Assassins - Ultimate CD Games Collection 4/Assassins 4 (1999)(Weird Science).iso/docs/shoot-ups/toads_demo.doc

Text File | 1992-09-02 | 17KB | 488 lines

                           -=* The Game *=-

                      ©1996/1997 Dead Roo Software


  Dead Roo Software takes no responsibility for any damage caused to
  computer hardware, software or associated data, and any damage,
  either physical or psychological, inflicted upon users of this
  product by the product.

  So There.

  It's not our fault if you feel compelled to microwave the cat.

  This program is freely distributable. Only a very very small fee for
  disks or copying may be charged for this program. We mean it.

  Welcome To TOADS.

  I suppose you want an introductory story to set the scene or
  something. Bleh. This isn't a film you know. This is just a bit of
  mindless violence. But so you don't mistake it for a Jean-Claude Van
  Damme film I should give you a little plot or is it a theme? I
  dunno.

  In the early 1990's a commercial Australian television network which
  will remain nameless produced a television series called Paradise
  Beach. Paradise Beach was a soap opera. A truly atrocious soap
  opera. It consisted mainly of tanned young people running around
  sunny bits of Queensland.

  No one imagined that a television program could kill. Not until
  people started dropping dead in front of their TV's with a substance
  very similar to Camembert cheese dribbling out of their ears and
  noses. At first it was thought that advertising agencies had finally
  gone too far but studies proved that Paradise Beach was literally
  turning viewers brains into cheese.

  It was well known that soap operas could cause small amounts of
  brain damage in some people. A very small percentage of the
  population could even be turned into gameshow hosts by Home And
  Away. But actually killing people by turning their brains to cheese
  was too horrible to imagine. So horrible that the Tasmanian dairy
  industry went on strike. Something had to be done.

  Something was done.

  The Australian government with unusual public mindedness disposed of
  Paradise Beach. The scripts, the sets, the filmed episodes even most
  of the cast and crew (Except that dumb red haired chick who's now
  in MediVac) were destroyed and the bits and pieces dumped in
  swampland in the middle of nowhere.

  Everyone thought it was over.

  They were wrong.

  Five years later something emerged from that swamp. Something grown
  enourmous and deadly from the mutating toxins in the remains of
  Paradise Beach. Something with a burning hatred for human beings.

  TOADS.

  It's up to you to save the world from marauding amphibians.

  With a fast car and some well aimed rockets.

  Yeehaa.

  So. How's that for a story? Better than most I bet :]

  TOADS was written in Blitz Basic 2 on an Amiga 1200 with 8Mb of
  fast RAM and a 28Mhz 030 CPU. The graphics were drawn in
  DeluxePaint 4 AGA.

  Dead Roo Software consists of:

    Andrew Kennan

      Design
      Programming
      Graphics
      Documentation
      etc

      I can be contacted at

      63 Elswick street
      Safety Bay 6169
      Western Australia
      Australia

  If you like TOADS how about sending me a postcard or something
  (beer, money etc). Feel free to tell me about any bugs, or ideas you
  feel like sharing, or even your personal problems (I like a good
  laugh).

  TOADS should run on any PAL Amiga with at least 1MB of Chip RAM and
  a hard disk. The utility programs use the gadtools GUI library which
  (I think) requires OS2.0 or higher.

  However it might be a bit slow with just a 68000 CPU. The faster
  your Amiga the better.

  TOADS can't be run from floppy disk because,

    - It won't fit on 1 disk and I can't be stuffed making it aware of
      multiple disks.

    - Floppy disks suck.

  TOADS works just fine on my a1200 030/28MHz :]

  To install TOADS simply copy the directory to where you want it.
  Then copy the fonts/toad.font to your FONTS: directory.

  Alternatively you could double click on the Install_TOADS icon.

  To start TOADS just double click on the icon. After all the intro
  rubbish is finished with you will be presented with a title screen.
  From here you can decide what sort of sound you want during the
  game, the controllers you want to use for the game, what levels you
  want to play and whether you want a one or two player game.

  Sound

     SFX   - Ribbits, splats, whooshes, booms and enginish noises.

     Music - Errrm...music

     None  - The dull sound of silence

  Controls

     Joy 0 - Use a joy stick/pad/whatever in port 0 (The mouse port)

     Joy 1 - Use a joy stick/pad/whatever in the port the mouse isn't
             in.

     Keys  - Use the arrow keys to move and the right shift key to
             fire.

  Choose a Game

    Use the buttons with arrows on them to select which playlist you
    want to play.

  One Player - All by yourself eh? Well press this button for some
               solo Toad squashing action. Then maybe go find some
               mates.

  Two Player - Much more fun. Now you can try and trash your mates as
               well as the Toads.
               Tip #1 Don't try to run over other cars unless you
               have heaps more armour and energy than them. Use
               Rockets instead.

  When you have done all that a a description of the game you have
  chosen will be displayed.

  Right. Now You're ready to Choose Your Weapon.

  In TOADS your weapon is your Car. It's pretty hard to kill a giant
  Toad with a cricket bat while it's biting your leg off so you need a
  turbo charged, armour plated, missile toting killing machine.
  Preferably with nice paintwork because it's things like that which
  can affect the resale value.

  Each car has a number of attributes.

    Velocity - Your cars top speed.

    Acceleration - How quickly the car reaches it's top speed.

    Braking - Useful when you need to stop.

    Steering - How well your car turns.

    Armour - The more armour you have the less damage you car will
             sustain due to poor driving.

    Rockets - Usefull things with a jet at one end and a big bomb at
              the other end.

    Nitros - A handy speed boost when you need to be somewhere else in
             a hurry.

  The screen is divided into two parts. On the left is player one's
  stuff and on the right is player two. Use the buttons with arrows on
  them to scroll through the available cars until you find one you
  like.

  Pressing the button labelled "Name" will allow you to enter
  your name. Press the Enter button when you have entered your name.

  When you are happy with your choice of car and name press the Done
  button at the bottom of the screen. When everyone has finished the
  game will start.

  Before each level begins a screen will be displayed showing the
  name, description, time limit and kills required for that level.

  The object of TOADS is - wait for it - to kill Toads. On each level
  you have a time limit and a minimum number of Toads to kill within
  that time limit.

  The Toads will be hopping from the bottom of the screen to the top.
  Simply drive your car around and run over them or fire rockets at
  them.

  Controls

    Pressing forwards or up will make the car accelerate
    Back or down will make the car decelerate.
    Left and right will rotate the car.
    Pressing the fire button and up will fire a nitro (if you have
    any)
    Pressing fire and down will fire a rocket if you have any.

    (When using the keyboard the fire button is the right shift key)

  Try not to run into anything besides Toads or the bonuses they
  sometimes drop. Otherwise your car will be damaged. If your car
  reaches 0% errm "Health" it will explode and it's Game Over man,
  Game Over!

  Bonuses

    Rocket (in a little box) - Gives you an extra rocket.

    Nitro (grey thing with an N on it) - An extra nitro.

    Armour (Metal plate thing) - Better armour.

    Steering (A steering wheel) - Improves your steering.

    Acceleration (An Arrow getting bigger) - Better acceleration.

    Braking (An arrow getting smaller) - Better braking.

    Velocity (A little car) - Higher top speed.

    Health (A big red heart) - Gives back some health.

    Extra kills (A little Toad saying "OI") - Some extra kills.

  If a Toad drops a little green circle with a red x on it stay away.
  It's a mine. Hmmmm...maybe you didn't need to know that.

  If the time limit expires and you haven't slaughtered enough Toads
  you will be out of the game.

  When the time limit runs out and you have killed the required number
  of Toads (or even better, more Toads) you can go to the Toad Shop.

  So, you've made it to the shop. Now it's time to turn that cruddy
  Datsun into a real car.

  For every Toad you kill you get $5 to spend at the Shop. You can
  spend your money on velocity, acceleration, braking, steering,
  armour, rockets, nitros and damage. Damage is how "healthy" your car
  is. If that reaches 0% you are dead.

  You can also make more money by selling (degrading) any of the
  attributes of your car. So if you have lots of rockets but you need
  more armour you can sell some rockets to buy extra armour. You
  cannot sell Damage.

  Click on the name of the attribute you want to buy or sell. The
  button will be highlighted in red. Now you can use the buy or sell
  buttons. Next to each attribute is it's cost. Pressing the buy
  button once will deduct that amount from your money. Pressing Sell
  will add that much to your money.

  When you have finished with your car press the Done button to go on
  to the next level.

  It is quite easy to create your own cars to use in TOADS.

  Creating The Graphics

    To create a new car you must first draw the graphics for it

    In the Cars/CustomPics drawer is an IFF picture called
    CustomCar.iff. Load this file into a graphics editor such as
    DeluxePaint.

    Remember: Don't alter the palette!

    At the top of the form are 24 boxes. In these boxes you must draw
    the animation frames for the car. Each frame should be rotated 15
    degrees from the previous one. The top left box shouold be at 0
    degrees (facing right), the box to the right should be 15 degrees,
    the next one 30 degrees and so on. The second line of boxes should
    start with a frame facing up (90 degrees).

    Beneath the animation frames is a large box where you draw the
    picture of the car to be shown in the car selection and shop
    screens.

    Under the car picture box is a smaller box where you draw a face to
    associate with that car.

    Now save the picture under a different name. DO NOT OVERWRITE THE
    ORIGINAL CUSTOMCAR.IFF.

    Now run the Car_Editor program. Click on the button labelled
    "Process Form". A file requester will appear. Choose the file you
    just saved your car into. If the form is valid another file
    requester will appear asking you for the name you wish to save the
    face picture as. Then you will be asked for the name of the large
    picture file and then the car animation frames file.

  Adding A Car

    Now you have drawn the car you have to add it to the car list. The
    list is stored in the file Cars/carlist. There are two ways you can
    edit the file:

    By Hand (The hard way)

      Load the carlist file into you're favourite text editor. Each car
      is defined within a block that begins with the line

        New Car=<car name>

      and ends with

        End Car

      anything outside a New Car/End Car block is ignored. Inside the
      New Car/End Car block a number of keywords are used to define a
      car.

        Face Pic= Name of the file that contains the face picture to use

        Car Pic= Name of the file containing the large picture of the
                 car.

        Shapes File= Name of the file containing the animation frames
                     for the car.

      You do not need to supply a path to the files. TOADS automatically
      looks in the Cars drawer.

        Max Velocity= A number between 0 and 127, the top speed of the
                      car.

        Acceleration= A number between 0 and 127, how fast the car
                      accelerates.

        Braking= A number between 0 and 127, how quickly the car brakes

        Steering= A number between 0 and 127, how well it turns

        Armour= A number between 0 and 127, how tough the car is.

        Nitros= A number between 0 and 127, # of nitros to start with.

        Rockets= A number between 0 and 127, # of rockets to start with.

      There must not be any spaces between the keyword and the "=" that
      follows it. Also it's not a good idea to put spaces after the "="
      either. However, whitespace is allowed anywhere else. Have a look
      at the cars already there before making your own cars. Then save
      the carlist and run TOADS

    With The Car_Editor program (The easy way)

      Run the Car_Editor program.
      Beneath the list of cars is a button labelled "New". Click on this
      button to create a new car. Select the car you have just created
      in the list. Now you can change it's name, the files containing
      it's graphics and the statistics of the car. When you're done
      click on the "Save" button, quit the program and run TOADS.

  Making your own levels to play in TOADS is pretty simple. Each level
  consists of a map file and an iff picture. The levels are combined
  together into playlists. The playlists are stored in the
  Levels/playlist file.

  Creating a map

    Run the MapEd program.

    Using the Block menu you can select a type of background to draw
    with. Use the left mouse button to draw your level map. Choose
    Save Map from the project menu. Choose a file name for your map.
    For the sake of consistancy you should put a .map extension on the
    file name. The map data will be saved under the file name you
    provide and an iff picture of the map will be saved under the same
    name but with .iff on the end.

    Green blocks on the map represent grass.
    Grey blocks are for roads.
    Brown blocks are rocks.
    Cyan blocks are slippery stuff. You should not put cyan blocks on
    the edges of the map as they can play silly buggers with the cars.

    Now load the iff picture into a graphics program. Use the areas of
    colour as a guideline when adding details to the map.

    Remember: Don't alter the palette!

    If you use the MapEd program to edit a map which already has a
    picture you will be asked if you want to overwrite the picture
    when you save the map. This might not be a good idea if you have
    just spent a couple hours refining your masterpiece.

  Creating a new playlist

    Levels must be in a playlist. To create a new playlist you can
    either

    Edit the playlist file by hand

      Load the Levels/playlist file into your favourite text editor.
      A playlist is enclosed within a block that begins with

        New Playlist=<name>

      and ends with

        End Playlist

      Anything outside the New Playlist/End Playlist block is ignored.
      The name of your playlist should be less than about 12
      characters.
      Inside the playlist you can use the following keywords

        Description=<description of playlist>

        New Level=<name of level>

        End Level

      The description should be no more than about 200 characters.
      Inside the New Level/End Level block you can use the following
      keywords,

        Map Name=<name of map file>

        Pic Name=<name of background picture>

        Map Desc=<description. (less than 40 characters)>

        Time=<Time limit in seconds>

        Minimum Kills=<minimum number of toads to kill>

        Maximum Toads=<number of toads allowed on screen>

        Player 1 X=<player 1 start X coordinate in pixels>

        Player 1 Y=<player 1 start Y coordinate in pixels>

        Player 2 X=<player 2 start X>

        Player 2 Y=<player 2 start Y>

        Clock X=<clock X coordinate>

        Clock Y=<clock Y coordinate>

        Chance Of Bomb=<% of items dropped by Toads that are mines>

      The Maximum Toads attribute can be used to make the game more
      or less difficult. Also on slower machines you may have to
      reduce the number of Toads on screen to speed up the game.

      You should try not to make a level impossible, eg 100 kills in
      30 seconds is asking a bit too much. As a rough guide, 100 Toads
      will hop up the screen in 40 seconds if only 6 can be on the
      screen at any one time.

    Or use the Playlist_Ed program.

      On the left of the window is a list of playlists, to the right
      of this is a list of levels in the currently selected playlist.
      If you read the above section most of the buttons should be
      pretty self explanatory :]

    DO NOT CREATE AN EMPTY PLAYLIST!

  Once you have created your levels and playlist you can run TOADS and
  play them.