DriftZone Overview (version 1.03)

Hey! DriftZone is a classic space combat game on steroids so playing it is pretty straightforward. Basically fly around the screen causing as much mayhem and destruction as possible. Shoot to kill, but don’t forget to get some powerups along the way. The evil aliens are back in 3D and this time it’s personal. They will do anything to reduce your ship to a pile of space-junk.

Good luck!

DriftZone game types

There are two different game types that you can play in this version of DriftZone. One is the 'Classic' mode where all the action takes place on just one screen. Very furious, sometimes confusing and always very fast and spectacular. The other play mode is called 'Arcade'. In this mode the real screen is much bigger and you will have more room to maneuver and more cold space to explore. A small scanner in the top right corner of the game screen will give you a long range view of all the objects in you vicinity. This mode is more tactical and is better for people who like to dodge and dogfight their way around the galaxy.

Arcade mode virtual screen

Starting the game

At any time during the game you can press the F2 key to start a new game. Remember this also works during a game in progress. If you press the F2 key, your current game will be terminated and you will be taken to the start game screen. Use the cursor keys to navigate the different menu options. Press enter on the start button when you want to start a game. 

Startup screen

Game options

In the option screen you can toggle certain options to change some aspects of the game. Some of these options will increase performance on slower systems but usually DriftZone will perform very well on all hardware accelerated computers since it was designed to be played well on not so state of the art machines. The following options are available:

Options screen

Playing DriftZone

Moving:

Your ship is floating in the Vhol Drift, a dangerous part of alien space, and can be moved by applying thrust to the engines. Don't forget that you are flying in space and there are NO breaks, so to stop (or reduce speed) you will have to apply thrust in the opposite direction.

The following keys can be used to maneuver your ship:

Key

Action

Left cursor key

Rotates your ship counter-clockwise

Right cursor key

Rotates your ship clockwise

Up cursor key

Applies thrust to your engine

Shooting:

Since there is no way that you can clear a path through the Drift by peaceful means, your ship is equipped with a state of the art P-Type missile launcher. To fire your weapons use key:

Key

Action

Space bar

 Fires missile

Note: Between shots your missile launcher has to recharge so quickly pressing the space bar has no effect on your rate of fire. If you press and hold the space bar continuously, your weapon system will fire at its best possible rate. Also remember that firing a missile causes your ship to drift in the opposite direction due to "the forces of nature".

Weapon configurations

Depending on your ship you will have a different weapon. Picking the ship you like most, will greatly influence the game since each weapon system has different characteristics.

Ship

 

Weapon

Avenger

Standard plasma missiles (double shot powerups are quite effective)

Driftrunner

Ion torpedo (fires very fast, short range)

Trident

ProtoBolt (long range, flies fast and can get good rear shot powerups

Miscellaneous

Key

Action

ESC

Quit current game and returns to operating system

F5

Displays the credits screen when not playing a game

F6

Writes a screenshot to a bmp file

F7

Toggles writing of a series of bmp files. This seriously slows down the game since DriftZone needs to stream the files to disk. Also consumes a lot of disk space especially if you are running in a very  high resolution. Why would you want to do this? To string together a series of bmp files into an animation file format (AVI for example). Only for experienced users! 

Dying - NOT!

You have only one (!) life in DriftZone so staying alive is your main concern. Don't crash into any asteroids and evade the shots (and ships) of the aliens. Remember that your shots affect the momentum of your ship so for quick maneuvers: stop shooting. Your ship however does have armor. The small number just above your ship indicates the armor rating. This can go up if you collect armor powerups or down if you get shot or hit things.

PowerUps

Luckily for you, the Aliens have hidden weapon stores inside some of the bigger asteroids. If you destroy these asteroids there is a good chance that some weapon systems will be undamaged and will be floating in space. Your spaceship is equipped with a Universal PowerUp Magnetic Connector (UPMC standard IFFF 2101) and the Aliens weapon systems are 100% compatible with this system (yep... it is a Universal standard after all!). So if you see a weapon system floating in space, the only thing you have to do is fly over it at a reasonably speed and the weapon system will automatically connect with your UPMC and install itself on your ship.

DoubleShot : This powerup will give your ship an extra missile launcher. The maximum number of missiles that you can have depends our your current ship configuration. You will be able to fire two missiles instead of one. Don't forget that if you fire two shots, your ship will be pushed backwards with a much bigger force. Some nifty flying may be necessary.

LongShot : This powerup increases the range of your shots by adding extra booster units to your missiles. There is no maximum to the number of PowerUps of this kind that you can collect but don't forget that you can shoot yourself in the back if your shots fly too far!

RearShot : This powerup installs a rear missile tube. Yes... guess what... you will be able to shoot those tricky asteroids behind you.

Supershield : Flying over this powerup installs a Aliens shield generator that protects you against collisions with asteroids and weapons. Unfortunately your ships fusion batteries are not powerful enough to maintain full shieldpower so after a while this powerup module will become weaker. Picking up another powerup of this type will replenish the batteries. Hitting asteroids will decrease the power of your shield dramatically so don't hit too many asteroids if you want your shield to last. Your shield will change color when the batteries are running out.

SpeedShot : This upgrade improves your ships weapons cooling systems, allowing you to fire more rapidly. Beware that you will be pushed backwards with a tremendous force if you fire very quickly. Engaging thrust while firing at the same time is a good strategy to stay more or less stationary.

Armor Up : Increases your armor rating by releasing a small repair droid.

Mine Crate : This powerup contains a number of very dangerous fusion-mines. Fly into it and you will release the mines and create a wave of destruction. The mines smart electronic brain will ignore the ship that triggers the release. So be careful that you pick up the mine crate before an enemy does. Escaping this explosion might be a little bit too much for any pilot!

Speedup : Installs the latest in fusion injection boosters on your main thrusters increasing your maximum speed. Pick up lots of these for that warp-speed rush!

Defense drone : The defense drone is very new and advanced technology. A small semi-intelligent droid will circle around your ship and fire at incoming asteroids and aliens. Small glitches in the system still exist so don’t rely too much on this little friend. The drone will follow you to different parts of the asteroid belt. If you fly into a wormhole it might take a while for the drone to find you again.

Special levels

In this version of DriftZone there are a few special levels. Every five levels in the Classic game mode, there will be a special level more dangerous than you ever imagined. Some of these levels are very chaotic... be prepared! Here are some of the names of the special levels, just to make things more mysterious.

Scoring in DriftZone

Destroying things gives you points! Points only serve one purpose, to get your name in the hale of fame so that you can show your friends that you are the greatest.

Who can I kill?

Small asteroid, Medium asteroid and Big asteroid

Basically just flying rocks. They can be quite tricky, try not to shoot too many big ones at the same time. You don’t want to be in space with a lot of fast flying small ones. Remember that some of the bigger asteroids contain powerups.

Lava asteroids

The remains of super huge asteroids that have been destroyed in an encounter with an Alien battle cruiser. These asteroids are still hot from the laser impact and are more difficult to destroy since they damage incoming missiles. Also be careful of smaller pieces breaking of. These guys can really make you sweat.

Satellite

The Aliens have placed a lot of defense satellites it the Vhol drift. The sats are not very intelligent but can be dangerous when met in numbers. There are different types of satellites firing different weapons.

Damaged Satellite

Sometimes defense satellites are damaged, not destroyed. Beware! Because their internal systems go haywire resulting in a feast of (self)destruction.

Alien Hunters

Alien Hunters are standard alien fighters just like your ship. They can have different weapon configurations and are piloted by aliens of varying skill. Some of these ships also have armor. Don’t forget that aliens can also pick up powerups!

Alien Satellite frigate

A big, heavily armored ship that is used to seed the Vhol Drift with satellites. Is not dangerous but has to be destroyed fast before space is full of satellites.

Comet

Almost indestructible, fast and deadly. Stay away from these guys. Luckily they leave as fast as they arrive.

Alien Spider satellite

Very advanced alien weapon systems that fires webs of dangerous plasma particles. Once you are caught there is no escape. The plasma web will dissipate after a while so just hope you don’t fly into an asteroid.

Alien Warp satellite

Satellites with a lot of firepower and a warp engine. They tend to loose weapon systems easily when they are hit.

Swarm Hunter

A special type of unmanned enemy ship that is used to clear asteroid fields. Be very careful of its barrage of swarming missiles.

Alien Minelayer

Drops lot’s of mines and flies around like a mad bee. Be careful. When it explodes it looses a lot of its deadly cargo.

Wormholes

No you cannot kill a wormhole! Fly into this swirling space anomaly and end up a little bit further of a little bit back in space. Jumping into a wormhole during the first few levels of DriftZone might give you a BIG surprise. Beware, you have been warned!

Hunter Wing

Not a special enemy but a wing of trained enemy pilots out to get you. They will attack in group and finish you of quickly. Only the best will survive.

Assassin swarm

Better be careful. These high tech deadly satellites are activated when hit and launch small homing unmanned fighter craft. There are two versions of this weapon system. The Superior Assassin swarm has an integrated subspace transmitter to activate all the other swarms in close proximity. Better make sure you have a super shield before you take on these guys!

Alien attack base

A big metal sphere that launches attack fighters to finish you off. Lot's of points when you kill it, but the fighters can give you a real fight!

History of DriftZone

Drift was the name of a game Dirk "Dizzy" Vandenheuvel wrote a couple of years ago. The original Drift was made for Windows 3.1 and ran pretty well on a 486. The game proved to be pretty popular and he got a lot of reactions from people playing the game the whole day. A newer version was needed and from the ashes of an early experiment, called Drift3000, emerged DriftZone.

DriftZone contains the same basic game play of the original Drift but uses far more advanced technology. At the base of this technology lies the 2DX Engine. This engine uses 3D objects but renders them in such a way that they appear to handle like 2D sprites.

The engine is therefore very good in rendering arcade style games like shoot'em ups but also platform games should be possible.

What's next?

What we will do with the game is not clear at the moment. We might release a newer version with lots of extra features or we might start developing a new game that uses the 2DX game engine. Again, take a look at our web pages for more information about TeamC3 projects.

Visit the TeamC3 WebPages for more info on DriftZone

Anyway... if you have any comments, suggestions, bug reports or love letters. Send them to:

Dirk Vandenheuvel

What is new in this version?

Well you might have experienced a previous version of DriftZone and are wondering what new stuff did we add in this version. Well you will be pleased to know that there are lots of new things!
Version 1.03:

Problems?

There still might be a couple of small bugs in the game… we will try to fix them in the future. Check our website for possible updates. If you have any problems running the game let us know. Remember that DriftZone uses Direct3D so getting good drivers for your graphics card is important.

If you install new drivers or install a new graphics card you might have to update your preferences.

DriftZone makes heavy use of transparencies. Some 3D cards do not support this or might need new drivers. If you see corrupted textures this might be the cause.

DrifZone can be played in software mode on a very fast computer. Again transparencies can slow down things quite a bit, but the game might be quite playable on lower resolutions.

Legal stuff

This version of DriftZone is Freeware. This means you can copy it as much as you like, put it on your web page, include it on a CD or give it to other people as long as you don't change anything to the original program. We spend a lot of time programming this game and I hope you enjoy it.

Some background pictures are taken from Nasa archives... they are public domain but we want to acknowledge the great stuff these guys publish. Space exploration rules!

 

Document version : 27/11/00 21:46