The pictures in this chapter have been eliminated to save space, and therefore download time (and money).
To set your preferences for Space Madness, click on the Configure the game settings button on the Main Screen.
This is where you tell Space Madness which keys you want to use to control your ship. You may use any keys to control your ship, except the reserved keys described below. To change the key assignment for a ship function, click on the ship that is performing that function and press the new key that you want to use.
A few keys are reserved for special functions. These keys may not be used for ship controls, and they cannot be changed.
'Q' is reserved for quitting the game.
The 'tab' key is reserved for pausing the game.
'0' through '7' on the main key island are reserved for volume control.
The 'delete' key is reserved for resetting the sound. See below for details.
If you want to use the shift key for one of the ship controls, be sure to turn off Easy Access. (Easy Access is a standard control panel that is installed automatically by the System installer. It is used by ‘physically challenged’ individuals to make it easier to hit combinations of keys. If you don’t use it you can just throw it away.) To turn Easy Access off under System 6, remove it from your system folder and reboot. To turn it off under System 7, open it up (it’s in the Control Panels folder) and turn it off by pressing the Off button. If it doesn’t have an Off button, remove it from the system folder and reboot. Please note that the shift key is one of the default keys.
Also, be aware that more than two keys used at the same time, other than Shift, Option, Command, Control and Caps Lock, may not work correctly. This is due to a hardware limitation in all keyboards.
And those of you with the Apple Adjustable keyboard need to be aware of a bug in either the keyboard itself or the software that controls it (we're not sure which) that causes problems when you use keys on both the keypad and the main key island. Apple will be releasing a bug fix someday, but until then you should choose your key settings so that they are all on the keypad or all on the main island.
Some machines have a hardware problem that causes the sound to go out when many sounds are played within a very short time. This means that those people who have those systems may find that the sound goes out occasionally while they are playing the game. Unfortunately, there is no way for the program to detect when this has happened, so it just resets the sound at the beginning of each level. If you don’t want to wait until the next level to get the sound back, you can press the delete key to reset the sound immediately.
• Speed Optimizations
Eliminate time consuming sounds
If this is checked, sounds that take a lot of cpu time will not be played. This might speed things up a bit on slower machines.
Reduced viewscreen size
If this is checked, the ‘viewscreen’ will only be active in the left part of the screen; that is, the part of the screen that doesn’t have the damage report and scanner and all that. Checking this option can make a very big difference in speed. If it is not checked, the viewscreen will use the whole monitor (up to 640x480), and the damage report, etc. will ‘float’ above the viewscreen in its normal position. This gives you a little more screen space horizontally to see what’s around your ship, but it can slow things down a lot.
Reduced animation rate
If this is checked, animation will be at approximately 30 frames per second instead of 60 frames per second. This makes the animation look a little jumpy, and tends to create double-images of fast-moving objects (this is especially noticeable with the stars). This is an optical illusion, and there’s nothing that can be done about it. This option will also reduce the accuracy of collision detection, which means your shots may sometimes pass through small objects, like the yummies. You also have to be a little more accurate when shooting at large objects, since a shot that would normally ‘wing’ an object might pass through it at 30 frames per second. But, if you can put up with all these problems, this option will speed things up more than anything else.
Reduced game screen size
If this option is checked, the entire game screen will shrink to 12 inch screen size (512x384). This can speed things up quite a bit, but not as much as the last two options. If you’re already running the game on a 12 inch screen, this option is not available.
Pressing the Help button will bring up a screen with most of the text in this chapter for handy reference. Pressing the Cancel button will undo all of your changes and exit the Preferences screen. Pressing the OK button will exit the Preferences screen, leaving your changes intact.
All of your preferences will be saved when you quit the game.
