calmly assemble larger groups of buffalo and drive them together to the corral, you should play "Buffalo Roundup" on an emulator and reduce the execution speed to approximately 30% of the normal value.

Trivia

• ​​The note "BOYTORIAN MUSIC" on the start screen could mean that the theme song is inspired by a piece of music by the Hungarian country band "Bojtorján." A link to such a song, released in 1982 and titled "Lóverseny," which bears some resemblance to the theme song, can be found in the "Videos" section.
• The initial number of buffaloes in each round, 21, is not a single constant stored centrally in the program code that could be changed for testing purposes. Rather, this value appears in numerous places throughout the program, often in loop termination conditions and as an integer multiple (2 × 21, 12 × 21). The value was likely chosen because the table storing the herd's status, which consists of 12-byte entries, could no longer be addressed with an 8-bit index register if there were more than 21 buffaloes (12 × 21 = 252 < 256, but 12 × 22 = 264 > 256).

Fastloader

The cassette version of the game collection "Fantasy Five" uses the fast loader "Novaload". Because each of the two supplied cassettes contains several games, this fast loader first loads a selection menu written in BASIC, in which the user can select the desired game. The menu program then loads all program components belonging to the selected game. In the case of "Buffalo Roundup", only a single program file, approximately 16 KB in size, is loaded starting at address $0801. This file overwrites the menu program with, among other things, a BASIC program consisting solely of the line

1985 SYS2061

The fastloader executes this program automatically after loading, thus starting the game.

During the initial phase of the loading process, the fastloader displays, among other things, a scrolling text in which Commodore advertises other games from their company (middle image in the following gallery):

COMMODORE PRESENTS 'FANTASY FIVE' FOR THE COMMODORE 64. A COMPILATION OF EXTRAORDINARY GAMES FROM ANDROMEDA SOFTWARE. (C) COMMODORE BUSINESS MACHINES (UK) LTD 1984.
LOOK OUT FOR OTHER COMMODORE TITLES SUCH AS:- 'ARCADE EXTRAVAGANZA' AND 'INTERNATIONAL SOCCER'.
COMING SOON ON CASSETTE:- 'STOP THE EXPRESS'!!!

Start screen of the "Novaload" fastloader

Scrolling text in the initial loading phase

Menu for selecting the program to be loaded

Highscore

The following list invites you to immortalize yourself with your highest score. The number of buffalo herds that the cowboy has driven wholly or partially into the pen may also be entered as a "level"; however, the ranking is determined solely by the score.

Topscore of Stephan64

1. Stephan64 - 6.440 - 3 (18.11.2025)
2. Sledgie - 1.400 - 1 (02.12.2025)
3. Empty - 0 (tt.mm.jjjj)

	#2 Sledgie		#3 Empty

Links

• C64Games.de - Game No. 7867
• Gamebase64.com - Game No. 1157
• Lemon64 - Game No. 386
• ready64 - Game No. 2446
• CSDb (all entries)
• CSDb - Release No. 227485
• Buffalo Roundup at MobyGames

• Universal Videogame List
• Early, unreleased version of the game at "Games that weren't"

Videos

• Video at YouTube : Music piece "Lóverseny" (in English: "horse racing") by the Hungarian band "Bojtorján" (released in 1982)