********************************
* *
* Pranger v1.0 *
* (Freeware) *
* Copyright ©1999 *
* by Sandy Brownlee *
* *
* --- Documentation --- *
* *
********************************
Contents:
Introduction
Legal
Requirements
Installation
Playing
Changing the game
Known bugs
History
Future
Contacting the author
Thanks
Introduction
It's a crap game, with as much point as Minesweeper, and similar- not
much more to be said.
The idea is to fly two ships so that they crash together, but the
difficult part is that they are both controlled by the same joystick,
so trying to control one ship affects the other, and there are objects
in the way to bounce off. In some ways this is like the old classic
Rubix Cube, though not as popular, in that anything you do to win one
way simultaneously hampers you another way. This sad concept came to
me while testing another game I'm working on, called Prangwars, in
which you must literally push your opponent in to oncoming asteroids.
I was too lazy to switch mouse and joystick, so I controlled both ships
from one controller. Hence Pranger came along.
Legal
This game is freeware. It can be freely copied and distributed, with
the only charge on it being made to cover distribution and media costs
(no more than 5 UK pounds). Aminet are free to include it on their CDs.
It is copyright ©1999 Sandy Brownlee, and no changes may be made to the
original package.
I take no responsibility for any harm that it may cause to your
computer, you, or the world in general; you use it at your own risk.
So there.
Requirements
An Amiga computer, preferably with an 020 processor or above.
So far it's been tested on an A1200 bare + OS3.0, an A1200 040/40 +
OS3.5 and an A600 with 1 meg expansion and WB2.05, on which it was
jerkey, but playable. (I'm not terribly good at coding for slower
machines yet). Not sure about OCS and WB1.x, but should be OK on 2.0+
and ECS+. The game uses the vertical blank period of my PAL A1200 for
timing, so on a NTSC machine, gameplay may run at a different speed.
Likewise for GFX card owners. (I'll try to fix this)
Installation
Just copy the directory with Pranger in it to anywhere, and double-
click to play.
The directory should contain:
Pranger.exe -The game itself
Pranger.doc -This text
Graphics/Palette.pal -The palette used by the game's display
Graphics/spacecrafts/xxx \
Graphics/spacecrafts2/xxx \
Graphics/objects/greycircle etc \
Graphics/boom.iff \
Graphics/credit.shp > Various data files
Sounds/bang.iff /
Sounds/congrats.iff /
Sounds/thrust.iff /
Sounds/yawn.iff /
Config.txt -Just now, if this file is not present, the game
will create it on exiting
Playing
Move joystick (in port 1) left/right to turn ships, up/down to
accelerate forwards/back. Ships bounce off all objects that are a
different colour as the ship. (Watch out for the near invisible
objects!) There is also a white box that doesn't move, that both ships
rebound off, which is randomly placed every time.
To quit the game, press the Escape key at any point, except in the
HiScore name entry window, where clicking OK will return you to the
credits window.
Changing the game
The sound effects are crap. I'll admit that, coz I made them. If you
have better, just go into the Sounds directory and change those that
are there, preserving the names of course. They are standard IFF 8SVX
sound samples, just like most Amiga sample editors export.
The graphics, located in various places in the graphics directory,
are all standard iff brushes, so load into DPaint and play away.
The palette, palette.pal, is again just standard, like that saved out
by DPaint, PPaint etc.
If you want to reset the highscore to 60s by Anon, just delete
Config.txt, coz HiScore is all that's there just now.
I'm not letting you change anything else just yet. Maybe someday I'll
let you change no. of blobs etc. Who knows?
Known Bugs
-Don't run Pranger more than once simultaneously. Dodgy things may
happen!
-Dark blobs tend to flicker when moving for some reason; don't
know why.
-The ships used to "stick" to the blobs occasionally. I think it's
fixed now, but if it does happen, just keep accelerating the ship
away from the centre of the blob and it should come free.
-Sometimes a blob will appear to zigzag back and forth along the edge
of the screen. This is down to my cheapo collision detection, and is
nothing to worry about.
-If you`re not running FBlit on your system, the dark blobs flicker
visibly. Not sure why yet- any suggestions? At the moment you'll
just have to put up with it- or get FBlit from util/boot on Aminet.
History
v1.0 -First public release; tidied up code and tried to make as
stable as possible.
v0.96 -Preparations for beta testing by my friends.
v0.95 -Made motionless box appear in random positions.
v0.9 -Made blob colours actually have a purpose
v0.87 -General bugfixing.
v0.86 -General bugfixing.
v0.85 -Made mouse disappear in play.
v0.8 -Traded off speed for better collision detection.
v0.7 -Added blobs, with poor collision detection
v0.5 -Added HiScore
v0.45 -Made yellow boosters appear on ships
v0.4 -Added sound effects
v0.1 -First playable version; an adaption of "Prangwars"
Future
Possible additions include:
-Ability to alter no. of blobs, max. speed, etc.
-Ability to display on any screen (RTG?)
-Two players (yeah, right)
-Keyboard control
-Better standard GFX, SFX
-Addition of powerups of some sort (Teleport, better acceleraton,
temporary removal of blobs etc.)
-Guarantee that game runs at same speed on all Amigas, with the
possible exeption of v. slow ones.
This is just a little side- project of mine, so no promises on
the above ;-)
Contacting the Author
You can reach me at the following E-Mail addresses:
Normal: sandy@brownlee99.freeserve.co.uk
If no reply: oldchap1000@yahoo.co.uk
sandyb@www.com
I check the second two a lot less often, so please use the
freeserve address, unless you get no reply from that.
My website is: www.brownlee99.freeserve.co.uk, but it's a bit cack
at the moment.
Thanks
Thankyou to James L Boyd <jamesboyd@all-hail.freeserve.co.uk>, of
Blitz Mailing List fame, for the use of his statsfuncs.lha,
available on Aminet in dev/basic for those interested blitz
programmers.
No thanks to my "mate" James, who said he'd do some improved
graphics, and still hasn't got back to me.
|
aminet net>