101 OnLy ThE BeSt GaMeS 6

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Text File | 1996-07-09 | 17.5 KB | 372 lines

JessCREATIONS*,Co.'s SUPER PAC-MON (SHAREWARE, V1.01): THE OFFICIAL UNAUTHORIZED INSTRUCTION MANUAL -------------------------------------------- Stuff You're Gonna Need To Run This: * An Intel x86 computer (it's *possible* that this will run on an XT or AT, but unless you're into reeeeally long access times, I strongly recommend that you run this from at least a 386SX-16) * MS-DOS 3.20 or higher, or MS-DOS and Windows (you may be able to eek by with Mac DOS emulation, but I've never tested the game on a Macintosh) * 640K RAM * EGA, VGA, or monochrome VGA display * An appreciation for the moldy oldies of the early 80's Stuff That's Completely Unnecessary: * A joystick (or other adult novelty) * A voracious appetite and the ability to grow three times your normal size (don't worry, the game's got that department covered) * Any knowledge whatsoever of Namco's "Super Pac-Man", the game upon which this is based This archive should include the following files... SPACMAN.EXE MONSTERS.PIX PACMAN.PIX FRUIT.PIX SPAC.PIX SPACLITE.PIX MISC.PIX JESS.ART CREW.ART HISCORE.DAT SPACMAN.DOC SUPERPAC.MZE JCLOGO.ART SPM.ART SPACMAN.PIF (required for Windows 3.11 and Win95; courtesy Josh Lesnick) If any of these files are missing, run for your life and start beating yourself over the head with a teflon pan, 'cuz the game won't work without all the necessary .EXE, .PIX, .DAT, .MZE, and .ART files. Either get another copy from a more reputable supplier or browse "The Gameroom Blitz", JessCREATIONS*, Co.'s official web site, at http://users.aol.com/grblitz/ and download one from there. V1.01 Update Notes: This is a free update to V1.0 of "Super Pac-Mon", which I was in a hurry to post and didn't thoroughly playtest. If you have a copy of the initial release, consider this version an apology, and feel free to distribute and post it as you wish provided the archive remains unchanged. Improvements from V1.0 include: * Improved key artwork * Two menu options now work properly * A credits screen with artwork of myself and the game's playtesters * A new method of flashing Super Pac-Mon which prevents other yellow objects from doing likewise * Debugging which prevents monster eyes from getting stuck in the upper left-hand dogleg for the remainder of the round * Repositioning of the 5,000 point flag which appears (very rarely) when Pac-Mon eats the Slotto Star * Better documentation History: "Super Pac-Mon" is based on Namco's "Super Pac-Man", a sequal to the enormously popular "Pac-Man" series that (oddly enough) never caught on with players. In fact, it was so overshadowed by the original and "Ms. Pac-Man" that nobody bothered to translate it to the more popular home game systems. True, there were a few computer versions, including ones for the C64 and IBM PC by Doc Shloopie's Big Thunder Prune Juice- er, Thunder Mountain, and a Atari 400 prototype which is enjoying fair success on the grey market as a bootleg, but none of these games are readily accessible. That's why I've decided to take a crack at translating the game myself. The Scenerio: As usual, Pac-Man's running around in a maze, cramming everything that's not nailed down into his vacuous gullet. This time, however, everything's been super-sized... the dots are gone, replaced by the food targets which graced the center of the screen in the first game, and there are light green steroid pills which bloat Pac-Man to three times his normal size. Even the play mechanics are more complex... Pac-Man's got to open doors with keys strewn about the maze, and the center target acts as a slot machine which awards luckier players with huge point bonuses. Like the previous games, there are intermissions every three rounds, but these are accompanied by bonus rounds which allow Pac-Man to race through the maze without being persued by monsters. Jane, How Do I Start This Crazy Thing!? Simply type SPACMAN at the A:\ prompt and you're there. The JessCREATIONS*,Co. logo will pop up while you're waiting for the game to load... once it's finished, the drive light will turn off and you may press any key to begin. Will It Work From Windows? Yes. The appropriate .PIF file has been included with this archive, thanks to Josh Lesnick (one of the game's alphatesters). It runs clunkily in Win 3.11 and surprisingly well in Win95, in case you were wondering. Duh... How Do I Work This Menu, George? It's a cinch. Just move the munching Pac-Man along the list of options with the up and down directionals, then make selections with the left and right directionals. The options screen includes the following: LIVES: The number of lives a player starts out with, from one to five. Alter this to make the game harder or easier. MONSTERS: The number of monsters onscreen. Alter this if you want an easier game or if you're playing this from an older PC like my 386SX. ENERGIZERS: Will your game include energizers? Toggle this off if you don't want them, or to give the game a minimal boost of speed. STEROIDS: Will your game include steroid pills? Toggle this off if you don't want these either, or to give the game a minimal boost of speed. KEYS: If you don't want keys, or doors that hinder your movement, toggle this off. STYLE OF MAZE: For a change of pace, switch this to FREE FOR ALL and watch the chaos that results! MAZE VISIBILITY: It's a pain in the butt, but some people are maschocists. Switch this to INVISIBLE and the maze and blue monsters become just that. TIME DELAY: The default is nothing. If you're running this from a 486DX2 or Pentium PC, switch this to at least one star or the game will be unplayably fast. EXIT: Leaves the options screen. Controls: You can control Pac-Man with the directional keys. I highly recommend turning off NUM LOCK and using the rosette located on the numeric keypad... this set- up more closely approximates the joystick control of the Namco original than the T-bar on newer keyboards. The coin-op had a speed up button, and I'm afraid to say that this feature is not a part of "Super Pac-Mon" V1.0. I've tried to add it, but Pac-Mon skips his place on the game's collision detection grid and becomes uncontrollable whenever I do... I'll try to have the bug swatted in an update, but I'm not making any promises. Also, for the best results, you may want to press the direction keys once at a time, in anticipation of turns, instead of holding them down or waiting for the exact moment to make your move. Scoring: You're giving the following points for the following items: FOOD TARGETS: POWER UPS AND ITEMS: Apple- 10 Key- 50 + opens 1-3 doors Banana- 20 Energizer- 50 + power up Donut- 30 Steroid Pill- 100 + super power up Burger- 40 Jackpot Prize- 200-5000 Fried Egg- 50 Melon- 60 BLUE MONSTERS: Coffee- 70 Cake Slice- 80 1st: 200 2nd: 400 Maguro Sushi- 90 3rd: 800 4th: 1600 Cherries- 100 You'll get points for any remaining time in the bonus rounds, too (although that's usually not much). Hints For Better Play: * The monsters chase you blindly, changing course only when there's a wall in the way. Use this to your advantage by positioning yourself just above dead ends when the monsters are near them. * You don't need to eat the keys to complete stages. * The food target to the right of the Slotto star stops after it's been onscreen for a while. This increases your chances of getting the big bonuses by up to ten times but keep in mind that the star will disappear soon after this happens. * The monsters don't exactly run from you when you've eaten the energizer... they run to where you're NOT, ie if you're at the top left-hand corner, they will head to the bottom right. * The monsters will continue to chase you after you've eaten a steroid pill. Let them nestle into you, then head for an energizer and let 'em have it. * Register for more neat-o tips! How To Escape To DOS: Simply press ESCAPE at the main options screen, or, if you're not there, press ESCAPE until you're at the main options screen, then press ESCAPE again. You can also escape from a lousy game to the attract mode with this key... consider it your panic button. >^_^< Infrequently Asked Questions: "Why 'Super Pac-Man'?" I liked the arcade version as a kid and figured that it was high time someone translated it for use with a popular game system and/or computer. Plus, it gives me a chance to flex my still flabby programming muscles... >^_^< "It doesn't look exactly like the arcade game. Why?" I started the game with a somewhat vague recollection of "Super Pac-Man" & a picture of the XE version I'd snagged from the Internet. It's both a good thing and a bad thing since the maze from the original was dreadfully ugly (mine is enlongated like the mazes from the first two "Pac-Man" games) but the food targets were more detailed. "Will you eventually add SoundBlaster support?" If it didn't slow the program down, and I knew how to do it, I'd consider it. I do have a sound card, and thought the samples from "Pac-PC" were pretty cool, but I'm just not sure if I could pull it off... I may include sound card support in an updated version, if James Rowan (the guy responsible for "Ms. Pac-PC") would be kind enough to assist me and I happen across .WAV files of the coin-op's tunes and sound effects. "Well, you could always use the PC's internal speaker..." Ha! HA HA! Oh, that's rich! No... seriously, what were you saying? "How'd you create the graphics?" I drew a grid for the maze and with a makeshift drawing program I'd typed in about 15 minutes, I took out all the walls that weren't necessary, smoothed out the rough edges of the ones that remained, and added doors in just the right places. And it was all done with a keyboard... yikes! The sprites (well, pseudo-sprites, as it were) were drawn in a utility I'd closely patterned after James A. Sausville's "Graphics Factory"... I would have used GF, but it has no medium resolution capabilities, and the method in which it stores graphics is kind of weird (albeit memory efficient). The logos and load screen portrait were first sketched on paper and then drawn in a hasty little program I'd written in, oh, about 30-45 minutes. JessCREATIONS*,Co. is not known for its professionalism, after all... >^_^< "Speaking of graphics, what's the deal with the borders around characters?" It's an especially annoying flaw of Quick BASIC, the compiler in which "Super Pac-Mon" (this will no doubt prompt one of two reactions: "Hey, this is pretty good for a game written in BASIC!" or "Why the hell aren't you using C for this?!") was written. As you may know, PCs are primitive architecturally and don't allow the use of actual, honest to goodness sprites like the ones used in most game systems. Instead, programmers are forced to hold a rectangular slice of screen data in memory and regurgitate it onscreen as a sort of emulated sprite-like thing. Problem is, it's NOT a sprite, and when it's placed onscreen, it'll either erase anything directly underneath the drawing or its border or become transparent and make that background art visible. It's not really that noticible in "Super Pac-Mon" until you eat a steroid pill or a monster catches you, so I figure it won't be a problem until the game is in its beta stages. Some programmers have found their way around this annoyance (witness John Dondzila, who works wonders in the Quick BASIC environment), and hopefully, I will once the complete version of SPM is released... again, no promises, though. "'Super Pac-MON'? What, is he Jamaican in this one or something?" Not at all (although I think Rastafarians *are* pretty irie! Heh, heh...). I just needed a rip-off title to sidestep the lawyers, and since "Pac-PC" (a name which I never really liked anyways... why trumpet the fact that you'd programmed it for the crappy x86 series of computers, anyways? Yeesh...) was already taken, this was the next best thing. The Mon in the title also has nothing to do with machine language monitors, either (do people still use those? Man, am I behind the times...)- if it's a reference to anything, it's the Japanese word "Mon", which means gate. Y'know, there are a lot of doors in "Super Pac-Man", and the original was designed in Japan, hence "Super Pac- Mon". Makes sense to me, anyways... "Is it freeware or shareware?" Shareware, definitely. The registration fee is $15, or a year's subscription to your fanzine if you edit one. What you'll get are two updates, "Goodies" (a neat l'il program filled with outtakes that I just couldn't fit into the game) and a character editor which will allow you to redesign the characters to your own tastes. "The fruits are all wrong. You suck!" Oh, bite me >:). You'll find far worse graphics in other games written in Quick BASIC, and besides, I didn't have the actual coin-op artwork to use as a reference. And y'know, I think the sushi and cherries in SPM are far more appetizing than the raw ear of corn and sneakers in Namco's version. Much more ironic, too, when you stop and think about it. "Ghosts? Monsters? Ghost monsters!? I'm confused!" The proper term for Pac-Man's enemies, according to the Japanese instruction placards (yep, I can read a little Japanese, too. I'm *so* well-rounded! Uh, around the waist, at least...), is "monsutaa", which is a corruption of the English word "monster". Hey, they designed the game, so I'm satisfied with it. Sure, they LOOK more like ghosts, but that IS the official name... "Where can I get a hold of you?" Simply write to the address below: Jess Ragan (aka Maneki-Neko) 8584 Peoples Road Edmore MI 48829 You can try my temporary E-Mail address, too: jessd@montcalm.cc.mi.us If you have suggestions, complaints, or whatever, by all means send them to me! I can use all the help I can get... SUPER PAC-MON V1.0 DESIGN TEAM ------------------ "Super Pac-Mon" is based on Namco's "Super Pac-Man" Original Concept by Toru Iwatani and Namco Conversion by JessCREATIONS*,Co. Lead Programmer: Jess Ragan Graphic Design: Jess Ragan (with inspiration from the Namco original) Alphatesting: Head Tester: Jess Ragan Assistant Testers: Josh Lesnick Russ Perry, Jr. Galen Komatsu JessCREATIONS*,Co.'s Fabulous Upcoming Projects: ------------------------------------------------ PHYREBIRDS (Late Fall, '96): You're the world's only hope in a vision of the future that would send chills down Alfred Hitchcock's spine! Flocks of aviars, enormous and cunning birds of prey, have been sent by an unseen foe to rain death, destruction, and radioactive guano down on the inhabitants of Earth. Your nuclear-powered all-terrain cannon is the only weapon powerful enough to deter the invasion while scientists pinpoint the exact location of the aviars' heavily guarded mothership. Peck away at the looming ship's hull as its sheer mass blots out the sun and threatens to land... can you destroy its freakish occupant and drive back the sinister forces threatening mankind before it's too late? And is this paragraph cliche'd or what? "Phyrebirds", based on Centuri's sleeper hit "Pheonix", is expected to debut on the Internet sometime this fall. PUSHING UP DAISIES (Winter, '96): Ah, the life of a humble garden ladybug. The sweet-smelling flowers, the aromatic vegetables, the... PREDATORY INSECTS!? Yikes! To survive, you'll have to rely on both skill and logic as you munch the flowers growing wild along the garden path and swing revolving doors which keep your higher-ups on the food chain off your back. Make like a spelling bee (all together now... GROAN...) and assemble the words SPECIAL & EXTRA for big bonuses like a vegetable harvest and extra lives. And unlike the Universal original "Ladybug", the control's more precise, and you can even select the properties of the pesticide skulls and target vegetables so that either can be used as table-turning bug squashers! "Pushing Up Daisies" is expected to be released sometime this winter. DESPERATION (Early Winter, '97): It's "Wizard of Wor" with a new, futuristic setting and gore. Look for it early next year. Register for more information about upcoming JessCREATIONS*,Co. projects! LAWYER REPELLANT ---------------- The release dates for the above games are only suggestive. Some of them may never even make it past the conceptual stages, so don't bludgeon me with a Super Nintendo if I don't get around to releasing them. All above games are trademarks of their respective owners. All rights reserved. As always, JessCREATIONS*,Co. is not to be held responsible for damage done to any party for whatever reason. Byron J. Lisamen, Jess, and the JessCREATIONS*,Co. trademark are trademarks of JessCREATIONS*,Co. All rights reserved. All wrongs reserved, too, just in case I need those. "Pac-Man" and "Super Pac-Man" is a registered trademark of Namco Ltd. All rights, lefts, ups, downs, and centers reserved. JessCREATIONS*,Co.: We Don't Make Excuses. We Make Games. ---END OF DOCUMENT---