The Very Best of Atari Inside

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Text File | 1995-08-15 | 8.5 KB | 313 lines

MOLECULE Another Relaxing Game by Jean-Etienne Doucet (version 1.0, Dec. 93) Molecule is a game where one player has to discover the places of 4 to 6 atoms on a board by firing laser rays that may be absorbed, deviated or reflected by the atoms. It looks like a classic game named Black Box, but as I've never played it, there may be differences... It is designed for Atari ST/STE, but only runs in LOW RESOLUTION! (sorry for people with only Hi-Rez, but I can't afford to buy a B/W monitor.) I don't know if the game runs on TT and/or Falcon. RULES One game is made out of some levels (usually 15 to 25). Each level is a puzzle: find where the atoms stand on a (8x8) board; time on each level is slightly shorter than the previous one, and finally becomes impossible to win: this ensures the game has an end !! The game ends when the player has lost his last life; one loses one life when (1) time is out or (2) the places the player has found are wrong; in this case, the player stays at the same level. The 10 best scores are kept separately for each of the 3 categories of the game: 4, 5 or 6 atoms. FUNCTION (Note: Molecule only uses the left mouse button during the game; keyboard is only used to enter your name in the best scores -- if you deserve it.) Before anything else, the player must choose his category of play: - 4 atoms: easy puzzles; mostly designed for training; - 5 atoms: normal complexity game, strange solutions from time to time; - 6 atoms: hard game; for intoxicated people only; needs some luck... To set this parameter, click on one of the buttons (4, 5 or 6) twice. This being done, there's no way to alter the number of atoms without quitting the current game. The game panel is made of the board (and buttons) on the left, and the control & information panel on the right. The game board consists of the board itself (8 rows of 8 tiles), and the laser ray buttons and sensors: - tiles: clicking on a tile will make an atom appear or disappear; note that you can't put more atoms than there are to discover... - laser buttons: clicking on one of them will emit a laser ray inside the atoms field (the molecule); this ray may be absorbed, deviated or reflected by the atoms; see the section dealing with the trajectories, below; - sensors: they are located in the black line around the board, one sensor in front of each laser button; they light up when touched by laser rays. Information and Control panel contains from top to bottom: - time indication: time left before time out; the timer is started with the first click on a laser button or a tile; - "Solution" button: click here when you think you've discovered the atoms places (and marked them on the board); if you win, you get added points to your score and go to next level; else, you lose one life and stay at the same level (or game ends if lives = 0); - lives: number of lives left; - level: current level; - atoms: number of atoms yet to be placed; you can't click on "Solution" before this number has hit 0; - score: current score; as you've maybe already noticed, one never loses points: when you miss a level, you lose a life but your score is untouched; - "Cont" button: takes you to the next puzzle; if you've got no lives left, Cont acts as Quit: - "Quit" button: ends the game; if your score is high enough, you can enter the "10 best scores list". Laser Rays: - when fired, the laser button lights up in red colors; - normally, the corresponding sensor also lights up in red; the sensor where the ray comes out the board lights up in green; - if the "starting sensor" lights up in green, it means the ray came back to its starting point; - if the "starting sensor" doesn't light up, it means the ray has been absorbed. - the rules for ray's absorption / deviation / reflection are as follows: o when a ray comes over an atom, it is absorbed: | | | --+-------+-------+-- | _ | | | (_)<<<<<<<<<<<<< | | | --+-------+-------+-- | | | o when a ray passes near an atom, it is deviated diagonaly: | | | --+-------+-------+-- | _ | | | (_) | | | | | --+-------+-------+-- | | | | | >>>>>>> | | ^ | --+-------+---^---+-- | | ^ | | | ^ | o when a ray should pass between two atoms, it is reflected: | | | --+-------+-------+-- | _ | | | (_) | | | | | --+-------+-------+-- | | >>>>>>>> | | ^ | | | ^ <<<<<<< --+-------+-------+-- | _ | | | (_) | | | | | --+-------+-------+-- | | | (you may notice it's the deviation rule applied twice...) o when fired near an atom on the side of the board, a ray is reflected (a less obvious deviation): | | || --+-------+-------+| | | >>>>>>> | | ^ || | | ^ <<<<<< --+-------+-------+| | | _ || | | (_) || | | || --+-------+-------+| | | || (if the ray had been fired one row lower, in front of the atom, it would have been absorbed, as usual!) An interesting thing is that when a level is over (either won or lost), you still have the ability to fire rays, and thus to study the trajectories while knowing where the atoms are. SCORES When you win a level, you score points: the quicker you are, the more points you win; the number of points is also affected by the level number. You also get a bonus if you win a level on the first time. Details about the scoring scheme are somewhat boring, so I skip them... HIGH SCORES The best 10 scores in each of the categories (4/5/6 atoms) are kept in a file (MOLECULE.SCR) that stands in the same directory as the game. To reset the scores, you just have to delete the file. There are 3 panels: a green one for the 4 atoms game, a blue one for the 5 atoms game, and a red one for the 6 atoms game. Use the keyboard to enter your name; allowed keys are: letters, digits, space, escape (to delete all the characters), backspace (to delete the last character), return to validate. The only limit on your name's length is the width of the corresponding text using this !@#$%^&* Chicago font. \______/ (This is an old French expression for beautiful...) If you enter an empty name, the score is not registered. OTHER THINGS As you may have noticed, there are no musics or sounds: I haven't had enough time to include them; this could be a feature of v1.1 ?? TECHNICAL DETAILS Molecule is written in GFA Basic 3.07F (+compiler 3.01), and packed with PFXPAK (it brings the whole thing down from >60K to 35K). All the graphics are made with CrackArt v1.20, my favorite drawing program for the ST. HORRIBLE DETAILS As you may already know, -- it's on the first displayed panel -- Molecule is a postcard ware: if you play more than one hour, you are required to send me a postcard from your place/town/country/ as you like. If you don't do it, you may suffer horrible things, such as bad conscience, so you'd better send one... About distribution: you may freely spread this version of the game as long as the .PRG and the .DOC files stay together. You can add your SCR file if you want to try to impress the world... Normal address is: Jean-Etienne Doucet 38 chemin Malclabel 31500 TOULOUSE France I've also got an E-mail address: doucet@laas.fr but e-mail posts don't count as postcards!!! This one is for comments and bugs reports. Don't you think this text begins to be a little long ?? OK, have fun ! ________________________ __ _____ _____ __| | ___| \ | | | ___| | | \_____|_____|_____/ ________________________ PS: I've also written some other games that you can find on numerous sites: - HEXMINES, a hexagonal minesweeper, - SPIDER and MARIANT: two solitaires using 104 cards. Try them.