PCPP Game Guide 2/PCPP_GG2.iso/PCPP/faqs/pongkomb.txt

Text File | 1998-06-02 | 12KB | 285 lines

            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.