North Carolina Dove Hunter runs on Windows 95/98 (and maybe NT)
Thanks for trying out North Carolina Dove Hunter, a dove hunting simulation. This game puts you into a dove field in rural North Carolina on the opening day of the season. You'll swear you can smell the powder and feel the kick of the shotgun as you enjoy some of the finest hunting around.
In the shareware version, your shotgun is plugged to limit it to two shells at a time, and there's a limit of ten doves per hunt. Of course, you can always go over your limit if you so desire, but watch out for the Game Warden! He's liable to end your day if he finds too many birds in your bag.
You start out with 25 shells and no money. Each dove you bag gets you a dollar. A double, which is two doves killed within a second of each other, gets you a dollar for the first dove and two bucks for the second. A triple, or three doves within two seconds, gets you a dollar for the first one, two dollars for the second one, and five dollars for the third.
If you run out of shells, you can always buy more, at five dollars a box. Points are scored on a similar scale: 5 for a single, 10 for a double, and 25 for a triple. There's also a mystery bonus that gives you 50 points, but I won't tell you how you get that. You start the game with a 100 point bonus. Each time you fire your shotgun, you lose one point of that bonus, and every time you buy a box of shells you lose 5 points.
Shown above is the game's primary hunting screen. It's here that you'll shoot your doves, two of which you'll notice in mid-flight. Your shotgun must be loaded before you can shoot it. To load it, you either click the button that shows a picture of a shotgun shell, or you can just right-click in the hunting window. To fire the gun, move the crosshair to your target and single-click the left mouse button. You'll know if you score a hit or not.
You can click on the SCORE panel at the bottom right to see a breakdown of how scoring works. The highest score is saved, and your goal is to beat that score at all costs. As of version 0.62 of Dove Hunter, my best score is 226 in 20 doves, or 208 with a legal limit.
The game is fully customizable if you so desire, but be warned that if you do change anything from the default, your score will reflect that you "cheated", and it won't be saved if you beat the record. Here's what the customization screen looks like:
As you can see, most of the variables can be tweaked. Notice that you can break the North Carolina law if you want to by removing the plug from your shotgun. Doing this allows your gun to hold 5 shells instead of three and is not considered cheating, but if the game warden catches you he'll take some of your money and half of your shotgun shells. Remember, if you change anything else on this panel, you're considered to be cheating. Changes made on this screen are not saved when you exit North Carolina Dove Hunter.
Here's what the registered version contains:
- Shells cost $5.00 a box (they cost $8.00 in the shareware version)
- The registered version is completely customizable; from how often the doves appear to the price of shotgun shells. This is disabled in shareware.
- Doves appear, by default, more frequently in the registered version. This is not changeable in shareware.
- Your shotgun can hold 3 to 5 shells instead of two.
- Two free upgrades. You will be notified by E-mail each time Dove Hunter is modified. You'll be told what changed. If you see something you like, let me know via email, and I will send you the upgraded version free of charge, for a total of two upgrades.
- The game warden ALWAYS catches violations in shareware.
BUG REPORTS
North Carolina Dove Hunter is in the BETA TEST stages. As such, we KNOW that some bugs exist. For example, the program only works correctly when using SMALL FONTS in your Windows 95/98 settings.
REGISTRATION
There are two types of registration.
STANDARD.
You get the Registered version of the game and two free upgrades. Whenever a new version of Dove Hunter is released, you will be notified via email. The email will describe the changes to you. If you think you like the sound of the changes, you must send me an email, at which point I'll send you your update. It is up to you to notify me if your email address changes. I am not responsible for notifying of changes if you don't let me know that you changed addresses. Also, in your email to me telling me that you want the newest version, you should be sure to include your home address in case that changed.
DEVELOPER.
Dunking Parrot Software feels that it's important to keep technology in the hands of the public. Ok, ok, the technology in our code isn't all that great, it's pretty simple stuff. As with all DP software, you can purchase the ready-to-compile source code. This code will be error-free on each Dunking Parrot development machine. If it doesn't compile on your machine, we'll be happy to work with you to try to resolve the problem, but all software is provided AS-IS with no refunds or guarantees. You will be provided with the source code, the source code directory structure (just-in-case), as well as all sound and graphic files that accompany the program. You will also be sent a hardcopy of the entire program listing, including the source code for all forms. Dunking Parrot Software is written exclusively in the professional edition of Microsoft Visual BASIC version 5.0
Prices:
STANDARD - $ 10.00
DEVELOPER - $200.00 (negotiable!)
Please do not send cash through the mail. All checks should be made out to Sean Jeffries. Please note the spelling, as incorrect checks will not be cashed. When registering this software, please note that Dunking Parrot needs the following information:
Your name
Your home address
Your home phone number
PLEASE WRITE LEGIBLY OR WE CANNOT PROCESS YOUR ORDER
SMALL TECHNICAL NOTES:
Dove Hunter was written during June and July of 1998. It's done in Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0. Most of the sounds were recorded using Sound Recorder. The cocking of the shotgun is a Winchester 12 gauge pump. The background picture is of a field about a mile down the road from my home near Charlotte, NC. The dove is based on clipart from Microsoft Word, but I changed and animated it using Microsoft Paint from Windows 98. Some graphic tweaking was done using Microsoft Image Composer.
DUNKING PARROT SOFTWARE:
Dunking Parrot is famous the world over for our unfinished software products. Dove Hunter is a first in that it's the only piece of software we have that has been completed. Our in-progress games include a Space Invaders type game to show off how easy it is to do a game in Visual Basic (source code is available $100), an intranet/internet TCP/IP chat client and server, a solitaire game, and an Internet enabled Cribbage game.
Dunking Parrot has an American and British division. Some of our programming is done jointly over the Atlantic using Webphone to discuss our code.
Why Dunking Parrot? You'd have to visit both http://users.vnet.net/jeffries and http://www.dunkmaster.demon.co.uk to figure out the origin of our name.
HOW TO PAY:
Send Check or Money Order to:
Sean Jeffries
11528 Quiet Pine Ct.
Charlotte, NC 28273
Checks must be made payable to SEAN JEFFRIES. Checks made out to DUNKING PARROT SOFTWARE will not be honored.
DUNKING PARROT SOFTWARE is developed on the following machine (which is homebuilt):
