First of all, you probably don't need to read this file. Run the game and select Instructions from the Game menu - that's all you need to know.
Second, Lunar Phantom was designed to run on any Mac from a Mac Plus and up. Because of this, the game window fits on a 9" screen and the game is in black and white (although it runs on all screen depths). Apart from that, the game is up-to-date in most respects. Give it a try ╨ I worked hard on the playability.
Shareware
Lunar Phantom is shareware. Try it out, give copies to your friends, upload it to a BBS or internet archive, or burn your LP diskette at midnight while dancing counterclockwise and chanting sinister inanities; all I ask is:
Ñ If you play it and like it, please pay the shareware fee.
Ñ If you want to put this game on a CD-ROM for commercial distribution, register the company and send me a free copy of the CD. I will send a receipt for your book-keeping along with the rest of the stuff.
This is what you get:
Ñ Prompt notice of any new versions and bug fixes. If you send a diskette and an extra $2 with your registration, I will put the latest version of LP on the disk and send it back with the rest of the goodies.
Ñ A Certificate of Registration, signed by the author, stating that you are a truly honest human bring, an example for the rest of humanity and an all-round hero. Be the envy of your friends, or pin it up at work to impress the Boss.
Ñ Discount on any future shareware games I write. My next game will either be a color version of LP (with tiled backgrounds) or a 3D first-person-perspective game. Assuming that the response to LP makes it worth while, of course.
Ñ Permission to look at the message in the about box and feel good.
Ñ A hint sheet that tells you how to get through the harder levels and that reveals the secret area (hint, hint) and the two cheat keys you can use to practice all levels, not just the first nine.
To register:
The shareware fee is 10 US dollars or 75 Swedish Kronor or the equivalent in any major currency.
If you live in the Nordic countries, Great Britain, Germany or Luxembourg, you can pay to my postal giro account: 66 09 30 - 1491; it's in a bank named Nordbanken. There should be deposit slips at your local post office or bank. Otherwise, send cash, wrapped in a note with your name, address and email address, if any, to
Rolf Staflin
Roslagsgatan 2
S-753 27 UPPSALA
SWEDEN
Cashing foreign checks is expensive at best, and sometimes impossible. Most US checks, for example, must be cashed in the US or Canada.
I am trying to find easier ways for you to pay -- I have high hopes for First Virtual's payment scheme, but at present (August -95) you must have a checking account in the US to be able to receive money from them.
You can find out more at the Lunar Phantom home page: <http://www.algonet.se/~rex/lunar.html> or by sending email to me at rex@algonet.se.
Miscellaneous info
There are 14 levels. After level 14, you win and get the answer to the questions in the instructions screen, along with a very healthy bonus (unless you used the Training command to start at a level higher than 1).
You can only practice the first nine levels with the Training command.
Lunar Phantom does not hog the whole processor; it tries to be nice and allows background processes. As a result, the animation may be jerky even on fast machines if other processes use up a lot of time. To get smooth animation, simply close all other running applications. Try closing all open folders in the Finder, too. The Finder can spend a lot of time keeping the folder windows up to date.
As you may have noticed, Lunar Phantom is one-sidedly non-violent. You don't get to shoot back. On the other hand, it's fairer than many games since the bad guys also die if you run into them. Therefore, when in doubt you should always try to crash into an enemy rather than into the scenery.
On old Macs, the processor has to handle all sound itself, so the game may be slower while sounds are playing. The most annoying aspect of this is the thruster sound, since the game slows down while you accelerate and speeds up when you let go of the key. To alleviate this problem, I added a menu item called "Thruster sound", that lets you turn off the thruster sound while still hearing all other sounds.
Use the "Training" menu option to practice higher levels without having to fly through earlier levels every time. You can start at any level up to level 9. If you start at a level higher than 1, no score is kept.
If you turn on the "Turbo" option in the Training dialog, the game runs without any delays. Try it to see how fast your computer is.
Learning to fly
If you have a hard time getting the hang of flying the ship, there are a few things you can try:
Start out by learning to hover. Don't even touch the turning keys, just learn to keep the ship as still as possible in the air by using the thruster in short bursts. I put an invisible safety block under the ship on level one, so you can practice this without crashing all the time. This will give you a feel for the gravity and how to compensate for it.
When you can keep the ship in the air without hitting the "ceiling" or bouncing on the safety block, it's time to try the turning keys. Let go of the thruster key for a while -- you're safe when you start level one. Now practice turning 90 degrees and then turning back so the ship is level again. When you can make 90 degree turns on two tries out of three, it's time to practice 45 degree turns. Turn the ship level again after every turn.
Now it's time to do some real flying. Turn so that the engines point down and left and use the thruster. The ship starts moving to the right. Turn back so that the ship is level and use the thruster to stay airborne. When you are over the landing pad, you turn the engines a little bit to the right and use the thruster to stop your horizontal movement. Turn back and lower the ship slowly down to the landing pad (sounds easy, doesn't it?).
The key is keeping control of the ship. Try to move it slowly. Try to look ahead and figure out where the ship will end up if you let it fall. Don't worry if you crash all the time at first -- you'll get the hang of it!
About me
I've been programming computers for 15 years. I've been using all sorts of languages from Z80, 680x0 and 80x86 assembler and KL-10 Macro to LISP and Prolog, though I prefer C and C++ these days. A few years ago, I got my M.Sc. in Computer Science. Since I graduated, I've been working full time as a self-employed software consultant doing anything from testing and documentation management for DEC to writing add-on modules for Quattro Pro for Windows. If you need an experienced, quality-conscious programmer for a project, contact me!
The Lunar Phantom project
I started to work on Lunar Phantom more than four years ago, to learn how to program the Mac. I wanted to do it the Right Way, without using any fancy development systems, to learn how the Mac OS worked in depth. After a week or two, I got sidetracked, but over the years I've come back to the project now and again and added new features and more levels.
This spring, I decided that I'd better finish it if I was ever to release a shareware game, so even though Lunar Phantom is outdated in some respects, I've fixed it up so that it's fit for release. LP works fine on older Macs (from Pluses and up) and on system 6. Now it's finally done, so I can start writing the next one.
The Game Design
There are a lot of decisions to make when designing a game. I originally wanted to make a true "Lunar lander" style game, but it evolved into more of an arcade game. That let me play a bit loose with the physics, too, which is a relief.
To get decent speed, I wrote my own sprite drawing routines. I still use CopyBits() to draw to the window, though, to get compatibility. As you may have noticed, the scrolling is more like paging. This is also because of speed. On my Performa 630, I can use smooth scrolling, but on a Plus it would be waaaay to slow unless I bypassed Quickdraw and drew directly to the screen.
My biggest problem has been making good levels. I decided to have a pict for every level, which made it possible to have a very varied look on different levels. Unfortunately, I can't draw very well myself, so although I've managed to bully friends into drawing some levels, others are drawn by me and are therefore pretty ugly. My next game will be in color, and if it's a lunar lander style game, it will probably have tiled backgrounds to save work and disk space, and to make designing levels easier.
Some of the sounds in the game are from the Apollo 11 mission. The "Go for landing" is a recording of the "go" decision for the historic landing. These sounds were taken from sumex-aim, but most of the other sounds are original.
Acknowledgements
The biggest supporter and co-designer of Lunar Phantom is James Jerselius. He drew all the best-looking levels, the ship and several of the other sprites. He has also written a story in 21 levels that I couldn't implement due to lack of artwork. Without James.... ahh, you've heard it before. It's still true, though.
PA Ejdeholm drew several good-looking levels (all levels are "signed" in the lower right corner) and also inspired me to keep going. If you ever need new ideas for something, he is the person to talk to.
Smedh, Bella, Pia, Robert, James, PA, and KÜnig did beta testing. Tack fÜr hjèlpen!
Finally, a few of the sounds were taken from the Net. Thanks, Net!
