Club Amiga de Montreal

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Text File | 1990-03-14 | 12.9 KB | 305 lines

Destination: MoonBase (c) 1990 by Jimbo Barber All Rights Reserved Instructions * System Requirements Any Amiga model with 512K, one disk drive and a joystick plugged in port #2. (This game may not work correctly on an Amiga with only 512K and TWO disk drives. There may simply not be enough available RAM. You are welcome to try it, of course... but I make no guarantees about how well it will work.) * Hard Drive Installation Simply copy (drag) the "MoonBase" drawer anywhere on your hard drive. It's that simple! * Object Guiding a lunar lander, the player must ferry cargo from an orbiting space station to bases on the surface of the moon. The player gets the cargo and fuel for the lander by docking with the space station. The main goal is to complete all the assigned cargo deliveries, and destroy as few landers as possible in doing so. * Game Elements Along with successfully controlling the lander, the player must also be aware of the following game elements: 1) There are a limited number of lunar landers per game. Therefore, the player must be careful not to destroy the landers during the missions. 2) There are limited fuel supplies, in both the current lander itself and the space station. The lander may refuel from the space station, as long as there is fuel remaining. 3) There is a time limit imposed upon each game. 4) There are a set number of missions (cargo runs between the space station and lunar bases) that should be completed during a game for the highest possible score. * Special Keys During the game, the following keyboard keys are active: 1) ESC - abort current game and return to the options screen. 2) 'P', 'p' or the spacebar - pause/resume the game. 3) 'Q' or 'q' - instantly abort the game and return to the Workbench. Use this if you want to stop playing before the end of the current game. These keys will work on either game screen. * Options Following the intro animation and Shareware notification screen, the options screen will be displayed. The player may control many aspects of the game, to make it as easy or as difficult as he wishes. The joystick is used to change the following options: * Default difficulty level (Easy-Medium-Hard) - These are preset values to get the player started. This entry displays 'Custom' when the player moves to the following fields to set his own difficulty level. * Number of landers (1-7) - This is how many landers the player will have available during the game. A lander may be destroyed by colliding with the space station or lunar surface, or by running out of fuel. * Maximum lander speed (Slow-Fast) - The lander is easier to control at slower speeds, but the experienced player will appreciate the faster speed when time is running short during a game. * Number of missions (1-5) - This is the number of missions (cargo runs between the space station and lunar bases) that should be completed during the game, for the highest possible score. * Lander fuel consumption rate (Slow-Fast) - This determines how quickly the lander burns fuel. The faster it burns fuel, the more often the player must dock with the space station to fill up. * Space station fuel level (Low-High) - This determines how quickly the space station runs out of fuel for the landers. Once the space station is empty, the landers can no longer refuel. * Maximum game time (1-6 minutes) - When time runs out, the game is over. Once the options have been set, pressing the joystick fire button will start the game. * Game Screen #1 The game begins at the space station, in orbit above the lunar surface. At the top, left of the screen is the fuel gauge. There are two fuel levels, labeled 'S' and 'L'. The 'S' entry is the current fuel level in the space station, and 'L' is the fuel level in the current lander. To the right of the fuel gauge is the number of landers remaining. This will be updated each time the player destroys a lander. To the far right is the time remaining in the current game. At the bottom of the screen is the number of missions remaining, and which lunar base the current cargo should be delivered to (more on this later). As the game begins, a lander will be filled half-full with fuel (notice the fuel gauges) and brought out of the bottom of the space station on autopilot. Once the lander has cleared the space station, it is put on manual control. The player may now rotate the lander left and right by moving the joystick left and right, and fire the thrusters by pressing the joystick fire button. On each side of the space station there are two cone-shaped cargo docking ports (four total). Each docking port has a signal light which displays red or green. Only a docking port with a green signal has cargo waiting, and can be docked with. The lander will NOT dock with any docking port signaling red. To successfully dock with the space station, the TOP of the lander must be facing the desired docking port. Once the lander has gotten close enough to the docking port, is moving slowly enough, and is in the correct orientation, the autopilot will take over and attach the lander to the docking port. The player should remember the following facts when attempting to dock for cargo: 1) The top of the lander must be facing the desired docking port. 2) The maximum speed allowed when docking depends on the 'Maximum lander speed:' setting from the options screen. If 'Slow' has been selected, then the lander can dock with the space station when moving at maximum speed. If 'Fast' has been selected, then the lander must be moving no more than HALF the maximum speed when docking is attempted. 3) The DIRECTION the lander is moving is not important. It may be moving toward the cargo docking port, parallel to it, or even away from it! 4) The player must get fairly close to the port before the autopilot will engage and dock the lander. Once docking is completed, the cargo will be transferred to the lander, and the player will be notified which lunar base is to receive it (the display on the bottom right of the screen). The signal light for that docking port will turn red, and the lander will be released from the port. As the lander begins to drift backwards, control is on manual and the player may continue maneuvering. At the top of the space station is the docking port for fuel. The procedure is the same as docking for cargo except: 1) The lander MUST be moving parallel or towards the fuel docking port! It cannot be moving away from the port, or the autopilot will not engage. [Special note: The game clock stops once autopilot takes control and docks the lander. It starts again when the lander is released. I did this to be fair to the player. Since the autopilot/docked/cargo/fuel loading sequence is there just for effect, and takes a few seconds to complete, I didn't want to penalize the player. This is important when time is short at the end of a game.] When the lander leaves the left or right hand side of the screen, it will reappear on the opposite side. The lander cannot leave the top of the screen, because it does not have the power to leave orbit. If the player tries to leave the top of the screen, the lander will fall back into the game screen. If the player leaves the bottom of the screen, then they enter the second phase of the game, which is explained later. The lander can be destroyed by either crashing into the space station or running out of fuel. If the lander runs out of fuel on this screen, it automatically self-destructs to avoid cluttering the space around the space station with useless floating landers. [Special note: I have the lander self-destruct on this screen (but not on the second screen... see below) when it runs out of fuel, because it is quite possible to have the lander moving in a straight path (or even sitting still for that matter) that will never cause it to collide with the space station. In that situation, the player would be unable to do anything with the lander and would just have to wait until time ran out. Not much fun.] When the lander is destroyed for any reason, the player loses all the fuel remaining in that lander, and any cargo that lander was carrying. Therefore, if the player crashes AFTER docking and receiving cargo, then he must dock for cargo again. As usual, the green signal will light on one of the cargo docking ports to indicate where the lander should dock. * Game Screen #2 As the player leaves the bottom of the space station screen, he is automatically taken to the lunar surface screen. At the top left are the fuel gauges and other information that appear on the previous screen. There is gravity on this screen, and the lander will constantly fall toward the surface when not being pushed upward by the thrusters. There are three numbered lunar bases on the surface, and these correspond to the destination given the player when he docks to receive cargo. The player may land on any lunar base, but the current mission will not be completed until the cargo is delivered to the correct base. When landing on a lunar base, there are three rules to follow: 1) The lander must be in the full upright position, with the top of the lander pointing straight up. 2) The lander must be traveling at no more than half its' maximum speed. 3) The lander must touch down within the green landing grid on top of the lunar base. No more than two lunar bases will be visible when the player enters this screen. As the lander reaches the right or left edge of the screen, the ground will scroll to reveal the other base(s). Which bases are visible when the player enters this screen is chosen entirely at random, as is the destination base when the player receives cargo. After the player successfully delivers the cargo to the correct lunar base, he may blast off from the base and return to the space station by leaving the top of the screen. On this second game screen, the lander can be destroyed by crashing into the lunar surface, landing incorrectly (not upright, too fast or not within the green grid) or running out of fuel. If the lander runs out of fuel on this screen, the lander will not self-destruct. Gravity will simply pull it down to the surface where it will be destroyed. When the lander is destroyed, the player is returned to the space station screen and given another lander, if any remain. Any cargo or fuel is lost, of course. * End Game The game ends when any of the following criteria are met: 1) All of the landers are destroyed. 2) All of the available fuel (including that in the space station) has been consumed. 3) The time allotted for the game has expired. 4) All of the missions have been completed. The final score is a percentage, based on the overall success of the missions and the resources remaining at the end of the game. The most important factors are the number of landers remaining (the fewer destroyed the better), and the number of missions completed. There is also a difficulty factor involved, and is based on the options chosen by the player at the beginning of the game. If the player has a high score, he may enter his name into the high score table. The high scores are based first on difficulty level, and then percentage score. To be fair, a difficulty level of X with a 50% or below score can be beaten by a difficulty level of X-1 with a 75% or above score. The top ten high scores are saved to disk. The player may choose to clear the high scores (which also clears them on disk), play another game (which returns the player to the options screen) or quit.