Amiga Format 54/af054a.adf/xap.dms/xap.adf/xapdemo.readme

Text File | 1993-04-15 | 9KB | 214 lines

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*                        Hello and welcome to XAP!                       *
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About XAP:
~~~~~~~~~~

XAP underwent four complete rewrites and was erased entirely once by
a Lamer Exterminator which found its way into my disks. Curse it forever.
This is the final incarnation which has taken six months of on-and-off
development.

It's written in AMOS. I just wanted to prove AMOS was actually good for
something. And it's just about OK I think. (P.S. On my 1200 I can make
it run twice as fast or smooth. Hope everyone buys one. AMOS on a 1200
is quite pleasantly useful).

XAP is about 5000 lines long. If you want the source code, send me your
registration number and a fiver and you can have it. Then you can tweak
to your heart's desire.


What XAP Runs On:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Currently XAP is tested on

   Amiga 500 with 0.5Mb Fast Ram expansion
   Standard Amiga 600
   Standard Amiga 1200
   Standard Amiga 4000/030

Accelerators should not affect the speed of the game in any way. Fast
ram doesn't appear to have any effect either.

You will need a normal colour monitor/TV and a mouse to play XAP. Also
a joystick can be used in place of the two keyboard controls that there
are. XAP can be installed to a hard drive easily.

To play immediately, just boot the disk.


    **** IMPORTANT : On a 0.5Mb Chip Ram Amiga, switch off the power first,
         and disconnect any external disk drives!!!! If you don't, the
         display may get corrupted in your game. This is not a bug as
         such, it's just AMOS Basic's way of telling you you have no
         chip ram left!

ANY TIME when you're playing XAP, if you type Ctrl-C, it aborts back
to the Workbench. Also if you tap Left Amiga-A, you will be flipped back
to the Workbench (useful if the boss wanders by but make sure you turn the
volume down too..). To get back to the game, tap Left Amiga-A again.


Playing XAP
~~~~~~~~~~~

XAP is an abstract shoot-em-up game of 32 levels. Each level is split
into a number of phases in which a wave of aliens beams down. However, this
is the demo version and you only get 4 levels, and on the end of the last
level one of the end-of-level gidrahs from the full game appears.

You are supposed to defend the cute purple creatures. These creatures
sit about the screen and hop here and there oblivious to everything that
is going on around them.

The mouse is your main control device. It controls a crosshair. When
you are beaming down at the start of a level or if you die, the crosshair
turns into a diamond shape. This means that you should place yourself
somewhere safe; you appear on the crosshair. When you appear, you will
note that you are a purple sphere.

Aliens beam in with a characteristic effect. Don't let one beam in on top
of you! Collision with aliens when they finally materialise is generally
fatal! (NOTE: You can't die by touching a cute purple creature - but you
CAN shoot them. Don't.)

To MOVE: hold down the RIGHT mouse button. You will move towards your
crosshair. The further away it is, the faster you move.

To SHOOT: hold down the LEFT mouse button. A stream of bullets will fire
at your crosshair.

You are also equipped with a SHIELD and SMART BOMBS. The shield is used
by holding down the left shift key or holding the joystick fire button.
You can destroy ANY ALIEN when your shield is on, but you will score NO
POINTS AT ALL! In addition, collision with aliens and bullets makes your
shield discharge much quicker. But it recharges s-l-o-w-l-y, and is
totally replenished at the end of the level.

Smart bombs are fired by pressing the CTRL key or by nudging the joystick
in ANY direction (so don't drop it). Smart bombs destroy all aliens on
screen. They don't work on all the aliens though...

You can pick up missiles as powerups (see below). These can be launched
manually at the crosshair with the left-ALT key. They go off automatically
at purple creatures being attacked. They are quite fun however, and useful
against end-of-level gidrahs.

So what's happening to the purple creatures? Well, the wobbily spheres
(look like bubbles) float about until they bump into purple creatures.
You'll hear a sort of.. noise.. and then the bubble starts to mutate the
creature round and round until finally it bursts to reveal... a MAD JELLY!
Jellies cackle insanely and then home in on you shooting sporadically.
They are quite dangerous really.

To RESCUE a creature from mutation, simply shoot the bubble ONCE or hold
your shields on and collide with it! You get a 500 point bonus for rescuing
a creature (or 750 points if you are astoundingly quick or lucky).

If all the creatures die, you are DOOMED. This is why you should not shoot
them accidentally. If this happens, then you will be invaded by a massive
JELLY INCURSION!!! Yikes! And on the next level, you will get ONE creature
to defend... so you'd better be very careful indeed. Every four levels,
you get ALL EIGHT creatures back again.

Other than that, it's quite a simple game: shoot everything else that moves!



Powerups
~~~~~~~~

Every so often you will receive a POWERUP. These beam in at the same time
as aliens, and need to be collected sharpish or they disappear.

The powerups are:

   Extra Life

   Extra Smart Bomb

   Extra Cute Purple Creature

   Super Shield - gives you an automatic shield for a short while,
      which acts like a normal shield except it gives you points for
      killing aliens with it! So use it! And afterwards you will note
      that your normal shield has been fully recharged.

   Rapid Fire - many of these can be collected (see Gun Powerup).

   Gun Powerup - increases the power of your guns. The two largest guns
      actually fire through any aliens they destroy, so careful where
      you aim! Also, a gun powerup slows your rate of fire down, so
      you need to collect more rapid fire powerups.

   Homing Missiles - you get several homing missiles (displayed in the
      status panel at the top). These go off automatically whenever a
      creature is attacked by a wobbily sphere. Most useful indeed. They
      don't always hit, though...

   Speedup - makes your ship faster.

   Mines - you can collect up to three mines. They serve two purposes:
      1. When you die, mines are removed in preference to any other powerups
         from your ship.
      2. They float around your crosshair, destroying aliens for quite some
         time. The more powerful your gun is when you get them, the longer
         they last. They aren't terribly effective though.


When you die, you will lose some of your powerups according to a complicated
scheme. Basically, mines are the first to go one by one, and then you are
stripped of one level of speed, rapid fire, and gun power together (but you
never go much below what you started the level with).

If you have maximum powerup in a particular characteristic, you are awarded
a bonus of 1000pts instead.


End Of Level Gidrahs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Every four levels, a really large alien comes on and tries to kill you
(surprise). They need a lot of shooting. Some of them do wierd things. A
couple of the later ones can only be shot in a certain place. You can tell
if you're damaging an end of level gidrah because it screams in much the
same way that a purple creature screams when you shoot it. Eyes are a
good place to aim for. If they don't scream whatever you do then it's
safe to assume that it's being damaged anyway...


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If you'd like to make donations, send comments (much appreciated too), etc.
you can write a letter etc. to

    C. Prince,
    92 Tring Road,
    Aylesbury,
    Bucks. HP20 1LS
    England

If you want to babble etc. on e-mail, I can be got at

   [e-mail]

until July '94.

If you'd like the full game, send a CHEQUE or POSTAL ORDER for five pounds
sterling (if you can't get pounds sterling then don't bother coz it's a
hassle) to me.  If you want the source code as well, send me ten pounds
instead (what a scam!  I hear you cry).  I will send you a disk with the
source code, all the graphics I can muster and sound samples etc.  and
maybe I'll even put some meaningful comments in.  This sounds mean and
miserly, but, business is business.

P.S. If you send cash then it's at your own risk.

P.P.S. Watch out for my new game Senseless Violence, which has just been
completed (16/10/93). Demos should be circulating soon...