An unseen hacker is sending wave after wave of bugs, viruses and worse in this shoot'em up. If you can handle them all you can scoop up the packet that reveals his identity and shut him down!
System Requirements: System 7, color and an 020 or better are absolutely required, but you actually better have an 040 or better to get decent performance (very good scores are possible on a IIsi). Runs native on PPC. Note also that PowerBooks with dual scan displays (ie the model numbers ending in "cs") update more slowly and are less bright, so its darn hard to see missles coming at you. If its any consolation, that's the boat I'm in a well.
1. The Story
2. The Goal
3. Controls
4. Scoring
5. Tips
6. The Undiscoverd Country
7. Acknowledgements, Disclaimers, Player’s Notes, and Random Opinions
1. The Story
Its a dark and stormy night, and you're surfing the web. Suddenly, things start going awry (or more awry than the web normally goes). It becomes clear that the web is under attack when all the Windows 95 users are crashed by some oversized packets, and suddenly you're alone on the net with a mad hacker...
The hacker hadn't counted on the Mac OS, but he's not done with you yet. He sends wave after wave of bugs, worms, viri, trojan horses, and worse. You dodge some and kill others but some of their shots get through and slowly the web is torn down, server by server.
Only one course of action makes sense - dig through layer after layer of maleficence until you can find some clue to the hackers identity...
2. The Goal
Shoot all the bugs. Then you'll get attacked by worms. Shoot all the worms. Then you get attacked by viri. Then Trojan horses. That's life.
Every time you get hit another server gets knocked off the web. When all the servers are gone, its game over.
Should you take out all comers (there's just six levels), you get to a final level with mixed attackers and a clue (!) to the hackers identity. You don't have to kill anything you don't want to (insert your favorite smiley here), all you have to do is grab the clue (ie run into it, pick it up), then you win.
3. Controls
Command-H will bring up a help screen that will display all the relevant keys.
The right hand controls movement: J and L are left and right, respectively, and I and K are up and down. This may seem odd, but you'll probably get used to it quickly. The left hand controls firing, S and F are left and right, E and D are up and down. You can stop your movement at the next intersection by pressing the space bar.
You can shoot any and all directions, regardless of your direction of movement. You can change you direction at any time, but you can only stop in the intersections. You can get killed anywhere.
Command-P will pause the game. If you switch to another application the game will pause until you switch back to it.
4. Scoring
I never quite got the point of multi-thousand point scoring systems, so the 1.0 scoring system is extremely straightforward. If you die before catching the hacker, your score is the number of baddies you took out first. If you catch the hacker you're evaluated on the number of servers left. A perfect game is possible, particularly on a really slow machine.
5. Tips
First off, the keys may seem wierd, but give them a chance.
Second, remember that the space bar will make you stop at the next intersection, so you can move to a safe spot and stay there, making sorties out to hit the baddies when they pop up.
Any time a game has no time pressure you should take your time. The center spot is good because it give you decent reaction time in all directions. Try to kill the four baddies that are pointing at the center so you'll have a safe spot. From there venture outward orthagonally to take easy shots, establishing more and more safe intersections until the level is clear.
If you're really sharp you can keep constantly on the move, zipping into the gaps between zaps and taking out those foolish enough to shoot at you. This may or may not be the best strategy, but it feels great.
6. The Undiscoverd Country
What does the future hold?
Obviously, we need user configurable keys. We also need sound effects that don't freeze the action for an instant the first time they load (I did preload the sounds, go figure). Better dead bad guy graphics would remove yet another degree of lameness. If I do another version I will have to deal with these for the sake of my conscience.
I will probably add some kind of time pressure to each “level”. It would probably also be good if the baddies got more aggressive or capable each level. Get your high scores now!
Fancy scoring and hundreds of levels seem to be popular in other games, what do you think? A high scores list is needed. Perhaps each baddie should be able to move into more than one lane. Perhaps they can even wonder into the central area... These and other things may be addressed depending on player feedback.
Keep those cards and letter coming, andreww@tupshin.com.
7. Acknowledgements, Disclaimers, Player’s Notes, and Random Opinions
First, this game was written largely as an excercise, and no warranty is given as to its stability or suitability. I tried real hard but what do you expect for free?
The MS-DOS and Windows logos are TM Microsoft, but obviously used with satirical intent.
Some may wonder why we're playing a video game in a window instead of taking over the screen and hiding the menu bar, etc. I meant this mostly as a diversion, so I left the Mac alone so you could flip back and forth between the game and whatever else you may be doing. As a result, if your Mac is busy with a huge file copy or what have you, game performance is going to suffer.
There is one Easter Egg, a cheat mechanism I added to finish off a level to make it easier to debug the final levels and endgame. Try and find it.
The “Undiscovered Country” that Hamlet mentions in the famous soliloquy is not the future, but death.
Thanks to everyone who helped me get this thing working. They can be easily identified by the bus error messages burned into their monitors. Key individuals are named in the about box, but here's a longer list... doc, Brian, Russ, Joel, Tupshin, Jason, Stanley, John, George, Atiwat, Dane, and my wife, Janette, who actually doesn't mind the money spent on C compilers.