300 Favorite Games

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Text File | 1991-09-03 | 16KB | 380 lines

The Orion Odyssey Ver. 1.1 Billy Dalrymple 104 Miss Georgia Ct. Cary NC 27511 Copyright (c) 1991 by Billy Dalrymple All Rights Reserved I. Shareware: Orion Odyssey is distributed under the shareware marketing concept. Because Orion Odyssey is shareware you can freely copy and share the shareware diskette with its programs and manual. You can also obtain it from Billy Dalrymple for $10. In fact I hope you do help by sharing unmodified copies of the Orion Odyssey shareware diskette with other gamers. Note to Shareware distributors: You are free to distribute this program provided disk charges do not exceed $4.00/disk. The concept of shareware states that you are free to try the software to determine if it suits your needs. If you decide to continue playing Orion Odyssey, you should feel obliged to register your copy by sending $10.00 to the above address. If you "purchased" your copy of Orion Odyssey from a shareware distributor, you should be aware that the price you paid was charged only to cover disk and disk handeling costs, and that it that it in no way replaces the registration obligation if you continue to use your copy of Orion Odyssey. When you register your copy of Orion Odyssey, you will receive the following items: 1) The latest revision of Orion Odyssey. 2) A full registered copy of the next game developed. (see the next page for definition). II. Introduction This revision of Orion Odyssey is a graphical arcade style game which involves a space flier (Wally, as he has become to be known) who flies around using a jetpack strapped to his back and tries to accumulate as many points as possible while destroying alien beings, finding and using artifacts, and monitoring his life status, fuel consumption, ammo etc. Currently I am debating the next major enhancement to the game. The game originally was to be set in the Orion Cluster of stars and the Space Flier was on a quest to find the Magical golden gauntlet. The game was to have 8 planets which would need to be traveled before the quest could be fulfilled, thus changing the game from an arcade game into an adventure game. The other option is having multiple versions of this game. Where the space flier faces different aliens on different worlds and it remains an arcade type game with no real quest other than to accumulate the most points. I am asking for your vote. Tell me which of the two options you feel would be the best. The requests I receive from registered users will determine the future of Orion Odyssey. I am also looking for computer artists. If you have a paint program, artistic ability, and you would like some artistic exposure by creating graphics for future Orion Odyssey games, circle that option on the registration form when you register your copy of Orion Odyssey and attach a copy of some of your work so I can determine the best person (or people) for the job. So help create a game, Register/Vote today, and remember, as a registered user you will receive the next revision of the game (whatever form it may take) as soon as it is complete. III. Registration To register Orion Odyssey and to vote for the future of Orion Odyssey, simply fill out the following form and send it along with a check or money order for $10.00 to: Billy Dalrymple 104 Miss Georgia Ct. Cary NC, 27511 Name: _____________________________ Age: ______ Address: ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ Obtained Orion Odyssey From: ________________________ ______________________________________________________ Using a Hard Disk? YES NO Size of Floppy: 360k 1.2M 1.44M I would like to see the next Orion Odyssey become an: (see the section II of this manual for explanation) ADVENTURE ARCADE I am interested in creating graphics for Orion Odyssey: (please attach an example of your work) YES NO Comments: ________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ IV. Hardware Configuration: Orion Odyssey requires the following minimum hardware configuration: 100% IBM Compatible PC 512 K Ram EGA Color Graphics Recommended Hardware (In addition to above) 100% IBM Compatible PC running at or faster than 10Mhz Hard Disk V. Playing the Game: Starting the Game: All the Orion Odyssey files must reside in the same DOS directory. Type ORION from the DOS prompt and you will see a 'loading' screen which indicates that the game is loading. After the loading gauge reaches 100%, hit a key and you will be ready to begin the game. The Main Screen: The main screen consists of a Title window (upper,upper left), Three blue lights which indicate how many Wallys you have left. These are on the top of the screen. Then there is a main window in the middle of which will be Wally. This main window is a scrolling window in which the game is played. to the right of the main window are the status gauges which are used to monitor various aspects of the game. Above the gauges is the score and hit percentage readouts. Hint: Hit percentage is calculated into the score so you should try to keep it high. Above the score is the address to which you may mail your registration forms to register your copy of Orion Odyssey. If you like playing the game, Please Register. GAUGES: The main screen contains six gauges which give critical indication as to the current status of the game. These gauges are described below: GOLD: Indicates how much gold you have remaining. Gold is crucial for obtaining the resources which are needed to play the game. (FUEL, AMMO) When you run low on gold you should look for a treasure chest and walk into it to obtain more gold. AMMO: Indicates the amount of ammo left. When you run low on ammo you need to find an ammunition house and walk into it to get more ammo. Remember: you bneed to have plenty of gold to buy ammo with. HEALTH This indicates your current status. If your status reaches 0, your Wally is destroyed. There are many things that influence your HEALTH: - Every time you fly into something too hard, your health decreases. Everytime you run into an alien (That doesnt kill you) your health will drop. Walking reduces your Health, while resting or flying will increase it. METER This is an altimeter, the green indicates how close you are to landing on the ground. This is crucial for learning to land safety. Landing is difficult without it. Whenever the meter gauge is almost completely green, you are about to touch the ground. THRUST This indicates the amount of thrust, and therefor the amount of fuel you are using. The More thrust, the quicker you use your fuel reserves. FUEL Indicates the amount of remaining fuel left. When reserves get low, you need to head for the nearest fuel depot (Make sure you have enough gold) and buy some more fuel. FLYING: This can be extremely tricky. Inertia and gravity play a big role in fling with a jetpack. Since Wally does not have any landing gear other than his legs, you must take great care when landing and make sure that his landings are not hard, or else his health may be significantly reduced, or he may be killed. Likewise care must be taken while in flight so as not to run into cliffs or scrape the sides of cliffs, or thrust into an overhang, etc. Use the UP arrow key to control the thrusters. This will ignite the jetpack and send Wally rocketing toward the stars. Wallys inertia will increase proportionately to his velocity making it take longer to slow down after the thrusters have been shut off. Likewise, when falling (Thrusters off), Wallys inertia will increase with distance making it harder to stop the fall. You should spend time learning how to fly before you venture too far from home base. It will be time well spent. Special Items: There are various items which may be found which will assist you with dealing with the aliens. Some of these items will increase your plazma energy, some will help improve your health, some will increase your jetpack fuel efficiency. To USE these items, you must first have obtained them, then you need to activate them by pressing the appropriate key. Once you have activated the item, a flashing light will appear under the appropriate gauge on the screen indicating that the item is activated. Once the item has been used up, the flashing light will disappear. Some items may remain hidden until you have acquired a certain score. Once you have obtained an item and it is in your inventory, it will not reappear until you have used it. You may view your inventory of items by pressing the "I" key. 1) SWORD - Increases your Plazma Energy. once you have obtained the sword, you may activate it by pressing the "W" (Weapon) key. 2) SHIELD - Increases your Health recovery rate and helps to protect you from harm. Activate by pressing the "P" (Protection) key. 3) GOLDEN GOOSE - Increases your fuel efficiency. Activate by pressing the "F" (Fuel) key. 4) BOMB - Blows up all aliens in a world sector. Activate by pressing the "B" (Bomb) key. 5) KEYS - Some entrances may need a key before you can enter them. If you have a key it will be automatically activated whenever you touch the door that requires it and the door will open. Each time a Wally gets killed, one of the blue square lights on the upper portion of the main screen will disappear. After the third Wally has been destroyed, the game is over, you may choose to start a new game or return to DOS. HELP Screen: You may obtain help anytime during the game by pressing the 'H' key. This will list all of the key commands and their functions. The game will be paused while the help menu is being displayed. Main Menu: You may access the main menu by pressing the ESC key. The game is paused while the main menu is being displayed. This menu will let you save the current game, restore the previously saved game, start over, resume the game, or quit to DOS. Since Orion Odyssey increases in difficulty as your score increases, it is highly recommended that you save your game frequently especially if you are in a high scoring game, and you are about to try something which may destroy your last Wally. Misc Functions: You may have a fast computer and wish to slow down the graphics speed of the game. You can slow down or speed up the game by pressing the '-' and '+' keys. The '-' key will reduce the delay time and therefor increse the speed of the game and the '+' key will increase the delay time thereby slowing the game down. You may toggle music on/off by pressing the 'S' key.