Short: Cheap 1ply game- get 2 ships to collide Author: sandy@brownlee99.freeserve.co.uk (Sandy Brownlee) Uploader: sandy brownlee99 freeserve co uk (Sandy Brownlee) Type: game/misc Version: 1.0 Architecture: m68k-amigaos ******************************** * * * 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 , 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.