•Flexible game architecture, that lets you add new levels and even graphics, enemies, weapons, everything! (*a physics editor has not been made yet*)
•Fully rendered cut-scenes and game objects
•Multichannel title music composed by Julian Meinold (if you want him to compose music for your game or demo mail him at <meinold@t-online.de>)
•3 different scenarios, each with completely different graphics, objects, enemies, bosses, etc...
•30 Levels of action.
2. Hardware Requirements
•A Macintosh or compatible computer with a PowerPC processor (Sorry all you 68k users - There might be an 68k version though if I get enough requests for it)
•Recommended: A fast machine (no first-generation PowerMacs such as my 6100 this game is written on ;-) )
Note: There have been performance problems with some 6200's and possibly other machines. These did not occur on all 6200's the game had been tested on.
•4 Megabytes of free memory.
3. How do I play Galactic Revolt?
In Galactic Revolt, you are in control of a spacecraft. The default controls are:
•The 4,5,6,8 keys on the keypad move the spaceship around.
•The keys 7 and 9 are used to control sideways movement of your spacecraft. This is useful to evade enemy fire.
•The shift key is used to fire your guns.
•The option key displays the radar
•The esc key pauses the game.
You are free to configure these controls to whatever you like. Just click on the "Controls" button in the title screen.
Basically you need to shoot everything that moves. Be careful not to crash into the canyon walls while exploring the levels. Each level has one exit point. When you have cleared the level of all enemies, you can go to the exit point to advance to the next level. You will know that you have destroyed all enemy forces in a level, when the message "Level Cleared" appears on the screen. When you have not cleared the level of all enemies yet and the message "Can't Exit Yet" appears, you are currently inside the exit area. Return there when the level is cleared to finish the level. At the end of each level, your remaining time will be added to your score as bonus points.
Press the radar key to display your ships radar, showing you where things are. Your own position is the middle of the radar screen. A red dot indicates an enemy, a green dot indicates bonus balls and the big yellow dot signals the levels exit point. You can zoom in and out in the radar screen by pressing the '+' and '-' keys.
You can see the level you are in, your current score, the remaining time you have to finish the level, the energy level of your shields and the amount of lives you have in the status bar on the right side. The amount of shield energy you have determines how many enemy shots your spacecraft can resist before exploding. When the shield bar gets all empty, you loose a live. The shield will slowly recharge during gameplay.
When you kill an enemy sometimes one or more powerups will appear. They look like small colored balls. You should always try to collect them by flying into them. These are the different types of powerups, and their explanations:
•1UP: gives you an extra live.
•Blue: Your Spacecraft will be equipped with a special, high power shield, that makes you immune against enemy fire for a while.
•Green: You will shoot Missiles instead of the normal laser bolts!
•Red: Your shield energy will be fully reloaded.
•Yellow: 5000 bonus points.
•Grey: You will shoot Photon Torpedoes instead of the normal laser bolts!
4. The Preferences Dialog
The games application interface should be mostly self-explanatory, but there are some things concerning the preferences dialog which might not be clear to everyone:
•Faster Blitting (less compatible) : This option uses faster routines for screen drawing which might be incompatible to some machines. However, the speed increase is only minimal.
•Skip odd Lines: This option will reduce the graphics quality of the game, thus making it run much faster. This requires the Faster Blitting option to be turned on.
•Intro music: This lets you turn on or off the games title music.
•Number of Sound channels: This lets you set how many sounds Galactic Revolt can play simultaneously. More channels make the system run slower.
•Volume: Turn this as high as possible!
5. The Files belonging to Galactic Revolt
The game came with several files. Here is what they are all good for:
•Galactic Revolt: The application itself
•Levels: This folder can be used to store all your level files.
-The Fall of the Empire: The default levels, that are distributed with the game.
•Readme: The file you are reading
•Register: This program is used to register for Galactic Revolt
•Scenario Files: This folder is used to store all the scenario files. However, Galactic Revolt will also find them if they reside anywhere else on the disk.
-Death Star: Scenario file with a high-tech look
-Hoth: Ice landscapes, scattered with Mountains
-Tatoonie: Desert/Canyon Landscape
The Level documents can all be edited with the leveleditor that comes with the Galactic Revolt package. But as long as you are an unregistered user, you will only be able to play the first 10 levels of the "The Fall of the Empire" level file.
The scenario documents are also designed to provide an easily expandable framework, however, currently there is no editor available for scenario files. But I would be willing to give the scenario file specifications to anybody who wants to edit the files using ResEdit or who would like to write an editor for the files (I would happily support anyone trying to do so!).
6. Version History
•Version 1.0b1 (4/03/1998):
-First public release.
•Version 1.0 (5/29/1998):
-Fixed a bug where sprites might distort when on the edge of screen.
-Fixed a bug which made the screen be filled with unwanted colors before displaying cutscenes.
-Now tanks can not drive over buildings or each other anymore.
-Fixed a bug which made Galctic Revolt draw into other programs windows when paused and in "Faster Blitting" mode.
-The return and enter keys now work in the "New Game" Dialog.
-In the leveleditor, fixed several bugs concerning the zooming option.
•Version 1.01 (6/05/1998):
-Fixed a tiny bug which could cause the preferences file to be corrupted when it gets newly created.
7. About the author
In early 1989, when I was at the age of 7, my father bought his first computer, a Macintosh SE. Since then, I was always fascinated of these machines (and of the Mac's superiority), and I always dreamed of being able to write my own computer games. When we got a Mac IIsi in 1991, a computer being able to run many more games and to display color graphics, I started begging my father to get me a compiler, so I could learn programming. Some time later he got me the Symantec THINK Pascal compiler (a really well-done piece of software!), and I started to write some small text-based programs. With the aid of books and some colleagues of my father at the university, I began to learn the concepts of the Macintosh Toolbox, and I started writing some simple programs using windows and graphics. In January 1993 I finished my first little game, a clone of the arcade classic Frogger. By then, my knowledge of programming was still quite minimal, and although I used them everywhere, I did not really grasp many trivial programming concepts such as Pointers. I wrote quite a few games in that time, such as Paper Shuttle, a game inspired by john calhoun's Glider+, in which you have to steer a Paper Boat through some puddles, MacPinball II, a pinball simulator and Destruct, a platform game, inspired by the C64 classic Turrican. However, none of these game was ever distributed in a broader sense. This was because a) I didn't know about means of distribution such as the internet, and b) Most of these games where not really running 100% correctly. For example I didn't know how to handle window updates in my first games, often leaving ugly white spaces in my windows. In 1994 our Mac IIsi broke down (may it rest in peace) and for some month we were without a computer. But, thanx to my parents, I got a brand new PowerMac 6100 (the machine I'm still using today) for Christmas, which allowed me to continue my programming projects. In 1995 I started writing Burning Rubber, the first game I've ever released on the net. When I released the game in the middle of 1996, I expected to never hear about it again. I was really baffled when I got my first feedback email (a bug report, of course :-)) little later. I was even more astonished to receive my first registration a few month later. Last year, I signed a contract with Kagi shareware, to collect the further payments for Burning Rubber. Until today, I received 34 registrations for the game, a total of 340$. This might not be much compared to other shareware authors' income, but it is quite a bit for a 16 year-old living on 60 marks of pocket-moneny a month. It has surely encouraged me to continue writing mac games. Also, the game Burning Rubber has made me several good friends on the internet, which is probably an even more important reason to continue writing software. After finishing the development of Burning Rubber, I started several new projects, none of which I had worked on for more than a short while, until I began developing Galactic Revolt in early 1997.
8. Legal Stuff
•Galactic Revolt may be freely distributed, as long as all the files that came with the original package are included.
•CD-ROM magazines may put Galactic Revolt on their disks without my former permission. However, I insist on getting a message from anybody distributing Galactic Revolt on a CD to keep track of the game's distribution. Also, if you intend to publish any reviews or articles on the game, please send me a copy of the magazine!
•Modified versions of Galactic Revolt or any of it's files may not be distributed without my permission.
•Galactic Revolt serial numbers may not be redistributed under any circumstances! Should I ever find a Galactic Revolt serial number anywhere on the net, I can easily find out whom it belongs to!
•Using hacker's databases such as HackersHelper is unfair ;-)
If you manage to hack Galactic Revolt by yourself I can accept that.
•I am not responsible for any damage (including loss of data, burned out computers and brain damage) caused by Galactic Revolt or any of it's components.
