_________________________________________________________________4/20/89_____ | | | | | A S T H E L I N K T U R N S : O P E R A T I O N B U G D O C S | | | | | | Complete Documentation for AS THE LINK TURNS: OPERATION BUG. | | | | AS THE LINK TURNS Copyright 1989 ROGUE SYSTEMS, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. | | APPLE IIGS Copyright Apple Inc. | | AppleLink - The Personal Edition Copyright Quantum Computer Services | | | |_____________________________________________________________________________| | | | Welcome to the most sophisticated, graphics oriented, public domain program | | for the Apple IIgs. The following documentation has been provided to help | | you play the game, give you instructions on setup, and tips and techniques | | for various things; including playing the game and programming the GS. | | | | Programming and Layout by Parik Rao Sound and Graphics by Scott Pease | | | | Rogue Systems - Bringing the best to the GS | |_____________________________________________________________________________| | | | REQUIREMENTS: | | | | Apple IIgs | | 768k RAM total (512k card) | | 3.5" disk drive or hard drive | | JOYSTICK or keyboard | | | | Its recommended to use a joystick & RGB moniter to achieve the color | | clarity the graphic modes the GS offers. | | | | * NOTE * ITEMS HIGHLIGHTED WITH A "***" AT THE BEGINNING OF A LINE ARE | | VERY SIGNIFICANT AND SHOULD NOT BE IGNORED | |_____________________________________________________________________________| background Its 20 minutes into the future. The Apple II world is in chaos, with rumors of a new GS flying every .000013 seconds. Apple has done nothing to quell these rumors, it merely bloats its banks with Macintosh sales. Some people decided to take a stand on AppleLink - The Personal Edition, and a omniscient being seiged the area. Their lives are in your hands. Save them, save the Apple II... ________________________________________________________________________________ Part I - Setting Up The Program ________________________________________________________________________________ This section is devoted to unpacking, and getting ATLT to run. The first thing to do is get the program unpacked, since you've gotten this far its obvious you've done that. The next step is getting the program to run. ATLT uses no GS tools, so basically the System Disk is not required except for the operating environment. *** ATLT REQUIRES GS/OS, THIS WAS DONE TO FACILITATE THE SPREADING OF THIS GREAT OS. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE SYSTEM DISK V4.0 (GS/OS), GET IN TOUCH WITH YOUR DEALER, IT SHOULD BE FREE IF YOU BRING IN TWO DISKS TO COPY IT ONTO. The best thing to do is format a blank 3.5" disk, and copy the files listed below from the SYSTEM.DISK so the disk map looks exactly like: /VOLNAME - name of disk (not important to game) PRODOS - 4 block file SYSTEM - SYSTEM Subdirectory, files indented are inside subdirectory SYSTEM.SETUP- subdirectory TOOL.SETUP - RAM Tool patcher file for GS/OS TS2 - Part II for GS/OS START.GS.OS - GS/OS Startup file GS.OS - heart of GS/OS ERROR.MSG - Error Messages FSTS - GS/OS File System Translators, files indented are inside sub PRO.FST - ProDOS FST DRIVERS - GS/OS Interface Drivers, files indented are inside subdir APPLEDISK3.5 - AppleDisk 3.5" disk driver, ONLY if you're using a Apple 3.5" disk drive (platinum color) CONSOLE.DRIVER - Firmware driver UNIDISK3.5 - Unidisk 3.5" disk driver, ONLY if you're using a Unidisk 3.5" disk drive (yellowish color) ATLT.SYS16 - As The Link Turns boot file DATA01 DATA02 DATA03 ; data files for AS THE LINK TURNS ... DATA18 Thats it! Those are all the files required to run As The Link Turns. The program contains all neccessary fonts, objects, drivers, etc internally so there is no need to place extra garbage inside the program. You are not placing finder on the disk, nor its related files (ICONS, etc) since booting directly into ATLT is much faster. After copying all these files with a copy program (Finder, Copy II+, Cat Doctor, the copy function of ShrinkIt/DDDeluxe, etc) you need only to boot this disk, using a "PR#5" command from applesoft basic ("]" prompt). *** HARD DRIVE OWNERS ONLY. ATLT may be placed in its own subdirectory and launched from a launcher program, such as The Finder, ProSEL, Orca/M, APW, JumpStart, etc, etc, etc. You MUST launch the file ATLT.SYS16 to get it to run properly. As The Link Turns REBOOTS after it has finished, since it thrashes memory around quite often, and returning to any launcher programs may damage your drive(s). It is advised to place ATLT in its own subdirectory (its pathname independant, so you can name the subdirectory anything you wish) to avoid confusion. If you are having problems setting up the program, please contact PARIK RAO at the address's given at the end of this file. ________________________________________________________________________________ Part II - Playing The Game ________________________________________________________________________________ This section is devoted to the game, specifically, how to play it. The first thing that you will be presented with is the device you wish to use during the game. The only options are JOYSTICK or KEYBOARD, a mouse was not included for W.I.M.P reasons. Every GS owner should have a joystick connected to his/her machine, MICE just don't hack it. Sorry if this offends anyone, but the game became extremely easy when using a mouse and therefore was removed. Besides, who wants to drag a dead mouse around.. After you have made your selection, a screen with the words "PLEASE WAIT" in the center should be placed. A little icon of a joystick will be placed on the screen. The game has begun! The program is loading at this point the data, so its a few minutes wait. Instead of waiting impatiently for it to finish, take the initiative. Move the joystick around with your input device, and try to fill the entire screen up with the background screen before the game has loaded! *** If you are using a 3.5" Disk Drive, this part may seem to flicker. This is due to the slow speed of the 3.5" disk drive, if you have enough RAM, you may want to place the entire game in a RAM disk for faster speed. See section III for more information. Eventually the title screen shall appear, and a scrolling window at the bottom. The message rambles on for quite a while, you can press a key or joystick button to continue. Otherwise sit back and read the scrolling message for fun... At this point, if you're using a keyboard, it will skip directly to the game. Otherwise, a nice feature will pop up, a JOYSTICK CALIBRATOR!!!! Yes, thats right, a joystick calibrator is included. Its a graphic representation, and allows you to set your joystick to the exact center of the graphics screen. Its very useful, and fun at the same time. Press the joystick button to continue at this point. Now the game has begun. You will see the background screen pop up, and inside the scrolling window exists the actual game play area. The cross-hairs is your "gun", press the fire button (if using joystick) or the space bar to fire. If you hit a bug, a explosion will ensue. You MAY move the cross-hairs while a explosion is spewing forth, you may not fire however at the same time. The object is to destroy as many creatures in the given time as possible. Merely position your cross-hairs over any of the flying bugs, and press the fire button or spacebar. If the center of your cross-hair is on top of the little bugger, they're history! You have only 2 minutes, 15 seconds to accomplish your mission. The clock is ticking away at the bottom of the screen. The other counter is how many bugs you have decapitated. You need to kill at least 50 to frighten them all away. Can you do it? After this section has been completed, you will be ejected out of your viewpoint and a black & white picture will be taken of your screen for posterity. Press a key or joystick button to continue at this point. The ending screen will be presented now, with a scrolling text window at the bottom. You may press a key or joystick button to continue. You will now be shown a blank screen with a list of menu options. This is the same screen that is presented when you are in the control panel, select any of the options. That is all there is to this game, its a shoot 'em up for the most part! It requires very little mental skills, and is fun for both the adult and child. ________________________________________________________________________________ Part III - Miscellaneous Facts About The Game ________________________________________________________________________________ The commands for keyboard control are: UP 8 | LEFT 4-------------|------------6 RIGHT | 2 DOWN SPACEBAR to fire If using a joystick, press either fire button to fire, and any of the directions to move. The game only supports four way movement however. *** THE GAME HAS ITS OWN CUSTOM CONTROL PANEL. As The Link Turns contains its own control panel, specifically tailored for it. Just enter the control-panel sequence, OPEN APPLE CONTROL ESCAPE to enter it. The options are self-explanatory, ABOUT THE AUTHORS presents a funny little image of us, RETURN TO GAME returns you to the game, RESTART GAME restarts the entire program (not disk load however), and QUIT PROGRAM reboots the system. *** THERE ARE MANY EASTER EGGS IN THIS PROGRAM! Try typing in things, one thing is the name of a information service (abbrieviated) at the game screen, it will bring up something... interesting. The program handles all fatal Errors itself, by bombing into its own Error Handler. For laughs, you can create your own error, by renaming one of the DATAxx files *AFTER* number 10 to anything. This is the FIRST program in existance that I know of that uses the Transwarp GS, besides the AE firmware. It will check to see if a TW GS exists in the machine, and if so, will slow down certain things such as the scrolling text. This was done to prevent eye strain, the speed at which the window scrolls is extremely fast in TW GS mode. Users may wish to place ATLT in a RAM disk. You must have sufficient memory however, make sure you have 600k free (in the control panel) when your RAM disk is activated! Sorry for the sound (or lack thereof); the main problem became sound tools. I have not yet completed my own, and the sound tools provided by Apple slowed down the program drastically. The decision was made to release the program with minimal sound, as this cut down on disk space and RAM required. ATLT has a lot of special f/x, wipes, and such. ex: more than one palette is present throughout most of the game, with various lines on the screen having a different palette, or the scrolling and animations involved. Lots of complex things going on behind the scenes. If you notice a flicker, it is due to a logic flaw that had occured when I wrote the graphic routines a while back, since then I've improved them to support FULL screen scrolling and animation but since the graphics were already done there wasn't much I could do. For public domain work, it'll suffice. :) For your information, every game we will present will be a totally different concept, eg, As "The Link Turns: Scott and Pariks Excellent Adventure" will have new special f/x, new display modes (3d?), and basically a entire rewrite. We won't stagnate, like other developers! *** THIS GAME IS FREEWARE. ROGUE SYSTEMS RESERVES ALL RIGHTS TO THIS PROGRAM, AND MAY CHANGE THESE CONDITIONS AT A LATER DATE. If you'd LIKE to feed a couple of young programming dudes, send a check, money order, or cash (written out to PARIK RAO or SCOTT PEASE) to: ROGUE SYSTEMS 4459 Plantation Drive Fair Oaks, CA 95628 It'd help support us between programs. :) You'll also recieve a great looking disk with a great looking label and autographed pictures of us, in our native hairstyles and suits. Sorry if I've forgotten to mention anything, but these docs were written kind of late and I'm tired. :) ________________________________________________________________________________ Where You Can Contact Us Online Service Screen Name -------------- ----------- APPLELINK - The Apple Edition ROGUE.SYS APPLELINk - The Personal Edition AFA PARIK Compuserve 71450,3716 [PARIK RAO] GEnie P.RAO Usenet P.RAO@SACUNIX ________________________________________________________________________________ "And so the powerful shall fall like a weak babe, L A M In front of a pissed off Apple II User" L A I C - Pissed on Apple II User K