Short: 1 or 2 player strategy game, like Breach2 Act Of War ~~~~~~~~~~ (c) Dave Smith, September 1992 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. System requirements ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Act Of War works under both Workbench 1.3 and 2.0, in both NTSC and PAL, and requires 1 meg of memory as a minimum. It should work fine on accelerated systems, if a little fast in some places! I've got some "slowdown" routines in it, but as I've only got a 68000 I haven't been able to test it. As Act Of War was written with AMOS, it multitasks - use Left-Amiga A to switch between the game and Workbench. 2. Introduction ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Act of War, or AoW as I've just decided to call it as it involves less typing, is a strategy game in the tradition of Laser Squad, Breach 2 (or so I'm told) and, if anyone can remember that far back, Rebelstar. If you've never played any of those games, think of a childish fascination for big guns married to a fair amount of strategy and you won't be far wrong. So what makes AoW different? The game is played over a series of missions, three of which are included with the program. More missions are being worked on as you read this, by myself and others. And if you don't like these missions, there's no reason for you not to create your own! On payment of a small shareware fee (more information later on) you'll get the mission designer that I use, which makes mission creation very simple. Everything from the map, to the weapons, to the sound effects can be changed. Noteable game features include: * 1 or 2 players * NTSC or PAL * Sampled sound * Completely extendable! * 3 difficulty levels * Optional line-of-sight feature * Squad arming sequence * Explosive scenery * Keyboard and / or mouse controlled * Halfway-decent user interface * Revolutionary new ICASS AI system The three missions included in this release are as follows: * Informant - An ex-director of your shady corporation is ready to spill your industrial secrets to a rival company. There's only one way to stop him - break into his sprawling mansion and take him out! (Obviously, negotiation comes a long way down the list with these people). * Escape - Taken prisoner by a corrupt Planetary Security Force for your part in the above escapade, you and two companions have been jailed in an orbital maximum-security prison. Initially armed with only a little smuggled-in plastic explosive, you must break out of your cell, somehow obtain a weapon, free your comrades and escape to a passing PSF shuttle to secure your freedom. * Terminator! - Soon after you make it back to your base after escaping captivity, a Terminator droid from a rival corporation stages an assault! Backed up by a squad of combat droids, it will attempt to kill you all... 3. Unpacking and loading ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Use LHA to unpack the game onto a formatted floppy. Then, reset the Amiga and boot from the disk to auto-load the game. It is essential to boot from the floppy (although the game can be installed onto a hard drive, instructions within the archive) as the game needs the assign "px:" and a font. There are extensive documents on disk, so before you play the game you might prefer to load workbench and read them. They make the learning curve a lot shorter. --- (Note: The game should work fine under NTSC, but I've been unable to test it in that mode. In the unlikely event of any problems, contact me at the email address below and I'll sort it out.) --- Dave Smith email: csc361@uk.ac.lancs.cent1 9.29am csc361@central1.lancaster.ac.uk September 4th ----ActOfWar_Fix.readme--(schon auf der Diskette enthalten!------------ Short: Corrects errors in ActOfWar Apparently my brain was on holiday on Friday, and so there were a couple of errors in the "actofwar.lha" file. First, the startup-sequence is incorrect. This is very embarrassing. Secondly, the "Terminator!" mission needed an updated "GameTiles" file, and guess which one I put in the archive? The old one. To fix both of these problems, unpack this archive (aowfix.lha) onto the Act of War disk you have already. When it asks you if it should overwrite a file, type "Y" - this is what it has to do. A couple of other points that have cropped up - the game needs nearly all of one meg to run, so if you have just one meg you won't be able to run the game from the hard drive. Also, if the game won't run remember to disconnect all external floppies etc. to get the most possible memory. As a result of these problems, I'm going on a memory-saving binge today and hopefully there'll be an updated version out within the next couple of days, that will allow hard drive operation with one meg. My apologies for these problems, I hope they haven't put you off the game! Dave Smith (csc361@cent1.lancs.ac.uk) 7/9/92 ----ActOfWar_Fix.readme--(schon auf der Diskette enthalten!------------