****************************************************************************** Hi folks, friends and neighbours ! This is OFFENDER, the first game designed exclusively for A3000 and turbo-board users. ****************************************************************************** [see 0.12 for changes in version 1.01] 0. Installation and requirements ================================ 0.0 Copyright ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Offender is shareware. You may distribute this demo only with all files (see 0.5) in its entirety. If you enjoy this demo, you're encouraged to send $15 to the following address to get the complete registered version. You can even obtain the full source code (SAS C 5.10) with all self-written tools used in developing this game and documentation for only $50. Fred Bayer Artilleriestr. 21a W8000 Munich 19 Germany Account# 36853751 BLZ (bank#) 700 202 70 at "Bayerische Vereinsbank, München" (German account, I don't know the internatiomal specification for it) Be sure to give your full address for I can send you your package immediately. 0.1 General ~~~~~~~~~~~ Offender is based on the classical game Defender® by Williams Corporation. Offender was coded from the scratch and all game features have been based on the memory of the author (spending too much time at the arcade machines :-)). 0.2 Hardware requirements ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Offender requires an Amiga with a 68020 CPU and a 68881 FPU or better. It has been developed on an A3000 with 68030 CPU and 68882 FPU (25 MHz). 68040 users should know that Offender uses some trigonometric FPU instructions not available on their CPU, but with the right F-line trap-handler this should not be a problem. ¡¡¡ Important Note : Offender will definitely NOT run on an Amiga with a 68000 or 68010 CPU or without a FPU. I'm NOT planning to release a version for those chips !!! The demo version requires 446 kByte chip and 109 kByte fast memory. If there's not enough chip memory available, you won't hear all sounds, but the game is playable. The full version will need 698 kByte of chip memory to load all sounds. With fewer memory you won't hear all of them, either. 0.3 Software requirements ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Offender requires Kickstart 1.3 or 2.0. It needs the standard diskfont.library in the LIBS: directory and the files Script.font, Script/15 and Script/20 (included with Offender) in the FONTS: directory. 0.4 Multitasking considerations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Offender uses all four sound channels. If it can't allocate them. it'll exit. Improper operation can be caused by other programs not using the proper sharing protocol. Though Offender takes control over the keyboard and the mouse, other tasks will continue to run. You just can't communicate with them. So you can do a lengthy download or compiler run or whatelse while playing Offender. You should ChangeTaskPri Offender to a higher priority than the other tasks to gain snappy respondence. Offender doesn't Forbid() or Disable(), so interrupt-driven background tasks (like downloading) aren't disturbed. Offender uses CPU time proportional to the number of objects on the screen. So, most of the time (when there're only a few objects) other tasks will get enough CPU time. On the other hand, sometimes (but only for short periods, e.g. when smartbombing a screenfull of aliens) Offender needs much more CPU cycles, so you should run Offender at a higher task priority to avoid slowing down the animations. 0.5 Files ~~~~~~~~~ Offender.README A short introduction Offender_PAL_demo The game itself (PAL version) Offender_NTSC_demo The game itself (NTSC version) Offender_PAL_demo.info The corresponding icon Offender_NTSC_demo.info The corresponding icon Offender.logo Logo for titlescreen Offender.doc -- this file -- PoorSounds/#? Various sound effects (poorly sampled) Script.font Offender's font Script/15 coming in Script/20 2 sizes 0.6 Installation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copy 'Script.font', 'Script/15', and 'Script/20' to your FONTS: directory Copy all other files (including the 'PoorSounds' subdirectory) into any directory you like. 0.7 Running Offender ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CD to the directory where Offender resides and type 'Offender_NTSC_demo' or 'Offender_PAL_demo' to start it. Or doubleclick the icon. Offender might create the file 'Offender.HiScore' in the current directory, but you may delete it to start again with a virgin hiscore table. 0.8 Differences between PAL and NTSC versions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The PAL version uses the extra lines available and plays at 50 frames per second; the NTSC version plays at 60 frames per second but is restricted to 200 horizontal lines. Because of the higher frame rate the NTSC version requires more CPU power, so you should use the PAL version if you have a slow CPU. Though timing is based on the frame rate, the overall speed of the game is the same in both versions. 0.9 Testing configurations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Offender was tested and ran successfully on the following systems: - A3000, 25MHz 68030 & 68882, 2 MB Chip, 4 MB Fast, 52 MB Quantum HD, KS 36.143, WB 36.68 (my machine) - A3000, 16MHz 68030 & 68882, 1 MB Chip, 1 MB Fast, 52 MB Quantum HD, KS 36.143, WB 36.68 (Thanks to Pernhard!) - A2000B with GVP turbo-board, 28MHz 68030, 33MHz 68882, Kickstart 1.3 (Thanks to Pille!) 0.10 Bug reports ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Offender has been tested many hours and has been found 'bugfree' :-) It'll exit if there's a resource not available giving you a short explanation. If you should encounter an "Internal error RC = xxx" or a guru or other strange behaviour, PLEASE report it to me together with your system configuaration, including model, CPU type, FPU type, memory configuration, Kickstart version etc. 0.11 Differences to the registered versions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This demo contains only the first 2 levels. Additionally all sound effects are down-sampled to about 4000 samples per second. The full registered version will contain all levels plus the original sound effects at about 10000 samples per second. (450 kBytes sounds!) The source code version will further include all sources in C and assembler (SAS C 5.10 and SAS Assembler) as well as the IFF images and the self-written tools used in developing Offender, together with a documentation on the source code (in fact all the files on my hard disk concerning Offender !). !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! 0.12 Changes in version 1.01 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Offender is now safer in low memory conditions. It will now leave at least 20 kByte of chip memory available possibly immolating some sound effects. You may now delete or trash any sample file (even the whole PoorSounds subdirectory) and Offender will run properly (without that sound of course) When the volume containing FONTS: wasn't mounted during loading Offender, it aborted without bringing up the requester "Please insert ...". This is now fixed. Offender has now been tested with Kickstart 2.04 (37.175) on my A3000 and --- it works ! !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! NEW !! 1. Handling =========== 1.0 Basics ~~~~~~~~~~ I assume, you are comfortable with the game's rules. If so, skip to the next section. If not, here's a short description: You're flying with your fighter over an unknown planet. There are some fellows of you on the surface, waiting to get back home. But --- there're those ugly bad green (what color else ???) alien landers wanting to capture and eat (or whatelse) your friends; of course you have to save them. So you have to shoot those landers and if they've captured a humanoid, you can save him by touching him with your fighter. Now you can put him back to the surface by flying against it. If you can't get him, he'll certainly survive falling a certain height, but he'll break his neck after a too long fall. When a lander has gotten a humanoid and has reached the top, it'll turn into a mutant. Mutants are quite aggressive and you've got to be tricky to shoot them. And if all humanoids have been captured or shot, the planet will explode and there'll be a lot of mutants fighting against you. If your mission takes too long, baiters will appear. As the name implies, they're chasing you and you have to smartly out-maneuver them. On later waves there'll also appear pods and bombers. Pods are quite harmless, but if you shoot them (giving you many points) they release a handful of swarmers, tiny red UFOs jumping on the surface and accele- rating towards you. Bombers don't shoot but they leave mines which are deadly for you. All this sounds quite horrible for you (and your fellows on the surface!), but wait: There're two extras you can use in your mission: The smartbomb, which kills all aliens on the visible screen (you only have a limited amount of them), and the hyperspace key, which allows you to escape from critical situations and teleports you to another place. After completing an attack wave you'll receive bonus points for the humanoids having survived it. For every 10000 points you scored, you'll be awarded an extra fighter and an extra smartbomb. 1.1 Titlescreen ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It's very simple: - Start the game by pressing FIRE - Quit Offender by pressing ESC - Or watch the titlescreen and hear that wonderful music 1.2 The game itself ------------------- Offender is controlled by the joystick (connected to the 2nd port), the mouse (1st port), and the keyboard. Your fighter is entirely steered by the joystick (yes, there's no reverse button!). Lasers are fired with the fire button. Smartbombs can be activated either with the left mouse button or the space bar. Hyperspace is activated with the right mouse button or the RETURN key. Sound on/off is toggled with the 'S' key (initially on) You can immediately abort the game and return to the titlescreen by pressing the ESC key. 1.3 Joining the Hall of Fame ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you hear that Chinese gong after losing your last fighter, you'll have made it! One line in the hiscore window is painted red and it's the chance to immortalize you. Just type your name (max. 7 chars) and press the ENTER key. You can correct typos with the BACKSPACE key. 2. Programming ============== [this chapter only included with the full source code license] ... 3. Credits ========== Ok, I've done most things by myself, but: Thanks to -- Adrian Aylward, whose post.library and MkBmap programs were used to render the fonts -- Pille and Pernhard for gametesting -- Funky and Jolly for helpful suggestions at Le Barbú -- Bassi for support on sampling sounds -- my coffee machine ***************************************************************************** SnailMail: Fred Bayer Artilleriestr. 21a W8000 Munich 19 Germany Email: bayerf@lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.de (expires soon) or: pilger@lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.de Voice: +49 89 1291711 (possibly german speaking answering machine) *********************** "Wosmoneedsiagtmuassmawissn!" ***********************