Pyros's Mobile Miners by Avishay Yagoda information file Index: 1. General 2. Main Menu 3. Options 4. Trade Screen 5. Weapons 6. Gameplay 7. Ezra 8. Setup 9. Possible future features 10. Credits 11. Self-promoting 1. General: This is the first final version of PMM, which is a two players top view dig and kill game. Two mobiles: tank sorta vehicles equipped with sharp vibrating digging spike, and an immovable turret, digging out tons of dust, to blast each other up. 2. Main Menu: Use up and down arrows to select between "options" and "start". Press enter to accept the choice you made. Press escape to quit. 3. Options Menu: Use up and down arrows to browse through the 8 variables. Use left and right arrows to alter the variables. Hit escape to return to the main menu. 3(b). Options are: Number of Rounds: set how many rounds are to be played after you select start in the main menu. Play All Rounds: If set to "yes" all the rounds that are set above will be played through. If set to "no", then when one of the players has no chance to win (have a bigger score than his opponent), not even by winning all the following rounds, the game will be over. Regenerate Ezra: Set every how many rounds players' Ezras should be resurrected. For more info about Ezra read on. Change Territory: Set how many rounds to play in the same area. After that number of rounds pass, the MM will go fight in a new land. Startup Credit: How many credits should a player start with (before round one). Winning Prize: The amount of credits the player who won the round gets. Losing Consolations: The credits that the losing player gets. Tie Refund: The credits each player gets if the round is tied. Gear Type: Changes the way the MMs engines respond to the forward and backward keys. Three modes are available: Buttons - the classic mode. Press the direction key once to make the MM advance, press the direction key that the MM is moving at (as in: if the MM is moving forward, press forward) to stop the tank. Pedals - as long as you press the direction key, the MM will advance, this is like any normal games' keys. This will cause some keys to jam if pressed together. Stick - direction keys move the controlling stick of the MM. If the lever is level, pressing a direction key will push the handle to that direction,(and make it stay there), making the MM go in that direction. Then, if you'll press the opposite key, the MM will stop. Number of Rocks: Set the number of boulders that will be on the land. Rocks cannot be dug out by MMs, but Ezra can dig them out (very slowly). Be aware that if you'll put tons of rocks, they may block areas of the land. Lasting Mines: If set to yes, mines that were dropped through the round and didn't set off will remain on the land, unless you move to a new territory. In the beginning of the next round, mines will be off and visible, as if they were just dropped. Buy Factories: Buying factories means that even if your MM has blown up, you'd still have the weapons you've bought their technologies ready and set on your next MM. Your last ammo also remains. If you set this to no, any weapons that were loaded into your destroyed MM will be destroyed too, and therefore in order to use them again you'll have to buy them again. If you choose this, you better make the losing consolations way higher than the winning prize. Red Uses Joystick: If you have a standard joystick or gamepad, you can chose yes on this option, to allow the red player to use it instead of the keyboard. The joystick allways works in the "Pedals" Gear Type, which is described above. since there won't be any key jamming, you probably should choose "Pedals" in the gear type options, since this is the most intuitive type. The Gear Type option only inflicts the yellow player if the joystick is on. Please do not move the stick while the tradescreen is loading (after pressing start), or the joystick won't behave correctly. More advanced joystick types are untested, if you have such a joystick, and it's working, please tell me about it. 4. Trade Screen: This is the screen you get to as soon as you start a new game, and after every round. On the top right corner is the color of the player who's trading now. On the left there's the main purchasing column. Here you can: 1) Scroll the highlight with up and down arrows 2) Load the highlighted weapon on the MM, using the right key. Loaded weapons are shown to the right of this column. You can load up to three weapons at a time. 3) Un-load the highlighted weapon (If loaded). Use the left key for this. 4) Buy the highlighted weapon (if not yours already) using the Space key. Credit info is shown in the box on the right. 5) Buy ammo for the highlighted weapon (if you already bought the weapon) using Space key. 6) Sell ammo of the highlighted weapon using Del/Backspace key. If there's no ammo the weapon is sold. Selling ammo and weapons adds half of the original price to your credits. 7) Go on (Press Enter). If the red player was on, then now it's yellow's turn to trade. If the yellow player was on, then the round starts. 8) Press C to go back to red player (if this is yellow's turn and red wants to trade some more). 4(b). Aftermath screen: After all the rounds are done, you don't get back to the tradescreen, but to the aftermath screen. Here you see the entire map, and the final score. Pressing any key will make the score vanish, letting you see the land untroubled. Pressing a key the second time gets you back to the main screen. Pressing F1 will do the same thing as any key will do, but first it'll take a snapshot. 5. Weapons descriptions: The order of the list ahead is the same order as in the trade screen. Machina: simple gun machine. low damage, reasonable range, low cost, and ammo doesn't cost a dime. Armor Piercer: Bullets are faster than Machaina's, so they get through the armor of the MM. shorter range, better damage, higher cost and ammo costs a little. Cannon: Fires explosive cannonballs. Cannonballs won't explode unless they hit something. Higher ammo costs than AP, but three hits is a kill usually. Mine Dropper: Plants mines. Mines are triggered when run over. Highly explosive and sometimes a very bad turn can blow your MM instantly. Flamethrower: The only weapon that fires backwards. It burns your fuel through the exhaust of the MM. Opponent's Armor gets burnt pretty fast. Consumes fuel very fast. Digger : Single flying capsule fires acid to the sides, melting dust, and MMs. Nice damage if the capsule pass through an MM. Handy for advancing fast through dust. Purple Rain: One fired shells divides into two, the two next split up too, and so on. Shot from a close range, hardly does any damage. Won't reach far neither. At a very accurate distance, one shot means ka-boom. Nuker: Launches a Nuclear warhead. As the warhead hit anything, it has a short delay, and then creates a huge explosion. Surviving is a miracle. Radiation last for a time, then fades. Being close to a radiation source (in green) reduces armor. The many radiation sources you are close the faster your armor drops. 5(b). Arsenal Table: Range is relative to viewport's size. Damage is in percents. Costs are defaults. Loaded (Ldd) means the amount of ammo you get with the weapons as you buy it. M A means maximum ammo that can be loaded. Weapons type | Range | Damage | M A | Ldd | Cost | Ammo cost ----------------------+-------+--------+-----+-----+------+----------- Gun Machine (Machina) | 5/6 | 2 | Inf | Inf | 200 | N/A Armor Piercer | 1/2 | ~11 | 100 | 10 | 500 | 2 Cannon | Inf | ~30 | 50 | 5 | 500 | 5 Mine Dropper | N/A | 40-95 | 35 | 2 | 600 | 20 Flamethrower | 4/10 | N/A | Inf | Inf | 700 | N/A Acid Spreader(Digger) | 1/2 | 1-35 | 30 | 1 | 700 | 30 Purple Rain | 1/3 | 1-100 | 5 | 1 | 1000 | 500 Nuker | Inf | WOW! | 3 | 0 | 2000 | 1000 6. The gameplay: As you finish with the first trade screen, you'll be passed to the arena. On the left there's red player's viewport, and the yellow one is to the right. In the beginning of each round, the current score is shown for a little while. You can move and play normally while the score is shown. Below each viewport you have some meters. Most left shows in what direction your MM tries to move. Next is the armor meter. Green is full armor, Orange is bad. Next is the fuel meter. Analogically rotate 90 degree between full tank and an empty one. The Image to right of it is the current weapon that will be fired if you press the fire button. If the picture is green, then the weapon is ready to fire. If orange, then either the MM is reloading, or maybe you ran out of ammo. Amount of ammo is the number above the weapon's image, if it says xxx, it means this weapon have unlimited ammo(Machina and Flamethrower). After a player is killed, the game goes on for a short while (to allow the dead player's bullets to hit the opponent, and maybe killing him too) and then you pop back to the trade screen. If you both run out of ammo for all of your loaded weapons or run out of fuel when both Ezras are dead (and therefore you won't get refilled), the round is drawn, and you return to the trade screen, when both players get the tie refund. You can press escape at any time to instantly draw the round. press F1 to capture the current screen, file will be saved as "pmm.pcx". This is also available in the aftermath screen and the trade screen. 6(b). Your base: The place you start in, it's square and has your color on it. Not moving when the MM is on it, and you are missing fuel or are hit, Ezra will pop. 6(c). Fuel: Every thing takes fuel. Each bullet/shell you fire drains a little fuel. Flamethrower takes tons of fuel. Moving and turning takes fuel, and digging fuel drain is relative to how much dust you dig. 6(d). Digging: When you move forward into dust, it gets dug out. You can't dig if you are moving backwards or not moving at all. Digging and moving takes twice the time than just moving. 7. Ezra (fix-it fill-up guy): Ezra in Hebrew means help, and also an old Hebrew name. Ezra is your personal hardware guy. When you halt on your base, he will come out to refill and repair you. This takes time. Refilling is shorter than repairing. If you run out of fuel away from your base, Ezra will come to you to R&R you. When Ezra is not in the base, he won't response to your SOS signals, so if you run out of fuel again, while Ezra is advancing back to your base, he won't turn until he gets to the base. Warning: Ezra can be killed. Being shot, run down, or being exposed to radiation will kill Ezra for the rest of the round. Ezra will be resurrected every N rounds (N is what your set up in the options menu), so if you set N to 2, then if Ezra will die in the 3rd round, you'll have to survive the 4th round without Ezra, and Ezra will return in the 5th round. Camping is a bad idea! if you camp at your base, then Ezra is more likely to be hit, since he comes out every time you are hit or move and stop (takes fuel). 8. The setup: To change the controlling keys, or to setup a new economy (weapon and ammo Prices), run the game from the DOS prompt with the line:"pmm setup" or run the batch file "setup.bat" . Enter a number according your choice and follow instructions. 8(b). Defaults: To reset all game and setup options to defaults, delete the file called "setup.pmm", or run the batch file "default.bat" . If you unzip a new version of PMM into the same directory as the old one, you must do this before you run the game. 9. Possible future features: Computer controlled player. A movie (at the start). 10. Credits: :-) Well, I, Avishay Yagoda, mailto:yagoda@netvision.net.il did everything, even all the sounds are me, my mouth or my hands. If you have better sounds that suits the games, please tell me about it. Only originals! no downloaded sounds! I got the base concept of the game (digging tanks from top view) from an old game called Tunneler. My nephew Afik suggested the addition of mines to the arsenal (I promised him to put his name here). Game was programmed in DJGPP, using RHIDE and Allegro. Never could have done it without these. Go to www.delorie.com for info on these stuff. 11. Self-promoting: Go to http://www.geocities.com/pyros_82/ or to http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/6993/ for my homepage, other games are available there. Or E-mail me to yagoda@netvision.net.il I'd love to hear any kind of responses, or bug reports. Avishay (Pyros) Pyros's Mobile Miners version 1.0