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, be sure to turn off Easy Access (see the manual for details). 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 •••
• Reduced sound quality •
If this is checked, only one sound will be played at a time. This might speed things up a bit on slower machines. Sound quality is greatly improved under Sound Manager 3.0 if this option is not checked. This option is not available if you don’t have Sound Manager 3.0 or greater.
• 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.
••• Editing Sounds •••
You can change the sounds in Space Madness to whatever you like. The sound editing dialog is pretty self-explanatory. The default sounds are saved, so you can always revert back to the original sounds.
