The goal of the game is to be victorious in battle over the other tanks (domes). Each dome is started in a location across the canyon floor. By varying the angle and the power used, attempt to destroy the other tanks on the screen. Points and cash are awarded according to your performance during the play, which can then be used to buy new weapons.
Dome Wars offers a variety of options to make the games more interesting. Dome Wars can be played by 0 to 10 players at the same computer. [You must use an older versin of the game (1.2b1) if you would like to use networking.] There are also a variety of weapons available for purchase. Having the crucial weapon at the crucial time makes all the difference in the game. (Do you buy the up rollers or down rollers?) If you get bored with the pre-set weapons, feel free to make your own. Combine the various characteristics of different weapons together to get the desired effect.
The various land, walls, ceiling, wind and computer options will force you to continually revise your strategy. (Especially when playing against the more unpredictable humans out there.)
Although the metophor is not one that I would readily choose, I think the British MacFormat April 1996 issue summed up the game and an interesting way:
"Actually, the whole game is very much like sex. Played by yourself it's enjoyable,
but with a large group it's more interactive, albeit difficult to work out who's doing
what to whom."
New Features
This version removes registration restrictions from previous versions. It adds better explosion graphics, background mountains & sky pictures, new computer AI's, many bug fixes, and other minor improvements.
Quickstart
Move turret left: right arrow, 6 (numeric keypad)
Move turret right: left arrow, 4 (numeric keypad)
Increase power: Up arrow, 8 (numeric keypad)
Decrease power: Down arrow, 2 (numeric keypad)
Medium increase power: hold down command key
Fast increase power: 9 (numeric keypad)
Fast decrease power: 3 (numeric keypad)
Fire: space/enter/return
Select Weapon: click with mouse/tab (forward)/command-tab (backward)
How To Play
Before you begin a game of Dome Wars, you should decide on the options
for your game. A complete list of these options can be found in Chapter 3
of this document, Menu Options.
To begin a new game of Dome Wars, select "New Game" from the file menu.
You will then be presented with the following dialog box:
 
From here you will determine the names & the number of players in the
game. A description of each player type can be found in Chapter 2 of
this document, Computer AI.
Click on the Color to set the player color.
Once you have added the total number of players in the game, you will begin
play. (Unless you specified a starting cash amount. For a description of weapons
see Chapter 4, Weapons.)
A typical playing field might look something like this:
 
It is your job to set your angle, weapon & power so that you can
destroy the other tanks. This may take some practice. For beginners
I would recommend playing as several human players at once, with
no computers, until you learn the basics of the game.
Extra Game Options
• You can also click on the weapon name to get a pop-up menu of your
avaliable weapons
• Click on an enemy tank to see their name & health
• Click and hold on the Quit/End Round buttons to exit while the computers are
taking their turns.
Play Notes
A direct shot will always kill, unless shields are activated. A direct shot is considered any shot that lands within a radius of 9 pixels from the center of the tank. This means hitting directly below the tank so that the explosion takes place under the tank may cause a death. You lose one health for every pixel you fall, and damage is assigned from explosions based on the explosion strength and your distance from the explosion. Rollers may behave unpredictably when they hit a very skinny peak. Because not every point that the projectile passes through is calculated, it is possible for a shot to pass through a very narrow slit of land without exploding. Slowing down the game speed will reduce the chance of this happening. Do your best to survive the round, you get more points for doing this than for killing tons of tanks.
Other Misc info.
You can create your own background pictures & patterns. If you want to use background patterns, you must know how to use ResEdit. Sky patterns start at id 128, and go upward, ground patterns start at id 1000 and go up. Ids must be consecutive. For background pictures, you can simply place pictures in the "Mountains" and "Backgrounds" folders. Pictures can be PICT, gif, jpeg, TIFF, and anything else supported by Apples QuickTime‚Ñ¢.
Some of the background and sky patterns are provided courtesy of Erik Jonger. Visit
his home page at: http://student.vub.ac.be/~erjonger/EDeskPat.html
Thank you very much, Erik!
Custom tank names can be added by the names to the proper str# resource. (By color.)
You need ResEdit to do this. ResEdit can be obtained from Apple's FTP archives. Sorry,
I am not in the business of teaching people how to use ResEdit. (I will tell you this,
though: always work on a copy of anything when you edit it.)
Closing remarks
This 'shareware' status of this game has changed. For more information on why I am
making this change, see the section entitled "Personal Information". This game is
now considered (at least) "Postcard-ware". This means after using the game for 15
days, you must either send me a postcard (or $ if you feel so inclined), or remove the
game from your system.
If you send a postcard, I will e-mail you a registration code. If you send $5 or more,
I will send you the latest version on disk. I request that international users send at
least $10 to cover the additional expense of mailing overseas.
A special thanks to the people who has registered, and to Todd for some of the extra textures!
This game is provided as is, and no guarantee is made about the stability of this game on your particular computer. I take no responsibility if this game doesn't work on your system, or in any way causes you loss.
However, do send registrations/comments/suggestions/bug reports to:
Nathan Sturtevant
(until at least 8-98)
3723 Mentone #6
Los Angeles, CA 90034
-or-
84 Yosemite Ct.
Ventura, CA 93003
Internet:
nathanst@csua.berkeley.edu
WWW: (the latest version is always available here)
