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Suzy B Software 2
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Suzy B Software CD-ROM 2 (1994).iso
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mageinfo.txt
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1995-05-02
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M.A.G.E.┐ - MajicSoft Arcade Graphics Engine - Technical Notes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
M.A.G.E.┐ has been designed to offer the novice or professional game
designer a set of tools that provide powerful results with a minimum
of programming headaches. While there are other products on the
market that allow the ST enthusiast to program an arcade game,
nothing ever released to the general public has made game design more
interactive and more importantly, easier to develop. Several popular
games like, Dave Munsie's Frogger and Kid Kong took as little as a
week to finish.
Here are some of the reasons why:
Virtually un-limited sprites. You decide how many sprites you want
your program to use. A typical M.A.G.E.┐ game will have dozens of
sprites moving about the screen with a frame rate of 17-20 frames per
second.
Automatic sprite control:
The powerful M.A.G.E.┐ kernel provides TOTALLY AUTOMATIC control of
sprites. This means your sprites can follow pre-determined patterns
(Like in KID KONG and FROGGER), process complex offset patterns like
those used in ST INVADERS or lightning fast DIRECTIONAL movements as
in EVADER.
Here is a list of the M.A.G.E.┐ controlled sprite options:
TRACKING: Have your sprite TRACK other sprites.
OFFSETS: Perform complex movements ANYWHERE on the screen.
PATTERNS: The fastest way to move your sprites.
DIRECTION: Character movement, missiles, etc.
ANIMATION: Frame animation with looping.
COLLISION: Fast collision checking.
MOVEMENT: Global sprite movement. Move ALL sprites at once!!
JOYSTICK: Move 1 or several sprites based on Joystick readings.
Note: If you can move your mouse around the screen, you can create
complex pre-determined sprite paths using the included M.A.G.E.┐
Animation Editor.
What about the background of your game? With the included character
handling routines you will be able to simulate a true character based
display with lightning fast results. M.A.G.E.┐ easily detects when a
sprite moves over a character (example: power pill!!). You can
design several character MAPS and have them in memory and then have
M.A.G.E.┐ draw them for you automatically. Use the built in
character map scrolling to create that awesome WAR GAME you have
always wanted to do. You can create scrolling character displays
that span several screens wide and tall. Again, with the included
Map Editor this is a breeze.
Support routines:
There are several support routines to help maximize the overall look
and feel of your game. There are fast memory movers, screen blits
and clears. You will also find multi-purpose memory movers and
special effect routines. For instance, auto-plotting star fields
with joystick control is no problem! There is also support for color
cycling, background flashing, fade in/out. And for screen graphics,
there is a fast decompression routine for DEGAS.PC1 pictures. For
compression the engine uses the ICE data compression method.
AUDIO:
M.A.G.E.┐ comes with built in support for adding sound effects to
your games. Unlike OTHER systems that are currently available,
M.A.G.E.┐ provides direct access to a hundred "BUILT IN" sound
effects at anytime from within your program. You can also play ST
REPLAY samples using an interrupt driven routine so your program does
not hang up while it is playing.
You will be amazed at the power of M.A.G.E.┐ and at just how fast you
can put together the game you have always wanted to write! M.A.G.E.┐
supplies the tools, YOU supply your imagination. With M.A.G.E.┐ you
program with POWER!
One last note, unlike other game creators available, M.A.G.E.┐
provides complete 100% COMPATIBILITY for all versions of TOS,
INCLUDING the new FALCON TOS. No other available system can make
this claim right out of the box. M.A.G.E.┐ works in conjunction with
GFA BASIC┐ 3.5. The complete M.A.G.E.┐ system has a suggested retail
price of only $129.95 and includes the GFA BASIC┐ EDITOR, COMPILER
and ASSEMBLER on disk! You will not find an easier way to develop
high quality games on the AtariST/STe/Falcon computers.
M.A.G.E.┐ is available from fine Atari software dealers everywhere or
you may contact MajicSoft directly at 803-788-8177. Dealer inquiries
welcomed.