- Fixed an error in the sound code that generated an erroneous "out of memory" error on LC's, IIsi's, IIci's, and other older models.
- Multiple monitor problems persist. Sorry; we'll work on it as much as we can.
- Added "unusual monitor size" button to screen prefs, to satisfy owners of 15", Portrait, and Pivot monitors.
- Increased number of crystals slightly, decreased cost of "safe shots" slightly.
- There is a problem with the "fade-to-black"... it has a write to NIL in it that may cause problems
for some people. You may deactivate it by changing the PREF resource in the Asterax application.
Since this is a problem that mostly bothers developers, I think they have access to ResEdit and
can make this change.
- You can't activate special items in the marketplace anymore.
- Some new sounds
- Miscellaneous other little stuff...
Thanks to all who sent in reports; sorry about the bugs.
A Clarification about Insurance:
Insurance insures only those items currently owned when the insurance is bought! If new equipment is purchased later, the equipment will have to be re-purchased... think of it as a sort of "snapshot" of your ship's current status that is restored after death. (This will be worked into the online docs when time allows... sorry about the vagueness.)
Designer's Notes:
To everyone who thinks that Asterax is too hard, some design comments:
Asterax is not just an arcade game; it was designed to include strategic aspects as well. The choice of your initial ship has a lot to do with how you will play the game, and how you spend the crystals you earn in the early levels will determine the strategy you follow in later levels.
You can't get high scores in Asterax by shooting wildly at everything that moves (well, not until you get safe shots, at least). In the higher difficulty levels (especially Expert), it is designed to be challenging from level one, to reward precision and skillful play. In fact, the crystal system rewards a minimalist style of play, where the highest scores can be had by those who have the least need for screen-sweeping automatic-scatter-triple shot and the greatest ability to make the base ship models work efficiently.
