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Text File | 1989-12-31 | 37KB | 1,231 lines

======================================= Apache's -------------- -= S K Y D U E L =- -------------- (c)1993-5 Apache of VRC ======================================= The ultimate single or multi player air combat game, combining ballistic missile warfare with dogfighting and ground attack. -------- Features -------- o Up to 3 simultaneous players. o 4 different craft. (Plane, Helicopter, Cannon and Balloon) o STE enhanced sound and graphics. o Many specials. (UFO, Bomber, Cloud, Warper, Zeppelin, Tunnel, Canyon, Lightning, SAMS, Parachutists etc.) o 5 different landscape types. o On-line help feature. o A wide variety of game options. ------------- The First Bit ------------- SkyDuel is the third ST game I have written so far, and (as we PD/Shareware authors continually say) represents the results of over 2 years hard work. The game is designed to be as flexible as possible with one, two and three player modes, and two screens full of different options to customise the game's features and difficulty level. These instructions are in two parts - a quick start section, followed by a full explanation of the [many] features of the game. It is recommended that you read the quick start guide first, play the game to get an idea of what it is like, and then read the remainder of these instructions to fill in the rest of the details. (This is beginning to sound a bit like a PC manual) If you are one of those people who doesn't read the DOC files then I will take this brief opportunity to say that SkyDuel is Shareware. (Remember this concept? People get the game for free, don't register and the authors stop writing any more software...) For the 5 pounds sterling shareware fee you will greatly influence us to release more Shareware software for the Atari ST. (see proper credits for more details) ----------------- Quick Start Guide ----------------- The game takes the form of a battle between two forces (red and green), and optionally a third neutral player. To load SkyDuel, simply double click on the program icon from the GEM desktop in Low Resolution. The game will now load, and the main menu will appear. Select 'Options' from the menu to alter the game set up. For a fuller description of each option see the main guide below, otherwise you will have to try to guess what each option does! (Although most are fairly self explanatory.) Select 'Done' to end option selection. Next select 'Play' from the main menu. A landscape will be generated, and an information box will appear describing the conditions for the forthcoming sortie. Click any joystick button to continue. The game proper will now begin, with each player landed on their respective runway. If you need to do so, pressing <HELP> at any time will bring up a screen detailing the controls of the current craft etc. At the top of the screen is a status bar. This shows the wind direction and strength, along with each player's Base population, Fuel level, Damage level, Craft left, Bullets left and Bombs left. To win you must damage the other player such that they have no people left in their base, and then bomb the base once more to destroy it. This is accomplished by the use of the plane, helicopter, cannon or balloon (or more accurately, their weapons!). In Arcade mode the objective is to score more points than the opponent, within a time limit. When on the landing pad use up and down, or F1-F3, to select the required craft, and press fire to begin using it. The helicopter and plane can then be flown over to the other base to drop bombs (down+fire) or shoot missiles (up+fire) at it, or the gun can be used to fire projectiles directly from the pad. The other player's job is to stop you by destroying your craft and your base first. When a plane or helicopter is shot down, a parachutist is released. Points are scored, or the base population is increased, if the parachutist is landed on a base before the other player shoots it down. A third player may join as the balloon by using the '8' key on the keypad. The balloon is blown by the wind (which changes at different heights), but can be controlled by it's burner. (See Help screen) The balloonist may take either (or both) sides, and drops bombs on the landscape. After the round has ended, the result is displayed and either the next round is played, or the overall battle result is shown. The game is either best of 3, 5 or 7, as set on the options screen. For a more detailed description of the games features see below. --------------------------------------- In-depth Instruction Guide --------------------------------------- --------- Main Menu --------- When SkyDuel has loaded the main menu is displayed. The menu contains four options: Credits, Options, Play and Exit. These are described individually below. This, and all other menus in SkyDuel are controlled by joystick in port 1 (not the mouse one!). To select the menu choices, use up, down, left and right to move the red box, and press fire to select the currently highlighted choice. ------- Credits ------- This is simply a number of consecutive pages containing the credits, greetings and shareware information associated with SkyDuel. Press fire to move to the next page. ------------ Game Options ------------ The options are accessed via the 'Options' selection on the main menu, and fill two screens. The second screen is accessed via the 'More...' option on screen 1. Options are changed by moving the highlight over the required selection, and clicking the fire button until the correct choice appears. Options Page 1 -------------- Game Type --------- There are three game types - Single Player, Arcade and Strategy. Single Player is single player (no, really?!) against an Artificially Intelligent computer opponent, with the objective being to eliminate the population of the opponents base before they do the same to you. Strategy is the same as Single Player, but with two players against each other. Arcade mode also pits two players against one another, but the winner is the one who scores most points. Points are scored thus: Opponent dies 3 Bomber plane shot 2 Parachutist landed 1 Enemy parachutist dies 1 Balloon shot down 1 Zeppelin shot down 1 Canyon flown through 1 This means it is possible to win arcade mode games without actually killing the opponent, and that there is no need to shoot their base. This leads to a more 'dogfighting' style of gameplay. An extra player may join any of these game types by using the balloon. (see below) Best of... ---------- Each battle is made up of a number of rounds, 3, 5 or 7, as set by this option. The winner of the battle is the player who wins more than half of the rounds that are played. eg. 3 rounds to win in the Best of 5 mode. It is possible to draw a battle under certain circumstances, such as when both players simultaneously destroy each other. Attack Level ------------ It is possible to set the 'attack level' of each of the players to either Weak, Normal or Strong. The attack level influences the amount of damage that bullets and bombs do, the resiliance of the vehicles used etc. By suitable selections of this option it is possible to set the game so that experienced players are handicapped (ie. weak) so that they can play against bad players on equal terms. This option also provides a way of making the Single Player game harder or easier by adjusting the player's and computer's attack levels accordingly. Scenario -------- SkyDuel features a semi-intelligent landscape generator. There are five scenario's: Day, Night, Fog, Snow and Lightning Storm. Day The 'standard' scenario. Bright daylight, sun and clouds. Night Obviously set at night, so some things are hard to see. Stars. Fog No sun or clouds, just grey fog making everything hazy. Snow A very glarey level due to the snow everywhere. Storm Midway between day and night, but with no sun, darker clouds and the risk of being hit by a random lightning strike. It is also possible to choose 'Random Scenario', and the computer will select a different one for each round. Wind ---- In SkyDuel many things are affected by the wind. (eg. bombs, projectiles, the cloud, planes, helicopters, the balloon etc.) The wind has two characteristics: speed and direction (pedantic physics teachers (JS!) would say velocity...) and this is shown at the top centre of the screen during gameplay. The number represents the wind strength (0 to 100) and the arrow indicates the direction. During the game the wind will constantly fluctuate in strength, and even in direction. What the wind option does therefore is to set the maximum value which the wind can reach. No wind obviously keeps the wind strength always at 0. Gale Force allows any wind value from 0 to 100. This has the side effect that even on gale force mode the wind may end up just fluctuating around zero, although that is unlikely. When the wind is very strong is possible to perform some great stunts when flying the plane! 'Random Wind' lets the computer choose the wind randomly for each round. Note: Before each round is played the Scenario and Wind Strength settings that will be used are shown on the screen. Done ---- This option allows the user to return to the main menu without having to go through the second page of options. More... ------- Select this to display the second page of options. Options Page 2 -------------- Vehicles Active --------------- There are a lot different settings for this option - one for each combination of vehicles that can be active. eg. All vehicles (standard), Heli & Plane, Heli & Gun, Gun only etc. The purpose of this option is twofold. Firstly it simply gives a more varied number of games that can be played, such as air battles only (plane and heli), dogfights (arcade mode and plane only) or ballistic missile fights (gun only). Secondly, it is also a way of restricting the vehicles available, so that, for example, if one player can't yet fly the plane very well then neither player is able to use it (this would be a 'heli & gun' set up). Blitter Detect -------------- This is not an option, but indicates whether or not a Blitter chip has been detected in your ST. If it is then the game should run faster. All STE's should have one... Sound Mode ---------- There are four sound modes, but any one computer will only have three to choose from. They are: Sound Off Any computer. There is no sound at all, and the game therefore runs very fast. Soundchip FX Any computer. The ST Soundchip is used to make the game sounds. It sounds pretty bad, but does give a way to have both a fast game speed as well as some sounds. Sampled FX Pre-STE computers. A machine code routine plays the samples, but this uses up processor time, slowing down the game slightly. This is however the most realistic sound option for STFM's. DMA Samples STE's have a DMA soundchip which is used by this option to play the samples. Since the DMA chip runs in parallel with the main processor there is no loss of game speed with this option. If you have an STE - use this! Hopefully this table shows that, on an STFM at least, it is important to choose the sound mode which best balances the speed of gameplay you want. My advice to STFM owners is: if you have a CD or something to listen to and want a fast game then turn off the sound and turn up the CD! If not then use the Sampled FX mode since the slow down doesn't notice once you get playing, and indeed, can even prove handy! Gravity ------- There are three gravity settings: High, Medium and Low. The effects gravity are just as you would expect - any airborne objects (bombs, planes, helicopters etc.) accelerate towards the ground faster the higher the gravity. This option basically adds a bit more variety into the game, especially when guns are used a lot, (eg. Gun only mode), since the projectiles fly differently under different gravities. Airship Mode ------------ The Zeppelin can either be 'soft' (destroyable) or 'hard' (indestructable). In soft mode the airship takes one hit to destroy, and one point is scored in arcade mode for blowing it up. In hard mode the airship takes on a 'mobile barrage balloon' role and it will absorb all shots, thus forming an obstacle for anything airborne. Repair Level ------------ When a vehicle (gun, plane or helicopter) is destroyed a new one will reappear, after a time, providing that there are spare units available. The Repair level option sets the level of damage that new vehicles will have. If it is set to Do Not Repair, then the new unit which appears will have to wait for a further time period before it is repaired to 100% level. Repair Partly means that some repairs are already there in the new vehicle. Repair fully means that the new unit will be 100% repaired and ready for immediate take-off. 100% Repair mode is best for fast arcade game set ups. 0% Repair level mode is good for games where more thought is required. Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs) ------------------------------ In the game, when a base is hit by an enemy plane or helicopter a SAM may be let off. The type of SAM is set by this option. Off No SAMs are launched Unguided SAMs are launched and fly directly upwards. Guided SAMs are launched and home in on the enemy vehicle. If a SAM hits a vehicle it will do a lot of damage to it. The aim behind them is to help prevent the opposing player hovering over your home base continually dropping bombs unhindered, although the game can be more fun without them. In single player mode, the game can be made harder by turning SAM's off. Save Default ------------ This final option allows you to save your preferred SkyDuel setup to disk. When SkyDuel is loaded the setup file is automatically searched for, and if it exists the new setup is loaded. The setup file is called SKYDUEL.INF and it is presumed to be in the same directory as the SkyDuel program itself. When the save option is selected the program will immediately try to write the file to disk. If there is a problem, eg. the disk is write-protected, the program will halt, allowing the problem to be corrected. Then press any key or click the joystick to retry. This will continue until the file is saved correctly. Done ---- Select this to return to the main menu again. ---- Play ---- This is it! You've read the credits, you've set your desired options and you're ready to play... After 'Play' is selected from the main menu the screen displays the landscape with a large information box over it. This box gives a description of the round about to be played. At the top it has the current score of each player (this will be 0-0 if you have only just clicked on Play!) and their respective attack levels. Below this, other round specific information is displayed- the maximum wind strength, the scenario, the game type and the vehicles active (as set up in the options section). Press fire when you are ready to proceed. The whole landscape is now displayed. The green players base is on the left, the red player is on the right. Some landscapes have a large hill, some do not. Sometimes there will be a deep canyon with water at the bottom. If present, it is possible to fly vertically down this, and the vehicle will appear randomly at the top of the screen. As well as being a useful escape route, in arcade mode this also scores 1 point! On the down side, it damages the vehicle slightly. Some levels have a small hill with a grey tunnel through it. Again, it is safe to fly through this short tunnel as an escape route. At the top of the screen is the status bar. It shows the population of each base ('Men'), the current fuel and damage levels of each players craft, the number of units (vehicles), bullets and bombs that each player has left, and also the wind velocity. In arcade mode, the population number and units left are unneeded and are replaced by the player's score. Each player's information is on the same side of the screen as their base. Base Population: ('Men') This number shows the population of the player's base. The higher it is, the faster new units are made and bombs and bullets are replaced. As long as there are 2 or more people in the base (!), the number will increase steadily. In Strategy or Practise mode the player loses when this number reaches zero and the base is hit one more time. Score: ('Score') This is the number of points amassed so far during the round in arcade mode. See the options descriptions for what actions score points. Damage: ('Dmg') This is a bar showing the damage level. It starts off at a level set in the options page, and when the vehicle is on the pad is repaired gradually. When in the air (or active, in the case of the gun) the damage doesn't get repaired - obviously! A fully repaired vehicle has a full green bar, and can fly at full speed. When it is 50% damaged grey smoke is emitted and flying speed is reduced. At 75% damage black smoke is emitted and flying speed is reduced still further. At 100% damage (ie. destroyed) the bar goes red, and the vehicle will explode and fall to the ground. (If it was airborne!) Fuel: ('Gas') This bar behaves as with the damage bar, regenerating when on the pad. Each craft is safe until the fuel runs out. The bar then goes red, and the vehicle will fall out of the sky and explode on the landscape. The plane uses the least fuel, the helicopter the most. The gun doesn't use any. Vehicle units left: ('Unt') The base population continually build new vehicles to replenish this number. If it reaches zero, and you crash, then you will have to wait for more units to be built before you can take off again. For this reason it is not advisable to crash too many times in rapid succession. (!!!) Bullets left: ('Bl') The base population build bullets (missiles) continually, but if you fire too rapidly then they could run out, leaving you without this capability for a while. Bombs left: ('Bm') See Bullets left. Wind: See the options section for a description of the wind meter. Timer: In arcade mode there is also a timer at the base of the screen. This counts down to zero, at which point the round ends and both bases blow up! Right. Now that you know what's what it's time for take off. Both player's should at this time be on their pad's, and presuming all vehicles are available, be in the 'plane' selection. At this stage it is possible to select one of the three vehicles. This is done either by using up and down with the joystick and pressing fire when the correct craft is shown, or by pressing F1 to F3, (green) or F8 to F10 (red) and then the fire button. To display the controls of the currently selected craft, along with other available keys, press <Help> at any time. Plane ----- When on the pad, push left and right until the plane is facing in the required direction, then, when the fire button is pressed the plane will take off. Use up and down to increase and decrease the speed, and left and right to rotate anticlockwise and clockwise respectively. Up and fire shoots a missile, down and fire drops a bomb, fire alone fires the machine guns. With the plane it is possible to achieve very high speeds in steep dives, and the vehicle is probably the most useful of the three. It is also the hardest to master, although players of games of this style (eg. Bip on the Ameegar) shouldn't have too many problems, and you can't hover. Good forms of attack are swooping dives at the opponent, or over the base, followed by a loop the loop back to dodge any missile returned, and prepare for another attack run. To land the plane you have to fly very slowly, and low, towards the pad. When you are above the pad, pull back on the stick, as if to stall the plane. If you have done it correctly, instead of stalling, the plane will land automatically on the pad,for refueling, repairing etc. Landing the plane can take a lot of practice!!! Helicopter ---------- Up and down control the vertical thrust of the helicopter. Left and right control the direction in which it points directly. (ie. push left to fly left) If the helicopter is pointing 'out' of the screen, it will fire directly downwards, else it fires in the direction that it is pointing in. The same firing controls apply as with the plane. The helicopter is slower than the plane, and uses more fuel. It is useful though in that it is able to hover above the enemy, or their base, dropping bomb after bomb continually. The helicopter can only fire downwards, so height is crucial. The helicopter also has the advantage of being much easier to control than the plane, but the higher the speed (ie. the more the blades are tilted) the less upward thrust can be obtained. To land the helicopter simply fly down onto the base pad. The only condition is that the helicopter must be level, else it will crash into the ground. Gun/Cannon ---------- To control the gun you must use left and right to point the barrel, and up and down to control the power of the shot. The length of the barrel shows the current shot power. Press fire alone to launch a projectile. The gun is probably the simplest craft to use, and it doesn't require any fast reactions like the other craft do. It is easy with the gun to quickly wipe out the population of the opponents base, but the danger is that, being stationary you are an easy target... There is no need to land the gun, obviously, but to exit from 'gun mode' push fire and up toghether, fire and down together, or press F1 to F3 (green) or F8-F10 (red). Balloon ------- The balloon may be brought in at any time by pressing the '8' key on the keypad. The balloon is then entirely controlled with the keypad. '8' to use the burners, '5' to go down, and the other numbers to throw a bomb in that direction. (eg. '9' throws a bomb up and to the right) Since the balloon cannot be steered left and right the wind must be used. The key to this is that at different heights the wind blows at different strengths at in different directions, so by hovering at the correct height, the balloon can be made to fly to any position. The wind works such that the lower the balloon, the weaker the wind. It takes a lot of skill to become a good balloon pilot, but once mastered it can be quite good fun acting as a neutral party and dropping bombs on all and sundry, or siding with one of the players instead. The balloon cannot land, and after each one is released it must fly until shot down or crashed landed. In arcade mode, 1 point is gained for each balloon destroyed. This leads to the interesting situation of a mini game within SkyDuel. It is played like this. 2 player Arcade mode, Guns only is selected and a balloon is dropped by pressing '8'. Each player then races to hit the balloon before it crashes - a sort of pigeon shoot! This carries on until the timer runs out,and the player who hits the balloon most wins the round! A variation on this is to play in 'Plane only' or 'Helicopter only' mode. Weapons ------- There are three weapons available, except with the gun. These are missiles (bullets), bombs and machine guns. Missiles, (up+fire), move in straight lines and are unaffected by gravity. They cause medium damage and make small holes in the ground. Only one per vehicle may be active at one time. Bombs, (down+fire), are the same as the projectiles fired by the gun, and the bombs dropped by the balloon and jet bomber. They follow a parabolic ballistic missile type path, due to the effects of gravity. They are also blown by the wind, and this must be compensated for. Only one per vehicle may be active at one time, but each bomb causes large amounts of damage, and makes big holes in the ground. Machine guns, (fire with neither up or down), are only available to planes and helicopters. They can be seen as a flickering in front of the vehicle, and have a fairly short range but unlimited number. Although each bullet is weak, since machine guns can be used continually enemy vehicles can be destroyed very rapidly with sustained, accurate shots. Machine guns don't damage the ground, balloon or zeppelin etc., but can be used to shoot an enemy ground based gun and parachutists. Parachutists ------------ When an airborne vehicle is destroyed, or runs out of fuel, the pilots attempt to parachute out. If they manage this (they usually do!), a parachutist appears on screen. This is controlled with left, right and down, and the objective is to land it at the home base. If this is done, the two pilots removed from the base at take off are returned (or in arcade mode, a point is scored). If however the enemy manages to machine gun down, or fly into the parachutist, or it lands on the ground away from the base, the two pilots die, and no advantage is gained. (except in arcade mode, where the enemy player gets a point for killing the parachutist.) The final possibility is that the parachutist lands on the enemy base. In this case, the same happens as if it landed at the home base, but to the enemy's advantage instead... Specials -------- During the game there are certain semi- random special events that may occur. Zeppelin: This airship flies low over the landscape, at a fixed speed. Whether or not it can be destroyed is determined by the options section. It's main purpose in life is as an obstacle, but in arcade mode 1 point is also gained by shooting the airship. UFO: This is perhaps the most annoying (and my favourite!) special event. It flies down from the top of the screen, and always homes in on the nearest active craft. When it get's near enough it grabs the vehicle in it's tractor beam (guns too!) and tries to carry it off the top of the screen. If this happens the vehicle is destroyed. The UFO is invincible, but can sometimes be forced by a skilled player,to crash land. It will eventually go away, if dodged for long enough, or it can be made to go after the other player. Jet Bomber: This speedy jet swoops down from the top of the screen, drops a super-bomb or two, and flies away again. Due to it's speed it is very hard to hit, and thus 2 points are given in arcade mode for shooting it. Cloud: The cloud has no harmful effects, and is blown about by the wind. Unlike the background though, vehicles pass behind it, and so it can either be used as an escape method, or to hide behind during a sneaky attack on the enemy. Lightning: Only on the Storm scenario. The lightning strikes randomly at vehicles, the balloon or the ground. It does a lot of damage, and cannot be dodged. Warp Gate: Randomly a strange square red and yellow warp gate may appear in the air. Anything that enters this (aircraft, weapons etc.) will be randomly teleported to another position on the screen, destroying the warp gate in the process. The warper can also be used as a quick escape route from a pursuing craft. Winning ------- Strategy Mode: To win, the enemy base must be bombed so that there are no people left in it and there must be no active craft. Once this is fulfilled, the base must be hit once more to win the round. If both players do this simultaneously the round is a draw. Arcade Mode: To win, your score must simply be higher than the enemy score when the time limit runs out. If they are equal, the round is a draw. Points: 1 for winning, 0 for losing, 1 each for a draw. After the Round --------------- Once the round is completed, a box appears showing the result, and then either the next round is started, or the final score is given. The player who has won the majority of the games played is declared the overall winner. General Game Principles ----------------------- The game can be sped up slightly by running a screen acceleration program such as QuickST, Warp 9 or NVDI. You can only land at your own base. If you fly off the top of the screen, you stall and fall back on. The screen wraps around left to right and vice versa. Whenever a vehicle is 'entered', 2 people are required to leave the base to pilot it. This means that if less than 2 people are left in the base it is impossible to take off, or use the gun - all you can do is wait... If everyone in the base is killed, but you are still in a craft then, by landing or parachuting, the two pilots return to the base to start reproducing again. Flying off the screen provides a short cut route to the enemy base. The 'special' aircraft (UFO etc.) can only be hit with bullets or bombs, not machine guns. They also damage any vehicle that flies into them. The balloon will explode on contact with anything, except machine guns. Press 'P' to pause the game. As well as shooting a base or craft to damage it, kamakazee style divebomb attacks also sometimes work - a last means of revenge if a SAM gets you... Once a vehicle has been selected (by pressing fire) but is still on the pad, it is vulnerable to enemy attacks - beware... A 'round' and a 'sortie' mean the same thing. There is a cheat mode for the champions at the game...(or is there?!) ---- Exit ---- This self-explanatory option allows you to quit from SkyDuel. After selecting exit, the computer asks you to confirm your decision. Move the joystick left or right to highlight Yes or No, and click the button. 'Yes' will exit the program, 'No' will return to the menu again. --------------------------------------- The Final Section --------------------------------------- -------------- Shareware Info -------------- SkyDuel is being distributed as shareware. It is NOT a partially working version - it is complete. However, if you register the game for the fee of 5 pounds sterling (plus return postage if you don't live in the UK), you will persuade us to release more software in this form,perhaps even Skyduel 3! With the current massive decline in the ST games market, this can't be a bad thing.Even if only a few people register we will consider further releases --- your contribution *will* count! The address to write to is: Tim Chapman 5 Arrow Drive Albrighton Wolverhampton WV7 3PF ENGLAND Please enclose your name and address, and if overseas, return postage. Cheques should be payable to T.P.Chapman. Even if you don't want to register, feel free to contact us at the address above, and let us know what you think of the game --- we'd love to hear from you! You can also email us at: tpc@cs.nott.ac.uk ------- _ = SkyDuel = _ = Credits = ------- Design, Programming, Graphics, Non-STE Sound, Documentation Apache of VRC Sound, Much STE Testing, Suggestions Huffy of VRC Bug Spotting, Playtesting Lucky Al ------------------------- Acknowledgments/Greetings ------------------------- Personally I am indebted to my stereo system, and many bands (The Levellers, The Sea, Led Zeppelin, James, Nirvana, Crowded House, Pop Will Eat Itself, Primus, Ten Years After, Rage Against the Machine etc.) for providing me with entertainment during the late nights and uninspired times... SkyDuel is an original game concept of mine, but some areas of it bear a certain resemblance to other games. For old time's sake (and older computer user's!), here are a few...Barrage (BBC Micro), Copter Capers (BBC Micro), Dogfight (BBC Micro), Ballistic (ST - my game), Protector (ST), Lunar Lander (Every computer ever!). A big hello to: Helen, Huffy, Al, Meesey, Hobnob, Dan, Morsey, Bison, Beth, Craig, Lloydy, etc. etc. ------------------- Program Information ------------------- SkyDuel was originally conceived during my writing of the game 'Ballistic'. I wanted more of an action game than Ballistic, along with a dogfighting section, and thus SkyDuel (then untitled) was invented. Programming progressed slowly at first due partly to numerous other projects, and partly due to me spending too much time playing the partially finished sections of the game! Anyway... eventually I made a BIG effort (thanks partly to Al and Huffy for encouragement) and finished the game off. (Two years crammed into two sentences there!) Now I am finally at the writing-the- documentation stage, and, nearly 6000 (!) words on, I am wondering for the nth time (as mathematicians say) why things always take so much longer to do than you first thought they would! The game is written entirely in GFA Basic, except for the STFM interrupt driven sample routine which is PD as far as I know. It has been tested (and works) on both a 520 and 1040 STFM TOS 1.00 and also on a Mega 4 STE TOS 2.?, so it should work on everything in between, and perhaps the TT & Falcon too... ---------- Disclaimer ---------- 1. Although I have tested SkyDuel as much as possible I cannot be held responsible for any damage or otherwise caused as a result of it's use or misuse. 2. Keep all three files (SKYDUEL.TOS, SKYDUEL.INF and SKYDUEL.TXT) together when distributing the program about, and do not alter any of them in any way without my written permission. Hope to hear from you soon! -= Apache of VRC =- April 1995