No Fragments Archive 10: Diskmags/nf_archive_10.iso/MAGS/ST_USER/1990/USERJL90.MSA/TEXT_RORKE.DOC

Text File | 1990-05-15 | 4KB | 61 lines

                              Rorke's Drift

Rorke's Drift from Impressions is a simulation of the famous battle between 137
British soldiers and 4,000 Zulu warriors over a period of two days starting on
January 22nd 1879. Remember the classic film, Zulu? In this game you are in
charge of the British soldiers and it's up to you to defeat the Zulus with the
odds stacked at 40 to 1 against your men. Can you survive?
    It faithfully recreates the incredible encounter, a conflict full of
bravery and devotion to duty, so much so that 11 Victoria Crosses were
awarded.
    To recreate such a special event the designer wanted to produce a software
wargame which looked like the real encounter - not squares with cardboard
counters. This posed many problems, but hopefully a new, more realistic visual
style is the result.
    You control each of the 137 men at Rorke's Drift and you decide when they
advance, retreat, rest, aim, fight and fire. Each man has his own skill level
for shooting and fighting hand to hand. For every man one piece is on the
battlefield and for every order an individual pose has been drawn. As each man
can face any one of eight directions this means over 80 poses for each type of
piece.
    To give a 3D feel, all of the objects (including the large buildings) are
stored as sprites. Thus enabling the men to pass behind the scenery.
    The initial screen display shows a small section of the battle area in the
top half of the screen and a control panel at the bottom. Click on the arrow on
the right to remove the control panel and view the whole screen. Click on the
lower third of the screen to redisplay the control panel.
    (The mouse repsonse in this preview version is slow so you may have to hold
down the mouse button for a second before the click registers. This will be
improved for the final release version.)
    Click on the map icon (third from the right) to see a bird's eye view of
the whole area in which the battle takes place. Pointing and clicking on any
area will zoom in and show a close up. A small panel at the bottom is used to
display information about any of the soldiers present in the selected area.
Thrusting, sniping and shooting ability, number of bullets left and health is
displayed by clicking on each of the icons in the control strip. The right
arrow takes you back to the main screen.
    Clicking on the red cross opens up a window showing the number of British
and Zulus injured or killed. As your men are injured in battle you'll
occasionally see other windows pop up telling you of a soldier that has been
injured or killed.
    Clicking on the soldier in the centre of the control panel opens an
activity window and you can turn your men around by clicking on the curved
arrows and select an activity from three marching speeds, close combat with a
Zulu, standaing or kneeling firing. The icon bar along the bottom of the window
shows the number of shots, thrusting and shooting ability plus strength. Click
on the right arrow to close the box.
    Click on the small panel at the foot of the screen (it probably says
Private) to turn the mouse pointer yellow. Now you can select a soldier on the
main display - you'll be told whether you have selected a private, officer of
sergeant.
    Unfortunately, in this preview version there are only two Zulus, and the
other 3,998 are supplied with the finished game. The slow mouse response will
also be speeded up when the game is released. However, you can still practise
grouping, ordering, marching and combat techniniques to prepare yourself for
the real battle.


Rorke's Drift
Phone Impressions on 071 3719191 for more info...