Amiga CD-Sensation: Golden Games

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Amiga CD-Sensation: Golden Games / Amiga CD-Sensation - Ausgabe 2 - Golden Games (1996)(GTI - Schatztruhe)(DE)[!].iso / Multiplayer / Maze Blazers / MB.doc < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1980-02-15 | 17.0 KB | 482 lines

Michael Shotter's ___ ___ ___ ___ __ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ | | | |___| _/ |__ _ |__> | |___| _/ |__ |__/ |___ | | | | | /__ |___ |__> |___ | | /__ |___ | \ ___| Version 1.0 Program and Documentation Copyright 1995 Michael D. Shotter All rights reserved. NOTE: a. Maze Blazers should run on all Amigas, regardless of CPU, graphics, or OS version, however, there may be some system and RAM configurations that are not 100% compatible. Please be aware that, although these incompatibilities should by no means cause any damage, they may adversely effect the playing of the game. In other words: I have done everything possible to ensure that the game will function properly on every system, but, with all the possible configurations out there, there is a chance that it won't work properly on a few machines. b. Given the extensive testing of this software on my own systems, I will take no responsibility for any damage inflicted to any system from its use or presence. In other words: You make the choice to keep and run this software. If something bad happens, it's NOT my fault. Contents: --------- I. - Introduction - What is Maze Blazers? II. - The Basics - How to play III. - Advanced Topics - Configuring the game IV. - Registration - Come on. It's free! What can you lose? V. - Extra Info. - Technical and general info ----------------------------------------------------------------- Maze Blazes is Freeeware. See the Registration section of this documentation for more information. ----------------------------------------------------------------- I. - Introduction Maze Blazers represents my first genuine attempt at a full fledged game. The basic concept reaches back to a time honored gaming genre, the "maze" game, but takes it to a new level by allowing up to four people to play simultaneously in a 3D, rather than the traditional top-down 2D realm. As with many multi-player games, the focus in Maze Blazers is on competition. Who among the players can reach the exit first? Of course, sometimes, simple competition isn't enough. That's why I have incorporated several "complications" into the game. These complications are discussed later in detail. The main thing to remember is that, although Maze Blazers supports single player play, for the purposes of testing new maze designs and sharpening playing skills, the game's entertainment value is drastically reduced without additional players. II. - The Basics Although Maze Blazers is a simple game at heart, there are some key elements that players need to be aware of to take full advantage of the game's features. Let's start at the beginning. After the title picture, a screen will appear, asking the user to select a rendering mode for the game's graphics. Experimenting with the various modes will allow the player(s) to choose the style of graphics that best suit both the system running the game and the artistic tastes of the player(s). Outside the game proper, the cursor keys can be used to alter game options. The 'enter' key is used to select an item, while Escape is used to abort operations. Also note that, on the Maze Blazers screen, F-1 and F-2 adjust the in-game motion delay value, while the space bar toggles the Wammy Bar on/off. The Wammy Bar is one of those complications that I mentioned earlier. The Basic Options: Start Game - After everything is set to your liking, select this option to begin the game. Number of players - Adjust this option to match the number of human players in the game. Game Modes: Single - Picks a single maze at random from the available maze files and declares the first player out the winner. Multi - selects a group of mazes from the maze files and calculates an overall winner based on points awarded for exiting each maze 1st 2nd... and so on. Countdown - Same as above but, players who don't find their way out before time runs out, receive 0 points. Edit Maze, Edit Palette, and Configure Keys - Simply follow the on-screen directions for each of these, or refer to the Advanced Topics section of this documentation. Wammy - Use the space bar to toggle on/off. Motion Delay - Use F-1 and F-2 to adjust the in-game motion delay. This feature is fur use with fast systems, Stock 68000 users should leave the delay set to 0. OK, so you've made all your selections and the game proper is up and running. Depending on the number of players specified, you will see between one and four equally sized viewing areas which represent the first person view of each player. Let's assume that only one player is active for the sake of simplicity. Above the viewing area, printed in white, is the current compass direction of player one. Assuming that the default keys haven't been changed, the F-1 key can be used to turn the view ninety degrees left, while the F-3 key can be used to turn ninety degrees right. F-2 will advance player one forward one 'step'. Within minutes, the movements will become almost second nature. Users should note that player one may also be controlled by a joystick in port two. Players two, three, and four must be controlled with the keyboard. Default Keys: Forward Left 90 Right 90 Player 1 F-2 F-1 F-3 Player 2 F-7 F-6 F-8 Player 3 x z c Player 4 Cursor Up Cursor Left Cursor Right Of course, these keys can be changed completely using the keyboard configuration option, but, assuming that player one uses a joystick, the default keys should be fine. Now that you've mastered moving around, try to find the exit. The exit is always represented by a Color 15, the middle color of the non-dithered ceiling/sky, section of wall. Please be aware that, since each player can only see up to four steps away from their current position, you will need to come fairly close to the exit to see it. The default mazes are meant to be fairly easy to complete, so, with a little trial and error, the exit should be easy enough to find, however, if you find yourself getting frustrated, you can either press escape (ESC) to abort back to the main menu, or, if in multi mode, press F-10 to skip to the next maze. Multi-player games: This is what it's all about. Grab a few friends and or relatives and set up for something simple, like a five maze ninety second countdown game. In multi-player games, the following elements can really add to the game play. 1 - The Wammy Bar When the Wammy Bar option is set to on, every time the space bar or joystick 2's fire button is pressed, one of the following things will happen: a. - If in countdown mode, the timer will gain five seconds b. - If in countdown mode, the timer will lose ten seconds. c. - One of the players will be blinded for a randomly selected number of moves. Their view will go black until they move around a bit. (Very disorienting and pretty funny if you're not the victim. :) ) d. - One of the players will have their cardinal direction altered, accompanied by a quick white flash. The bright side is that this will remove any effects of a blinding. e. - Nothing. (Hit it again! Hit it again!) Players who have already entered the exit cannot be affected by the Wammy Bar, however, there is nothing stopping someone who has already reached the exit from pressing the Wammy Bar, unless, of course, you count threats of physical violence from the other players. :) Of course, the Wammy Bar has it's problems. For example, taking the time to hit it will certainly distract the player, even if for a moment, which can throw off his/her rhythm. Most importantly, the Wammy Bar shows no mercy. Since it does not know which player pressed it, it is entirely possible that a player, hoping to frustrate his opponents, may find him/herself blinded for the next twenty moves. Ah well, that's life. :) 2 - The Timer Let's face it, nobody wants to be the guy who couldn't make it out of the maze, but, it's gonna happen eventually to even the best players. The problem is that, in countdown mode, if you don't make it out in time, you don't get any points, which will hurt your overall score, in turn hurting your chances of winning the overall game. 3 - Frustration (In multi mode) See above, but this time there's no timer to mercifully end your pain. You'll have to do it yourself by pressing the Surrender key (F-10) which will produce the same effect as time running out. Note that, although F-10 works in all modes, it was designed particularly for this one, which is the only one it really should be used in. Well, that covers most of it, except for one question which might be on your mind. Why can't the players see each other? That's a fair question. Here are my answers: 1 - It makes it too easy to 'cheat', by following someone around and then turning around early when you see that they've hit a dead end. 2 - It really slowed the game down. No problem for most newer systems, but, many stock machines couldn't have handled it. 3 - I'm not the most visually artistic person in the world, and the graphics I had representing the players were crude at best. I agonized over this for weeks, after having implemented the feature, and finally decided that I liked the game better without it. Many would say that I should have left it in and let the individual players decide. Perhaps, but, feeling as strongly as I did, I decided to strip it. Nuff said. III. - Advanced Topics Although the Maze Editor, Palette Editor, and Keyboard Configuration options are self explanatory, both in operation and purpose, I thought it might be a good idea to note some of the techniques I found most effective while testing these features. The Maze Editor: - Try to make your mazes of a consistent size. It can be frustrating to go from an 8X8 maze with a simple layout to a 20X20 maze with a billion twists and turns. Since the game chooses each maze randomly, you can't simply put all the little mazes first then make them bigger as you go. A good solution to this is to make all your mazes small at first, then, as your playing group's skills improve, you can add to the little mazes uniformly, until you use the full area, which should be more than enough for even the most die hard players. - Place the players and exit carefully. Try not to give any single player an advantage in terms of distance to the exit. Some ideas for this include putting all the players on one side and the exit on the opposite end of the map, or placing a player in each corner of a squared off maze with the exit somewhere in the center. Also, remember that exits can be seen and entered from any of the four cardinal directions if they are exposed. Be aware that placing the exit in the middle of a large open space will make it extremely easy to spot. A good rule of thumb is to create a 3X2 wall chunk, placing the exit on the second block of one of the rows of three. This will ensure that the exit is only visible and accessible from one side. Of course, you may want the players to be able to enter from multiple sides. You simply need to be aware of how the game will interpret your placement of the exit. Also note that the exit must always be placed on an existing wall. The editor will not let you place it in an open area, since this would cause a serious malfunction during the game. - Change the mazes often. Doing this will greatly increase the replay value of the game. Also, you may find the challenge of designing original maze layouts nearly, if not more, rewarding then running through them. The Palette Editor: - Consider the rendering mode being used. A palette that looks great with no dithering on the floors and sky/ceiling may look quite different with the dithering turned on. - When you save a palette with "s", the game replaces the last palette saved with the one currently displayed. Likewise, when you press "l", it loads and displays the last palette saved. Also, note that the game always starts with the default palette, whether or not a palette has been saved previously. This means that you will have to enter the Palette Editor and hit "l" to bring up the custom palette each time the game is run. - Don't be afraid to experiment with the Palette Editor. It's there to be played with. Even if you save a palette, the default will remain intact, so there's nothing to lose. Configure Keyboard: - Escape (ESC), SPACE, and F-10 are all reserved keys and cannot be selected as player control keys. - Each time the game runs, the player control keys return to the program's internal default values, listed below: Default Keys: Forward Left 90 Right 90 Player 1 F-2 F-1 F-3 Player 2 F-7 F-6 F-8 Player 3 x z c Player 4 Cursor Up Cursor Left Cursor Right - If anybody figures out a better way to configure the keyboard in the event of four people actually having to use it at once, let me know, but keep in mind that my configuration takes into consideration the A600 keyboard, which has no numeric keypad. IV - Registration I know what you're thinking. "Why do I need to register a Freeware game?" Well, you don't. You can play this game until the end of time without paying me a dime. What can I say? I'm a nice guy. Seriously though, I'm no stooge. I realize that Maze Blazers, being my first game and all, is not what the average Amiga user is going to consider a game worth buying; however, I do see this game as an excellent opportunity to get some feedback from the Amiga gaming community. So, if you have any comments about Maze Blazers, good or bad, feel free to drop me an e-mail. I'd also like to hear any general suggestions for improvements to the basic game, since I'll be releasing at least one upgrade. See below. My current e-mail account "mdsst23@pitt.edu" will be going away in a couple of months, however, as I said above, I'll be putting out an apdated version around that time with a new, more permenant e-mail address. In the new version (1.1), I'll be correcting any reported bugs and attempting to add any of the good features people suggest. So, if there's something you'd like to see in the game, now is the time to tell me, since I sincerely doubt that I'll continue this project without a show of interest. V - Extra Info. Here are a few tidbits about the game and myself for those who might be curious. Coding time - Slightly over two months. Beta testing - Was done throughout the coding process, with an additional week of testing prior to release. Systems used for testing: Development System: A1200 (NTSC) OS 3.0 120 MEG 2.5" IDE (Internal) HD M-Tec 68030 accelerator @ 42 MHZ 25 MHZ 68882 4 Megs. 60ns FAST RAM Squirrel SCSI (PCMCIA SCSI card) 2X Panasonic CD-ROM C= 1084-S Monitor Backward Compatibility Testing System: A500 (NTSC) OS 1.2 A501 (1/2 Meg SLOW FAST RAM expansion) A50? Television adapter NTSC Television Amiga Favorites: Games - I'll limit myself to my top ten, ah, make that twelve: :) 1 Hired Guns (Like you couldn't have guessed that?) 2 The Farey Tale Adventure (This was ALMOST #1 Very close.) 3 SpeedBall 1&2 4 Battle Chess 5 Nuclear War 6 MechForce (The newer HeadQuarters accessory is also great.) 7 Llamatron 8 Stunt Car Racer 9 Dungeon Master 10 Syndicate 11 Lemmings 12 Gloom Utilities - Final Writer 4 CED AmiTCP DaFTP AmyIRC & CLChat DPaint ImageFX Music - OctaMed (All versions from V5 on are excellent.) ProTracker (A classic, but looking shabby compared to the new OctaMed versions.) MLED (Great for really authentic sounding techno.) Plans for the future: Ideally, I'd like to continue doing games for the Amiga. It's still my favorite platform, despite its age. Of course, a great deal depends on how well this game does. It would be rather silly of me to keep cranking out games that nobody wants. :) Assuming that I get enough incentive to keep moving forward, my next project will be another four player game. This one, a sci-fii oriented affair with a decidedly more "fast action arcade" feel, and a sharp division between the strategy and arcade elements of the game. By the way, just in case anybody noticed that Maze Blazers was done in HiSoft Basic, don't worry. I've spent the past year learning C++ and Amiga E and intend to do all my future projects with one of the two. Enjoy the game! Michael D. Shotter e-mail - mdsst23@pitt.edu Undernet IRC - VorTech P.S.Watch for a new music disk from my alter ego VorTech which includes the official Maze Blazers soundtrack. Comming soon to the Aminet!