SPACE 1/SPACE - Library 1 - Volume 1.iso/games/641/hardcore.doc

Text File | 1992-09-05 | 8KB | 200 lines

NOTES ABOUT HARDCORE FOR GAME TESTERS:


Accompanying this text file is HARDCORE.PRG, which is an early
version of the game HARDCORE currently being written.  This
demo version contains five levels; after level five they
repeat and the difficulty of the game increases.

The demo will run on any 68000- or 68030- based Atari with
1 Meg or more of RAM.  It is still a bit quirky in places
and crashes occasionally.  Please do not distribute the
game in this raw unpolished form.

Please play the game and write back to me with criticisms.
I'm especially interested to hear any comments about:
the speed of the game(too slow or fast?), smoothness of graphics
(frame update) - does it get unacceptably slow in your opinion?
playability (can you understand what to do? is there enough
skill required - or too much?), graphics (are they OK? can you
actually see them?) and anything else about which you have an
opinion (about the game, that is - not about whether you believe
in God or why the damn Tories got back in).

Thanxx:

 -- Y a K   April '92



HARDCORE: Game description and play instructions


Hardcore is an insanely fast shoot-em-up.  It is different from
the majority of such games in that (1) the player is represented
onscreen not by a single object but by five objects, one of which
is immortal and (sometimes) intelligent; and (2) the game is not
oriented about a particular axis (e.g. horizontally-scrolling or
vertically-scrolling games).

Like Llamatron, the game is played in a screen-sized arena.  The
player is represented by five objects: four guns and a 'puck'.
Each of the four guns runs along one edge of the arena.  Using the
mouse, the player can move the guns at the left-hand and bottom
edges of the screen.  The guns at the top and right-hand edge
move in the opposite direction to the player-controlled guns; so if
the player moved the bottom gun to the left-hand edge, the top
gun would move to the right-hand edge.  (Wizened types may remember
the Vic-20 game Hellgate, which had the same arrangement of guns).

The guns fire continuously into the arena without any mouse buttons
being pressed. Pressing the left button activates side lasers along
all four tracks.

The final player element in the arena is the puck.  The demo game
defaults to the smart-puck option, in which the puck actively seeks
to destroy enemies independantly (this mode will be one of the CPU-
assisted play modes of the final game).  Bullets fired at the puck
cause it to ricochet around the arena.  Big points are earned for
killing enemies with the puck.  It is indestructible.  Whenever the
puck hits an arena wall, the gun attached to that wall gets 30
jiffies of invincibility (denoted by a flashing wall and a glowing
shield around the gun).

Pressing the left mouse button on the title page begins the game
demo.  Your guns and puck will appear, followed by the enemies.
Enemies rez into the arena by a cross-shaped particle system effect.
They can be destroyed by shots from the guns or by impact with the
puck.  Some enemies are shielded and require multiple shots to destroy.

Occasionally, beasties will appear.  The player will receive a bonus
if he can 'collect' the beasties with the puck.

The player begins a game with twelve lives, represented by twelve
cans of Coke at the right screen edge.  One can of Coke is turned
into a can of Pepsi each time a gun is destroyed.  When the player's
stock of the Real Thing is completely replaced by the inferior
substitute liquid, the game is over.  The player's guns may be
destroyed by impact with any enemy or projectile.  A destroyed gun
explodes and provided enough Cokes are left, a replacement is
rezzed in straight away.


BONUSES AND GOOD THANGS

Skilful play and amassing points will result in a large sheep
emerging from the left-hand screen edge.  Each sheep carries an
icon representing a powerup goodie.  You get the powerup by
causing an ovine collision with the puck.  If the sheep remain
uncollected they will eventually depart on the right-hand edge
of the screen.  Big-sheep powerups are as follows:


ICON                    EFFECT

Coke can        Extra life

Lighter            Hot Bullets for a while

Glowing star thing    Next 10 enemies to rez in destroyed immediately

Yellow puck        Give player direct control of puck
            (guns disappear; player is invincible for
            duration)

Small puck in + sign    Give puck XY lasers (tasty)

Heart            Beasties run towards puck

Brain            Makes puck smart (if it isn't already)

Llama            Shot enemies turned into beasties


Hot bullets are also given for 30 jiffies for killing or collecting
anything with the puck.  (Hot bullets, for anyone who never
played Llamatron, are strong bullets which are not stopped by
collision with enemies).

Staying alive is rewarded by occasional Rave periods.  During
Rave periods, the guns are indestructible and the bullets are hot.


KEY COMMANDS

For your convenience the following key commands may be used during
gameplay:

'p':    Pause game ('o' to restart)

'h':    Change Hz on an ST; crash a TT.

's':    Toggle Strobes off/on

'i':       Toggle puck Intelligence off/on

'n':    Go straight to Next level of demo


PLAY GUIDELINES

Try to grok the screen as a whole rather than attempting to watch
individual guns.  Use the cross-shaped rez-in patterns of the
enemies as an advance indicator of where they will appear: when
you are playing well you don't really see the enemies because the
moment they rez in you're already aimed and pumping a couple of streams
of bullets into the space in which he appears.

When playing with the non-AI puck, be sure to keep it in play. Never
let it lie idle. Use it whenever possible to kill enemies, because
you get more points and Hot Bullets, which not only destroy enemies more
effectively, but also accelerate the puck to great velocity.

Getting the puck into a really fast ricochet has the dual advantage
of wiping out a lot of enemies and shielding the guns on the walls
from which it is bouncing almost continuously.

When you start finding the game easy, try starting a game and
immediately press 'i' to turn off the puck brains; this is the
equivalent of a no-CPU-assist mode.


DEVELOPMENT

The game will have the following added: a lot more levels with
new enemies introduced constantly throughout; option for control
by joystick; 2-player mode (one pair of guns controlled by Player
One on mouse and the other pair


BUGS

What I'm after is thoughts about gameplay rather than a bug report.
I know it's quite buggy at the moment: it'll sometimes just lunch
out, there can be discrepancies between the displayed number of
lives and the amount of your guns onscreen, and sometimes the firing
of the puck in player-control mode and the behaviour of vector-seeking
bullets can be strange when there are less than four guns on screen.
All this stuff is known and will be fixed.



-- UPDATE 3/5/92: There are now five levels, most of the bugs are
fixed (although don't be surprised if it occasionally decides to
go out to lunch {or, indeed, any other major repast}).  The side-firing
bullets have been taken out, as they didn't deliver the instant
death required when you're in a tight spot.  Instead you now get
lasers along all four tracks which instantly fry any destructible
enemies within range.  There is no limit on firing these lasers but
conventional firing stops while the side lasers are on.  Play the game
in 60Hz if your monitor can take it to fully appreciate the manic
speed of this game.



Pip Pip!


  -- A Large Hairy Bovine Thingie