Grizzly is a one or two player fighting game. The opponents essentially beat each other up until one of them wins. There is more strategy involved that comes at first glance, or I wouldn't have made the game. I haven't personally game tested Grizzly enough to say how involved the strategy is in Grizzly, but it does exist nonetheless.
______________
∂How do I get started?
Run the Grizzly application and select the Key Configuration option. This is important because you need to know the keys in order to select your characters. Click OK on the Key Configuration window and select the One player game option. At this point, you need to know the left and right keys to select the character you wish, and one attack key to choose that character for the game. Some people have gotten stuck at this point and tried to quit. Quitting is now possible from this point, and the game will start after the time limit runs out.
______________
∂What are the basic moves for Grizzly?
You can block if you move away from the other player and do not press any attack keys while they are attacking. You can do this on the ground and in the air. In order to throw an opponent, they must be stationary (or stunned), and you must be within arms' range; you must then move towards them, and press the "Hard" attack key.
______________
∂Okay. I know how to play Grizzly. How do I get better at playing?
Knowing when to block and when to throw the other player can be very strategic. There are some special moves for Grizzly which are hard to learn but somewhat easy to perform. I send the listing of special moves to registered users. At one point, I thought that learning all the special moves was a surefire way to win. However, many people had learned the special moves and I was no better off than before when I tried to beat them. Knowing when to block and throw opponents became the key for winning in most cases. Then there are some people who play 4-8 hours a day, all week. Although I don't know if they have played Grizzly to this extent (email me if you do play this much), these people have strategies which are so complicated they couldn't really explain them.
______________
∂Why does the game take so long to load?
During most of the time spent loading, the computer is flipping the graphics over offscreen so that opponents can face both directions, not just one (which would be awful for gameplay). I haven't developed a speedy graphics blitter which can handle this, however, if anyone has a way to do this in realtime, please let me know (this would allow Grizzly to have more moves and take up less memory).
______________
More questions for Grizzly:
______________
______________
∂Why aren't there more characters in Grizzly?
Each character takes 4-30 hours to make the model, an additional 10 hours to render the character's moves, then about 20 hours to get the graphics working in the program. It would be a little tedious to explain it from here, but you get the point. Characters take quite a while to make, and while a team of graphics artists and programmers can make an easy task of this, you can imagine what it would take me to make 20 characters! Also, the size of the game increases steadily with each added character.
______________
∂I got tired of the music soundtrack. Can you make a new one or use MODS?
I am working on this, yet this seems to be a weak point for me. I have no trouble writing music but I am still a novice here. And finding a music track that doesn't get boring is yet even harder.
______________
∂Can you make some more backgrounds for Grizzly?
Well, I haven't been asked this question too much, however, please tell me how many backgrounds you would like to see in the next version (and remember that each takes about 200k) and I will go for it (or rather, my graphics programs will).
______________
∂What is that HYPER/Normal button for?
This is simply a frame rate restraint. For example, if you have the "Normal" button selected, your computer will achieve 20 frames per second (fps) or less, making the game run at a normal speed. If you have the "HYPER" button selected, your computer will achieve 30 fps or less, making it run at a fast speed. If you have a Macintosh which isn't fast enough to achieve more than 20 frames per second (such as a Mac LC), it won't change the performance of Grizzly to set Grizzly to "HYPER".
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
Future Plans:
Although future plans are mostly based on the number of shareware fees which I receive (because most registered users have received a new version of Grizzly), I will be fixing minor bugs which are reported to me. Here are some in-the-near-future plans for Grizzly:
Added characters: a penguin and a chicken.
Individual sounds for the players.
Two or three music tracks added.
An extended mysterious special move list.
Computer players play differently based on what character is playing.
