YE OLDE OFFICIALE PONG KOMBATE FAQE version 2.0 By Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne of Gagne Software There was another one distributed WAY back when the game was first created, but since it seems to have been lost to the winds, this one has replaced it. Inside, you'll find bug explanations (not fixes:), all three secret guides, and other fun stuff. This is the only official FAQ, authorized and written by the owner of the copyright on the game. (Is that a run on sentence?) Remember, a pong by any other name is still a game with two paddles and a ball. But there are spoilers ahead, so if you're the type of guy who just loves to find secret moves, don't read beyond the bit labelled STRATEGY GUIDES... Last Minute Info : I'll be trying to keep a fresh copy of 1.0 and the 1.5 patch on wuarchive.wustl.edu for about a year or so. You will likely find the game there. INDEX 1. Will there be a sequel to the game? 2. What about the planned version 2.0? 3. You're going to hell for skimping out on the 2.0 promise, you know. 4. Can I develop PK2 instead? 5. Who is 'urchin'? 6. I'm getting bugs in the audio. The game crashes on sound effects. 7. I'm getting bugs in the game, where it crashes on a black screen or gives errors after killing white paddle. 8. Where is Kano? 9. I've mailed you a snail-mail letter, and not gotten a response. 10. Can I still mail you for the guides? 11. Who is 'Dave'? 12. Pong Trivia A. STRATEGY GUIDE - SECRET MOVES B. STRATEGY GUIDE - SECRET CHARACTERS C. STRATEGY GUIDE - DIP SWITCHES -=- 1. Will there be a sequel to the game? Probably not. See, no matter what the credits look like, this is actually the REAL Gagne Software staff... Art, Coding, Public Affairs, Music, Sound, Debugging, Playtesting - me. End of list. Now, don't get me wrong... my friends contribute to the project (Dave is a godsend), but on the whole I'm doing the majority of the work, and since I'm not working professionally I can't maintain a steady, assured product line, such as Apogee or ID (GODS!) could. It's freeware; you get what you pay for. 2. What about the planned version 2.0? See question one. 2.0 had so many enhancements planned that it was practically a sequel. Hopefully Dave will fix our everlasting audio bug, and a 1.8 will be made. If so, I'll post a message to alt.games.mk. 3. You're going to hell for skimping out on the 2.0 promise, you know. Well, maybe. BUSINESS ANSWER : I'm not being paid, so you can't complain. REAL ANSWER : I'm sorry it had to be that way, but I do have a life; there's more to life than PONG, man! There's also DOOM. 4. Can I develop PK2 instead? I've gotten dozens of requests from aspiring programmers to do this. Me, I'd say no. I'm only giving the liscense out to porters at the moment. 5. Who is 'urchin'? Urchin is a fellow that I was mailing over a period of time. However, due to a few questionable moves on his behalf (distributing an FAQ before asking permission, nagging about questions 1 and 2 above, and generally being a bit on the annoying side) I've stopped talking to him. Maybe he'll learn the way reality and the net works later; for now, I just suggest avoiding any FAQs not marked 'official'. This is a good idea anyway, no matter what the game; there are some sick individuals out there that make fake FAQs with misleading info in them just because they hate the FAQ subject. 6. I'm getting bugs in the audio. The game crashes on sound effects. Here's the full scoop, technical details and all. VERSION 1.0 used the SPX_SND library. This was the built-in library that came with the graphics routines used in Pong Kombat. Now, no offense to the author of SPX, but this TPU sucks majorly. (Okay, SOME offense.) Instead of DMA transfers, it relies on computer speed and clock altering to playback the sample. For some reason, many computers just can't handle this. So, I asked Dave to code up a new sound engine for 1.5... VERSION 1.5 uses Dave's Butt-Kicking Assembly Loaders (TM). Now, these provide cleaner sound, at the RIGHT pitch, with no clicks! On SOME machines! The problem is that the information files we obtained to write the assembly didn't take into account PS/2 archetecture with the DMA ports, or Soundblaster version 1.0s, or a few other things we still haven't found. As a result, 1.5's sound works on only 40% of all known computers. So, there's not much you can do until we can get that sound engine revamped. For now, the NOSPEECH parameter is recommended. 7. I'm getting bugs in the game, where it crashes on a black screen or gives errors after killing white paddle. I'm not sure if this is a bug in SPX or a failure of mine to unload the sprites, but somehow the memory has a hole in it. Something's not getting cleaned out, and after a long time at play, BOOM, it goes down. ARGH. I've gone over the code and can't find the hole, so I'm assuming library- fault for now. I've included a new animation and a NOSPEW parameter for version 1.5, which may help. 8. Where is Kano? Play 40 games and you'll see him. (If you can keep it from crashing. :) Alternatively, you can rename KOMBAT.GRA to KOMBAT.PCX. The joke comes from the gag where in MK2, playing 250 rounds lets you play Pong. Now reverse the games. :) 9. I've mailed you a snail-mail letter, and not gotten a response. I got swamped with real mail just as I was with E-Mail. I can't respond to all of them as I had originally planned :( So I'm only responding to ones with postage money included in the package. As mentioned in the docs, E-mail is fast, efficent, and far easier to reply to. 10. Can I still mail you for the guides? Well, if you're reading this, you shouldn't HAVE to. :) But I'll still respond to mail about the program, and will still mail out guides. 11. Who is 'Dave'? David Hunt, aka Dave, is a fellow ex-high school bud of mine who helps with coding and debugging. He knows far more about computers than I, so whenever anything goes wrong, I just say 'I'll ask Dave'. He also has the first name of a famous night show host. 12. Pong Trivia - I got an A on the project. Thanks, Mr. McCain! - I can't tell you the name of the girl in the credits of version 1.0, because she'd kill me. (As stated.) She is aware of the picture and only slightly tolerant of it. - Pong spelled backwards is Gnop. - The entire game was written in about four weeks. - I got the Gravis Ultrasound promised on the On Computers radio show. Thank you, Glenn! Now if it only worked. (GUS owners, buzz me.) - The FWLS komik series in the dip switches hasn't gone anywhere. The stories are still available; finger my account for info. - I lost track of the amount of e-mail I was getting after it passed 500. - I'm currently working on a TinyMUCK style net.game. Look for me on it once it opens, or on FurryMUCK right now. - This game was not sponsored by McDonald's. -=- SPOILERS AHOY -=- A. STRATEGY GUIDE - SECRET MOVES PONG KOMBAT SEKRETS (Oooh, how scary.) STAGE FATALITIES On the Pit stage, hit DOWN-DOWN-DOWN-DOWN as your fatality to send the opponent flying. On the Toxic River stage, hit UP-UP-DOWN-DOWN as your fatality to dunk them in acid. SPAMALITIES Secret fatality move... BUTTON+BUTTON+BUTTON+UP. Turns your opponent into bratwurst. MUST have a flawless victory to execute. PADDLE ABILITIES Secret moves and fatalities for each paddle. RED PADDLE ZAPPER : Shadow Paddle (DUBB) [Flings a shadow paddle across screen] FATALITY : Rips victim in two, spew, spew. (DDDB) ENDING : Becomes a movie success, but is deformed horribly and now works as a supervillian. BLUE PADDLE ZAPPER : Phase Ball (BBBB) [A blue energy ball travels quickly to opponent] FATALITY : Opponent paddle spirals down to the center of the screen, then goes SPLUT! (UBUB) ENDING : Tries to market a PK computer game, but makes it requre too much power and goes bankrupt. (Semi-subtle Srigin slam) YELLOW PADDLE ZAPPER : Sine Wave (UDUD) [Squiggly line] FATALITY : Dig Dug air pump explosion (DUDU) ENDING : Drinks himself into oblivion. They can't ALL be happy endings. GREEN PADDLE ZAPPER : Arrow (UDUB) [Says it all. Very fast] FATALTY : Shoots an arrow which impales paddle on side of screen. Blood. (DUDB) ENDING : Retires and becomes an award-winning novelist who writes recursive books. PURPLE PADDLE ZAPPER : Spinning Razor (UUUB) [Razor blade slides slowly downscreen] FATALITY : Razor slides behind the paddle... paddle falls into two long slices. (BUUU) ENDING : Takes over the world and causes armageddon. B. STRATEGY GUIDE - SECRET CHARACTERS PONG KOMBAT SEKRETS (Oooh, how scary.) SECRET CHARACTERS There are two major secret characters in the game, Monolith, and Shifter. Shifter gives no clues like Monolith does. TO FIGHT MONOLITH He speaks of a few clues, but here's the whole story... every now and then on a missed ball, Nick Steele pops out and goes 'WHOOPSIE!'. If he does this on the Portal stage, press DOWN and your BUTTON. You must press these AFTER!!!! the speech clip finishes... there is a split second timing type thing. There will be an evil laugh, and Nick will vanish. At the end of the match, win or lose, the last person to down+button to Nick gets to fight Monolith. There is a one in ten chance of Nick showing on a lost ball. Monolith almost never misses a shot, and has large, fast-moving stars as weapons. He is relatively hard to kill. TO FIGHT SHIFTER On the Throne Room stage, execute a SPAMALITY. Spamalities are the sequence BUTTON, BUTTON, BUTTON, UP after the announcer yells 'FINISH HIM!'. There will not be a siren, but the screen will clear and your opponent is turned into two slabs of luncheon meat. Notice that the tablecloth is the same pattern as the toilet bowl water. (NOTE : Spamalities REQUIRE a flawless victory, or else nothing will happen.) Shifter blends into his background and NEVER misses a shot. His weapons are extremely hard to see, fly quite fast, and quite often. He is insanely hard to kill, but if you're good enough to get a spamality, you're probably close enough... C. STRATEGY GUIDE - DIP SWITCHES PONG KOMBAT SEKRETS (Oooh, how scary.) TO ACCESS DIP MODE Type 'pongkomb DIP' to start the game. If you have a frame-rate change already stacked on the parameter line, use 'pongkomb speed x DIP'. Alter the switches with up and down on the keypad. Left and right selects a switch, and space leaves the screen. Switch flips aren't saved after you quit Pong Kombat. DIP SWITCHES and what they do. 1-comic advert on/off (default : off) Turns on and off the ad for FWLS Komiks and short stories. I installed the feature back when it looked like Komik would be out before Pong Kombat. No release date is set due to a NASTY bug. 2-fatality check on/off (default : on) Turns the blood on or off, except for Purple's weapon, which is drawn-in. I had to install this to qualify Pong Kombat as a school project. Kids, violence is evil. Bad! Bad! Stomp out violence! Kill all violent people! Maim! Dest... umm. But I digress. 3-taunts on/off (default : on) Shut Monolith up by clicking this to OFF. He can be annoying. 4-extra credits on/off (default : off) Flipping this on adds some more scanned photos of the staff that worked on the game to the end of the credits. Credits are shown after White Paddle's demise. 5-white first on/off (default : off) Turning this switch on will fast-forward the tournament mode right to white paddle. I used this to test the ending sequence.