Target Acquired
Peace has reigned in the Galactic Federation for almost a century.
However, the idyllic lives of two species were completely disrupted
when the human ambassador was assassinated by the Entomorphs. The
only possible solution is a one-on-one trial by combat between one
human and one Entomorph.
Congratulations. You've been selected to represent humanity. Your
superiors have provided you with the latest in starfighter
technology: the X-1723E StarBlazer. It is the most maneuverable and
best armed one-man craft in the Ten Thousand Worlds.
You'll need all the help you can get, because the Entomorphs are hive
minds, and they've sent an entire hive mind out after you...
The enemy fleet awaits. The honor of humanity flies with you!
Controls:
Arrow keys: Move
Space: Blast
Enter: Blast
Right bracket (]): Blast
ESC: Quit
Targets:
Sweepers: 150 pts.
Kamikazes: 250 pts.
Battleships: 1,500 pts.
Hive-core ships: 5,000 pts.
Local nerve nodes: Destroy everything on the screen and yield
double point values.
Extra life every 10,000 pts.
Main Menu:
1. Engage the Entomorphs / Commence Grand Tour
Plays a game of TARGET ACQUIRED. If the `Grand Tour' setting is on,
then you will be invincible throughout the game, but you have no
chance of getting on the high score table either.
2. Momentum: On/Off
If you choose to have momentum on, the arrow keys will accelerate
your ship instead of moving it. You will have a slightly higher top
speed with momentum on. Also, all shots from all craft will move
left and right as the ship was when the shot was fired. When
momentum is off, all shots shoot straight and the ship always moves
at just under the maximum possible speed.
3. Display Credits
Gives the credits.
4. See Best Acquirers
This displays the high-score table.
5. Read briefing
Gives you the background for the game.
6. Quit
Ends the game.
Command line options:
The Windows version of TARGET ACQUIRED defaults to full-screen mode. All
other versions will default to windowed unless FULLSCREEN_DEFAULT has been
defined. To override this at runtime, use the --fullscreen (or -f) option
to force fullscreen, or the --window (or -w) option to force windowed mode.
Background on the TARGET ACQUIRED project:
The original TARGET ACQUIRED project was done in 1995 by a bunch of high
schoolers who wanted to build a space shooter from the ground up. We
actually managed to do it, and it ran blazingly fast on a 386/40, in a
reasonably portable VGA mode. It also only required about 256 kB of memory
to run.
These days are long gone.
I stumbled across the old code I wrote, five years later. It didn't
compile anymore, to say nothing of running on any modern machine. So it
just stayed there, taking up space.
The version of TARGET ACQUIRED you now have is the result of me learning
to use the SDL libraries (http://www.libsdl.org). The graphics and
input interfaces have been changed to use these libraries instead, so
now it runs on all machines. It also requires about 16MB of RAM to run
comfortably, but that's a small enough price to pay.
SO GO BLAST THINGS ALREADY.
-- Michael C. Martin
31 August 2002 |
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