Beyond Columns

Beyond Columns drops a three-piece column onto a narrow board and lets it fall. You can shift it and change the order of its colors before it touches the bottom. When three identical pieces line up, the group disappears, the score goes up, and room opens again for the next columns.

Brad P. Taylor's version 1.1 carries the date 1989 in its original help. The program opens straight onto a menu with five difficulty levels and a table of high scores. The play area sits in the center, while the Score, Level and Total indicators stay on the right. The board and its pieces are drawn with VGA graphics.

Choosing your first game

Choose Level offers Very Easy, Easy, Medium, Harder and Even Harder, numbered one through five. Press 1 to start at the first difficulty. A opens About Game, which shows the keys and an explanation from the author of how the project began. From that help you can advance with Page Down and return to the menu with Enter when the last page says so.

The game starts with a column at the top of the field. Each piece keeps its shape and color as it moves, so you can recognize the order before and after a rotation. The descent continues while you decide where to place it. P pauses the game and returns to the same position when you press it again.

Move, rotate and drop

J moves the column to the left and L moves it to the right. K changes the order of the three pieces. A single press moves the bottom piece to the top and shifts the other two positions. The column keeps its vertical shape during that operation.

Space drops the group onto the stack. Before pressing it, look at the color that will end up at the bottom and the pieces already in that spot. A rotation can turn a column that didn't fit into one that completes a group. When it lands, the next one appears and you have to choose a position again.

The left and right arrows are also listed as movement alternatives in the help. The Down arrow handles the fall, while the number keys 4, 5 and 6 offer another set of controls. The player includes buttons for left, right, rotate, drop and pause using the letter commands verified in this copy.

Making room with matches

Placing pieces without watching the order soon fills the central area. First look at the top of each stack and find two identical colors that you can complete with the incoming column. If the new column has two identical pieces, a rotation can bring them together next to another one on the board.

The gallery shows a vertical match prepared that way. Two identical pieces from a column are placed on top of another of the same color. The group disappears and the Total counter goes to 00003. In that game, Score shows 65 points after the earlier moves and drops.

Total helps you keep track of the eliminated pieces and Level shows the difficulty currently running. Also watch the height of the stacks. A move that clears three pieces gives you room to maneuver again and lets you use gaps that were previously occupied.

The preserved version

This game page uses the executable BEYOND.EXE and the scores file BEYOND.HIS from the owner's collection. The download keeps both inside the original ZIP. DOSBox runs them in the browser with their menus, table and help.

The identifying image comes from the game's own menu. The background and the gallery also use real screenshots of this edition. The About Game screen preserves Brad P. Taylor's name, the version number and the year, which help identify the copy and its instructions.