HeartQuest is a simple, fairly non-violent, color arcade game for the Mac that I made as a gift to my wife. If your wife don't like it, perhaps your kids will.
How do I play HeartQuest?
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In HeartQuest, you control a butterfly with the mouse, collecting hearts while trying to avoid the sticky flypapers. That's about it. Start by selecting "new game" in the "Game" menu.
The faster you do it, the more bonus you will get. The game has two modes, normal mode and macho mode. In normal mode, the game ends after three levels. In macho mode, the game is over whenever you run out of bonus. The normal mode is recommended for beginners, children, and anyone who doesn't have the hand-to-eye coordination or who doesn't like to do the game in a hurry.
Color, you say. What bit depth? Will it work on a 68000 Mac (SE, Classic)?
It works in 1, 4 or 8 bits of color (grays should be ok too) - and in all other depths as well, but in most other screen depths, it will be painfully slow. It works on old, 68000-based Macs as well - at least my SE. Note, however, that an 8 MHz Mac can be a little bit too slow on levels 5 and up.
Why make a game like this?
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I made this game as my Valentine's Day gift for my wife Eva in 1992. The first version was a quick hack in two hours on that very day. Later, I have developed fast direct-to-screen routines, and I used HeartQuest for testing them.
Hm, I suppose you have only tested it on your own Mac...?
No, it has been tested on quite a bunch of Macs (SE, LC, IIfx, IIsi, Quadra…), under System 6.0.7 and 7. System 6.0.2 or better is needed. Of course there can be bugs, and of course there are some video cards or screen types that it isn't tested on, so I make no guarantees. (Remember, this is a pre-1.0 version.) Still, it seems to work pretty well.
Will there be any future versions?
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Perhaps, but as you may understand, it's not on the top of my list. There are a few things that could be improved, most minor cosmetic things I just havn't had time to fix, but also that hopeless sound bug that cause the sound to go away once in a while. Also, the control could be better, but I havn't figured out how. Even though the game still has a few rough ends, I believe it works well enough to make a pre-release now, only a week before Valentine's. (At least ours, in Sweden, is in mid-february.)
Do the flypapers have to look like potato peels?
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If you are more of an artist than I am, you are welcome to make better-looking icons and backdrops. If you do, please send them to be for inclusion in a new version. (Whatever you do, don't send out an "upgraded" version yourself - it can only lead to confusion.)
Why don't you use the full screen?
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Try starting the game with a modifier key (e.g the alt/option key) held down… but if your screen is big, you might have to give HeartQuest a lot more memory. This is only tested on 640*480 pixels - no guarantees!
Does it cost anything?
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Nope. Not that too many would pay for a game as simple as this. I might get a little bit more greedy when I get time to plug my color routines into my other games. HeartQuest is *freeware* - free but copyrighted. Use it, give it away to friends, upload it to BBSs, etc. CD-ROM manufacturers and commercial shareware distributors who include HeartQuest must send me a sample of the final product.
Have you made other games?
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Yes, but this is the only one so far with *fast* color graphics. Bachman and Slime Invaders are likely to get colorized in the future. (My boardgames, e.g. MacSokoban, have been in color for quite some time, but speed is not critical there.)
My thanks to the testers, especially Dmitry Boldyrev who patiently went through several crashes before I had tracked down every flaw in the direct-to-screen drawing.
You can send opinions and bug reports to me over the Internet to the address ingemar@isy.liu.se.
