You have to have QuickTime™ 2.1 or later (and QuickTime™ PowerPlug on Power Macintosh systems) and Sound Manager 3.0 or later to play AstroRock™. These aren't included in the demo version of AstroRock™, since you can download both of these from major online services anyway (on the Internet, go to ftp.info.apple.com).
You'll also need a 68040 or PowerPC processor, a monitor capable of 640x480 graphics in 256 colors, and at least 8 MB of memory (preferably more).
The Launching Pad
Once you've started up AstroRock™, you'll see the main menu, which has lots of nifty buttons. If you want to just start playing, click the "Start Game" button. To change the game setup, click "Config" and you'll be able to choose a starting level, or go to the sound or controls configuration screens.
The default controls for AstroRock™ are, by the way:
Z - turn left
X - turn right
N - thrust
M - fire
Space - shields
H - blade (you don't get blade weapons in the demo, though)
AstroRock™ doesn't have a menu bar; there are lots of reasons for this, but the end result is that the game is a good deal faster than it would be with one, and we wanted as fast a game as possible. Note that AstroRock™ never gives up control to other applications, so don't expect to do any background processing while playing, and the only way to get out of AstroRock™ and into another program is to quit the game.
How Is The Demo Different From The Full Game?
The full version of AstroRock™ has many more tunes to jam (seven in all), while this demo has only one. And instead of just having four levels of AstroRock™ to play, you can experience literally hundreds of levels of exciting action. If you think those spikeballs are tough, just wait 'til you see the hunter-killers — and as you progress through the game, the bad guys get tougher and smarter.
The full game has more enemies and more weapons, too -- if you want a sneak preview, just click the "Help" button at the main menu and check 'em out! Or you can just click the Demo button on the main menu and watch the automated demos of some of the higher levels.
Of course, what's truly awesome about the full version of AstroRock™ is the netplay, which supports up to eight players at once via AppleTalk or TCP/IP!
If you want to experience the true power of AstroRock™, visit your local software dealer, or contact Atlantean Interactive Games for more information:
Atlantean Interactive Games
15127 Califa Street
Van Nuys, CA 91411
(818) 908-1324
http://www.atlantean.com
Also, if you have questions or comments about the game, or want to check out updates, demos, or any other sort of information about existing and upcoming games from Logicware™, you can visit us on the Internet:
WWW: http://www.logicware.com
Email: support@logicware.com
AstroRock™ Controls
The Macintosh version of AstroRock™ directly supports any standard Macintosh-compatible keyboard. In addition, most joysticks are indirectly supported. Use the configuration software that came with your joystick, such as the Thrustmaster Strokes utility, to tell your joystick which keyboard keypresses to associate with which directions and buttons on your joystick.
At any time during game play, if you wish to mute the sound effects, you can press Command-S.
Multiplayer AstroRock™
The full version of AstroRock™ includes complete support for multiplayer games of up to eight players, using Apple's NetSprocket technology for networking support. In this demo version, all you'll get when you click "Net Rock" to start a net game is "No network detected." Harsh.
Getting the Most Rock out of AstroRock™
If your Mac is running AstroRock™ a little on the sluggish side, here are a few things you can do to speed it up.
• AstroRock™ has a lot of sound effects. Use the Finder's Get Info window to increate the maximum
memory allotment for AstroRock™ as much as you can. The more memory AstroRock™ has, the less
often it has to reload sounds from disk.
• Make sure AstroRock™ and Finder are the only applications running; anything else can chew up valuable
processor time that AstroRock™ needs.
• Turn off File Sharing; use the Sharing Setup control panel to do this. You don't need File Sharing on
while playing AstroRock™, unless you're trying to play it off a server volume, which would also explain
why it's running a little on the slow side.
• If you're playing a single player game, you can safely disable AppleTalk, which will also help. Use the
Chooser to do this.
• Disable all the extensions you don't really need and reboot. For single-player mode, all you need are
QuickTime 2.1 (or later) and Sound Manager 3.0 (or later), plus the stuff absolutely necessary to keep
your system running. Use Apple's Extensions Manager control panel, or a similar utility, to do this.
• You can get a small speed boost by going to the sound configuration menu (click Configure at the main
menu, then Config Sound at the Configure menu) and toggling the mixing option to Limited Mixing.
This limits AstroRock™ to four active sound effect channels instead of the normal eight.
• Turn off the music. Muting it with Command-M won't do the trick; instead, click Configure at the main
menu and then Config Sound. Drag the Music Volume thumb all the way to the left end of the slider.
• Turn off the sound effects in the Config Sound menu. This is a little drastic, but it will help.
If you think the graphics in AstroRock™ are too bright, use the Monitors (or Monitors & Sound) control panel to set your gamma correction to "Uncorrected Gamma." This will prevent your Mac from automatically brightening graphics (and as an added bonus, your screen will be easier to read).
Revision History of the Demo
Version 1.0.2a
This version (which is still called 1.0.2 in order to bring the version numbers into sync with the Windows 95 and MS-DOS versions) adds a Demo button to the demo, which allows you to instantly see samples of gameplay on future levels of the game.
Version 1.0.2
AstroRock™ has been upgraded to 1.0.2 (expect an updater utility soon on Logicware's home page), which fixes minor netplay problems. The demo has been optimized a bit, so it should perform slightly better.
Version 1.0.1
This version of the demo now has all the sound effects of the full game, plus one of the seven music tracks. It's still limited to only four levels, and there's no netplay. Also fixed a minor bug in handling the high scores data file.
Version 1.0
This was the very first version of the AstroRock™ demo released to the world.
Logicware Credits
AstroRock™ Design Lars Brubaker
Macintosh® Version Programming Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd
