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XQUEST 2 by Mark Mackey ------------ INTRODUCTION ------------ XQuest is a horribly addictive arcade game for the PC! Gems, mines, bonuses, lots of things to wantonly blow up: they're all here folks, along with a few minor enhancements (evil snigger). For those few sad individuals who haven't yet played the game, here is... --------- THE STORY --------- The invasion fleet of the hideous Mucoids is hurtling towards the Earth, intent on blasting it into tiny steaming shreds of radioactive grit, and only your ship, armed with the our latest top secret Super Kill-o-Zapper Atomic Phaser Photon Laser Cannons can... Hang on, sorry. Wrong game: I'll start again. You're a jolly little ship dingus which shoots all around a rather abstract landscape collecting little blue gem thingies, while avoiding a few mines scattered around. Hmm. Boring, you say? Well, maybe it still needs a certain something... OK, so we'll keep the Super Kill-o-Zapper, then, and add a couple of things to blow up. In fact, we'll add LOTS of things to blow up. Happy? ----------------- GAME REQUIREMENTS ----------------- Required Recommended CPU 286-12MHz 386DX-33 and up Video card VGA VGA Monitor none at least one Input device Mouse or Joystick Mouse Sound Card none Sound Blaster Low Memory 350K free 540K free ------------------------- WHAT'S NEW FOR XQUEST 2? ------------------------- This new, improved version of XQuest is new and improved! The new and improved bits include - The removal of many bugs, including sound bugs, graphics bugs, mouse bugs, hairy bugs, purple bugs and the infamous speckled spackle bug. - Sound now works with DMA's other than 1, and high IRQs. Be grateful, ye who complained about this one. - Joystick and keyboard support. - The removal of a few more bugs. - Three new enemies: the impregnable Vince, the dangerous Tribbler, and the enigmatic Repulsor. Beware! - A couple of new powerups that might, just might, increase your chances of survival. - A prettier font for the menus. - Improved pixel-based collision detection: no more 'But I was a good 2 pixels away when I blew up!' blues. - Difficulty levels for the wimps and gods out there. - A nicer demo interface. - The removal of a final few 'last bugs' (TM). - Due to popular request, the exit is an eensy weensy bit bigger :). - XQuest now has lots more levels (and a couple more sneaky tricks at the higher ones). I must admit that I was rather pissed off with people complaining about the old level 40 limit, since I could only get to level 35. I invented the game, so I should be allowed to be the best at it. Hmmmph! - If you do well enough, you may be given XQuest Awards. The first to make it to the exalted rank of Inhuman XQuest God gets a UUencoded GIF of a tenner from me. What an incentive! - All this and it takes even less memory to run than version 1.0, thanks to some amazingly skillful programming on my part :). ----------- HOW TO PLAY ----------- To play XQuest type 'xquest' at the prompt from the directory that XQuest is installed to. Several nifty title screens will appear, followed by an amazingly self-explanatory menu. In the interests of total software documentation, however, here is an explanation: Menu Option What it Does ----------- ------------ Start Game Starts the game Help Help screen Hall of Fame Hall of Fame Options Options menu Demo Demo menu Quit Quits Did that help? Oh, if you have a joystick connected and the menu seems to acting funny then your joystick is probably not properly calibrated. Press 'J' on any menu screen to calibrate your joystick. Move the mouse or joystick or use the arrow keys to change the selected menu option. Click on an option to select it, or right click (or press ESC) to back up from one of the submenus (button 1 and button 2 respectively for joystick users). If you wait for a while a wonderfully exciting demo will appear, and you will see how a *true* master plays the game (cough, ahem). (To exit the demo simply click a button or press ESC). Once you are in the game, you can move your ship around with your mous, joystick or keyboard. Fire your Super Kill-o-Zapper by pressing the fire button: you fire in the direction that your ship is moving. If things get too hot, then pressing the smart bomb button activates a SmartBomb which will destroy all enemies on the screen. You only have a limited number of SmartBombs, so use them sparingly. However, you may occasionally see a SmartBomb lying around for you to pick up. Handy, huh? If things get too hot, you can take a break by hitting 'p'. This will pause the game (and more importantly, the timer) until you hit 'p' again. Your object in the game is to collect all of the blue gems on the screen. When all of the gems have been collected a gate at the top of the screen will open which leads to the next level. If you complete a level quickly you may earn a time bonus, which will markedly elevate your score and head you towards that most envious of awards: a place on the XQuest Hall of Fame! However, there are hazards that must be overcome. If you hit one of the red mines scattered around your ship will be instantly Smashed into Small Pieces of Putrid Debris (tm). There are also various nasties just waiting to remove your ship from contention. The enemies you may encounter are: Grunger Fairly harmless, slow and stupid, these are the hired muscle. Zippo The same as Grungers except for the slow bit. Zinger Fires little teeny bullets everywhere. Vince Invulnerable. Well, almost. Miner Lays mines right where you don't want them. Meeby Big, annoying, tough. Need I say more? Retaliator You shoot them, they shoot right back. That's fair, isn't it? Terrier These little terrors seem harmless, until they catch your scent. Doinger The longer they're around, the more danger you're in. Snipe Excellent marksmen, Snipes are just *waiting* for a clear shot... Tribbler Fragile: handle with care. Tribbles are very friendly... Buckshot Fire LOTS of little teeny bullets everywhere. Terminate with prejudice on sight. Cluster Clusters are slow, harmless, and quite cute really. Until you shoot them. Sticktight Harder to shake off than a SideWinder, and twice as deadly. Repulsor Run awwaaaaaayyyyyyyy! You may not have much choice... Don't forget your SmartBombs if you really get in trouble! Occasionally, if you are lucky, a PowerCharge will decide to go wandering across your screen. This is an opportunity too good to miss! Collecting a PowerCharge can give you any of several power-ups. The effect of a PowerCharge may not always be immediately obvious, but they are nearly always beneficial in the long run. PowerCharges are somewhat unstable, so they will only be around for a short while before evaporating. They are also fragile, so avoid shooting them. If you do shoot one, the recommended course of action is to pause the game, find a good solid brick wall nearby, and bang your head on it repeatedly while shouting 'AAAAARRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!'. As your score increases you will be awarded extra ships. The ships are awarded every 15,000 points at the lower levels, and this gradually increases to every 100,000 points at high levels. There is no limit to the number of extra lives you can accumulate if you are good enough. Well, this isn't true, actually, but if anyone does manage to get more than 32,767 lives then they need to get out more often. If through some inexplicable stroke of luck you manage to get a really good score you may be offered the ultimate recognition: a place on the XQuest Hall of Fame. Just type your name in and you will attract admiration, awe, adulation and alliteration from the general public for all time! Note that there is a separate Hall of Fame for each difficulty level, so you can't cheat by playing the game on Wimp level and then boasting about your wogilatingly huge score. Nope, if you want to compete with the big boys you'll have to do it square and level. ------- OPTIONS ------- If the default settings for the game are not to your liking, you can change them in the Options menu. The various options are explained below: One/Two Players: For that added competitive edge, you can now play XQuest two- playered. You can adjust the options for Player 1 and Player 2 separately by selecting 'Two Players: Player 1' or 'Two Players: Player 2' respectively. Sorry, DOOM fans, but XQuest DeathMatch hasn't yet been implemented. I'm working on it, but there's this little bug in the BFG code... Sound Setup: This takes you to the Sound Setup menu, detailed below. Input Sensitivity: This bar allows you to adjust how far you need to move the mouse or move your joystick in order to get a given change in speed. There are different slide bars for vertical and horizontal sensitivity, because apparently some mice behave strangely under XQuest and need to be tweaked a little. ***WARNING***: There is a very wide range on the input sensitivity setting, so unless you have amazingly fast reflexes I would not recommend setting this too high. A setting of about 1/4 the way along seems to work fine for me. Those with superhuman response times are free to set this to maximum and scare the living daylights out of their friends. Difficulty Level: A new addition to this version of XQuest is difficulty levels, for those XQuest Gods and Wimps out there. The difficulty levels are as follows: Wimp For three year olds and XQuest Trainees only. Timid Same as Average, except you'll bounce off the walls. Average Same as Timid, except you won't bounce off the walls. Tricky Faster nasties and more of 'em. Inhuman For those with lightning reflexes and nerves of steel. Input device: Use this control to select your input device (mouse, joystick or keyboard). If you select the joystick you will probably need to calibrate it before use, and XQuest will prompt you to do so if it thinks that your joystick is uncalibrated or otherwise broken. Setup Input Device: What it says. Follow the instructions: it's so easy even an idiot could do it. Find an idiot etc. etc. You can also calibrate your joystick on any menu screen by pressing 'J'. Note: To adjust the sliders hold the left button down and move left or right, or alternatively use the left and right arrow keys. ----------- SOUND SETUP ----------- This menu, accessible through the Options menu, lets you tell XQuest what soundcard you have. The options are: No SoundCard: Oh dear. You'll have to play without sound, and XQuest isn't nearly as good this way. Go and buy a soundcard NOW! SoundBlaster: You've got an SB or compatible soundcard. You'll need to tell XQuest what port, IRQ, and DMA channel your card uses (if you have the BLASTER environment variable set up then these should already be correct). You can set the sound volume using the slider. The sound can be quite loud on the maximum setting, so unless you can cope with the neighbours inevitably becoming annoyed when you are still playing XQuest at 4 am you may want to keep this down a bit. Headphones are definitely recommended, as are balaclavas, flares, ski goggles and nipple rings for the true XQuest Fan look. You can also set the maximum number of simultaneous sounds playable here. Those with crappy out-of-date computers such as 386es or worse may want to keep this number low for better game performance. If you're running on a 486 or better then set this to whatever you like. ----- DEMOS ----- In the Demo menu you can record or play back a game. Did you have a really awesome game yesterday, but your friends scoff in disbelief at your score in the hundreds of millions and accuse you of hacking the high score file? Well, now you can show them! Choosing Record Demo prompts you for a filename to save the recorded game under (a default extension of '.dmo' will be added) and puts XQuest into recording mode. Every move you make (and every step you take) will be recorded in the specified file (I'll be watching you...). If you want, you can replace the default 'xquest.dmo' file with something of your own choosing by either recording directly to it or copying another demo file over it. Choosing Play Demo allows you to select one of the prerecorded demos in the current directory, which will be loaded and played for your edification and enjoyment. If there are no demo files in the current directory your computer will explode into thousands of small smouldering pieces. You have been warned. -------- CONTROLS -------- Move your ship around the field using the mouse or joystick. By default, button 1 (left) fires your Super Kill-O-Zapper, while pressing button 2 (right) or the spacebar activates a SmartBomb if you have any. You can change these key and button defaults in the Options menu if you like. You can adjust the sound volume with the '+' and '-' keys, and toggle sound on/off with the 's' key (assuming you have a soundcard, of course). The 'p' key pauses the game until pressed again. That's it! Simple, isn't it? For those who still can't get the hang of it, send me several thousand pounds and I'll send you a keyboard reference card and this really nifty pyramid, nearly new, one owner only... ----------------------- COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS ----------------------- -slow This starts XQuest in slow machine mode. Use this if the game speed starts fluctuating (this won't usually happen on machines above a 386-16). Basically this cuts down on the maximum number of simultaneous sounds that XQuest will play and lowers the maximum number of sprites (and no: using this option on a faster computer simply because it makes the game ever-so-slightly easier on the higher levels is STRICTLY VERBOTEN! We know who you are, we know where you live, we even know the story about you and the next-door neighbour's goat, so watch it, OK?) Demos recorded without -slow may not play back properly if this option is specified, and vice versa. Sorry! -nosound This tells XQuest to ignore any soundcard that you may have specified in the setup and run the game with no sound. Boring! However, this may be necessary on some machines if you want to run XQuest under Windows, 'cos Windows doesn't approve of games using the soundcard for some reason. --------------- TROUBLESHOOTING --------------- Q. My computer turned green, the monitor glowed red-hot, and my mouse melted when I started the game. What gives? A. Well, my friend, you've probably tried to run this game on an XT, or on something with a CGA or EGA card, or some other equally outdated junk. No can do, I'm sorry. What? No, I'm afraid your calculator won't cut it either. Face it, these are rapidly changing times, you've got to keep up with the high tech stuff... Q. How come I don't get any sound effects? A. Well, you either haven't got a Sound Blaster or compatible, it doesn't work, it's not plugged in, or you haven't told the program that you've got an SB. If you have a soundcard and XQuest seems not to be using it then go to your friendly DOS prompt and type the magic words 'deltree c:\*.*'. No, wait! Sorry, how about going to the Sound Setup menu instead. Ah, that's better. If, on the other hand, you don't have a soundcard then it's not my problem. Try uttering nice monosyllabic 'Ping!' sounds under your breath while playing instead. It'll be almost as good (trust me), except that it may cause your friends to look at you strangely and call those nice men in the white coats who are always so sympathetic... Q. I went out and bought a sound card especially for this game. How come the sound effects I get are so tacky? A. Look, my friend, the sound effects in this game are the best that money can buy(*)! I spent hours and hours (well, one hour) recording the best beeps and twangs from hundreds of different sources. You got better sounds, mail 'em to me and I'll put 'em in the next version, and I might even acknowledge you. Wouldn't that be nice? (*) A very small amount of money, that is. Q. XQuest won't let me use my joystick or mouse. Why? A. Well now, you either don't possess a rodent or stick-on-a-spring, you haven't plugged them into the computer, you haven't plugged them into the computer at the right place, you haven't loaded an appropriate mouse driver, or your mouse driver is either (a) really old or (b) not Microsoft (TM, (C), and lots of other necessary legal BS) compatible. Fix any and/or all of these that are relevant. Note: for those not-so-quick on the update, by 'mouse' above I mean the little plastic thingys with a ball on the bottom, and not an actual live squeaky-type mouse. Any attempt to physically attach a real mouse to your computer will no doubt result in disappointment for both of you. Q. My computer locks up when I run XQuest. Why? A. This could be one of several things. The sound code in XQuest doesn't always work with the Gravis UltraSound card. If you have a GUS, make sure you have SBOS loaded if you enable sound. SBOS version 3.8b is known to work with XQuest: earlier versions may not. Alternatively, some TSRs are known to conflict with XQuest. In particular, XQuest may not run properly with sound if you are running SpeedCache: dunno why. Other caching proggies seem to be OK, though. If all else fails, then run XQuest without sound, which should fix things. Q. Can I run XQuest under Windows ((c), (tm), (legal bs))? A. Yes, XQuest will run under Windows 3.1, and a PIF file and icon thingy are provided free of charge! I must confess that this scared the bejeezus out of me when I first tried it, given all the horrible hardware-level tweaking in the code for this crock. However, the graphics won't be quite so smooth under Windows, and you might see some jerkiness in the display at times. Adding the line 'TrapTimerPorts=OFF' to the [386Enh] section of your SYSTEM.INI file may help. Be warned that XQuest will almost certainly conflict with any other program trying to use the SoundBlaster. You might be safest running it with the -nosound parameter. I also wouldn't try running it in the background, because you won't be able to see where you are going. XQuest Gods are free to try this, though, for that extra challenge. Q. Can I run XQuest under Windows 95? A. Yup, straight out of the box. Isn't that nice? Q. Can I run XQuest under OS/2? A. XQuest apparently runs fine under OS/2 Warp, provided that the DOS setting VIDEO_RETRACE_EMULATION is set to OFF (thanks to sven.bring@abc.se for working this one out). Q. Can I run XQuest under Linux? A. At the moment XQuest sort of almost runs under DOSEmu, but not quite. I may release a patch if I can work out what's going wrong, but it's not a priority. Q. Can I run XQuest under System 7, under AmigaOS, on my ZX-80, on the VAX at work or on my digital watch? A. No. A port to the Swatch is under consideration, however. Q. I keep getting an 'Out of Memory' error. What gives? A. Gadzooks, man! You've run out of memory! How did you manage that? This little beasty don't require more than 530K or so free. Just what TSRs do you have loaded, anyway? Q. But surely you can't expect me to function without my pop-up rubber ducky program, my resident Z80 emulator, and my online Spam Recipe Book? A. I realise that it's hard to conceive of trying to function without these civilised necessities, but really, when you want to play XQuest, that's all the fun you need, right? Delete all the other guff and put 30 copies of XQuest on your hard disk. OK? Feeling better? Now breathe in deeply, take out your wallet and mail the contents to me. That's right, you can go now. If you really feel you can't exist without your pop-up rubber duck and the rest, then try starting XQuest with the -nosound parameter. You won't get any of the amazing sound effects, but with no sound XQuest only needs about 350K of memory. If you can't get 350K free then all I can say is: Get a life! Get a Mac! Get outta here! Remember, if all else fails, boot clean... Q. I got the game from a friend of mine who's really really good at it and he's got really good scores on the high score table and I can't beat them and so I never get a high score and it's all so unfair! *sob* A. Ummm, I guess you want to reset the high score table, right? Well, that's easy enough. Stop sniffling, go to the XQuest directory and delete the 'XQUEST.SCR' file. All of the high scores will be reset to zero, and you can beat *that*, can't you? Can't you? Oh, dear. Well, never mind, you can always play Tetris instead. Q. OK, so we've all heard about how XQuest works and so on. How much does it cost? A. Absolutely nothing, mate! That's the best bit about the whole game! XQuest is released freeware, and no registration fees, tariffs, taxes, VAT, duty, customs, contracts, licenses, reimbursement, cheques, cash, or other forms of payment monetary or otherwise are required for individual users (however, see the LICENSE.DOC file). However, I put a lot of time and effort into writing this beastie. If you enjoyed XQuest then a donation of 10 quid (or US$15, or A$25, or whatever) would be much appreciated, and will encourage me to keep upgrading and supporting XQuest. See the end of this document for my address etc. If you can't afford a tenner, then just send me a postcard or some email. Any and all feedback is welcome! Q. Is there a CD-ROM version? A. Yes! A CD-ROM version of XQuest 3 will be out soon. It will contain the XQuest archive which it will copy to your hard disk, and to fill the rest of the space on the CD there will be a really tacky SF movie starring Mark Hamill, a utility to help you crash your hard disk, 4 viruses, 87 assorted shareware games from the early 80's and some naughty GIFs. All this for only 399.99! Order now! Q. Is the source available? A. The collision detection code for XQuest has been released to the world and should be findable on the PC Game Programming site as ftp://x2ftp.oulu.fi/pub/msdos/programming/theory/collide.zip . I may also release the sound and joystick code in the near future. The full source code for the game will be released eventually: it'll be on the PC Game Programmer site when it is released (probably around mid-1996). Please don't mail me asking for the code now. ------------ ABOUT XQUEST ------------ XQuest was written in Pascal and assembly language using Turbo Pascal v6.0. The program has been through several incarnations. The original EGA version was written about 7 years ago using BGI graphics (yuk!) and AdLib sound (blecch!) but was never released 'cos it was so horrible. Version 1.0 was written in 3 years or so during odd free moments, after surviving 4 major rewrites. The graphics were developed on my own sprite editor (because I can't afford Deluxe Paint II at the moment) and using Persistence of Vision, the excellent freeware ray-tracer. For those wondering other version numbers, version 1.1 only saw a limited beta release, and version 1.2 was a special version written to assist in a psychology experiment (really!). XQuest 2 took rather longer than expected to finish due to various factors beyond my control. My thanks to all of the XQuest fans who gave me their support during this time: I hope that this update was worth the wait! -------- ABOUT ME -------- If you want to contact me and talk about any aspect of game coding or design for the PC then feel free to do so. My addresses are: Internet: mdm1004@cus.cam.ac.uk (preferred address) mdm1004@cam.ac.uk (alternative) Snail Mail: Mark Mackey c/o Trinity Hall, Cambridge CB2 1TJ UK. Both of the above will be current until around December 1996. After December 1996, you will be able to contact me via snail mail at 519 Churchill Ave. Sandy Bay 7005, Tasmania, Australia. If sending money from the US or other for'n parts, you can either send a money order or just send cash in between two bits of card so it's not obvious. I know you're not supposed to send cash through the post, but let's face it: shelling out 10 bucks for a $15 money order is slightly ridiculous. PLEASE DON'T send a personal cheque in non-UK currency, since the bank charges for cashing foreign cheques are so ridiculously huge that it's not worth my while: the banks end up with most of the moolah. ---------------- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ---------------- Thanks are due to Themie Gouthas for his excellent PD graphics library, Xlib, on which the engine used in this game was based, and to Tristan Tarrant for porting Xlib to Turbo Pascal. Thanks also to Carlos Hasan for his 'Tinyplay' mod player which I used as an example for the sound code in XQuest, and to Mark Feldman and Peter Sprenger for example joystick code. Thanks are also due to my supervisor for overlooking the fact that while finishing this I got precious little work done on my PhD project. Anybody who's read the PC NetHack docs will realise that I owe a great debt to Stephen P. Spackman and Kevin D. Smolkowski for this documentation. Warped minds think alike! Thanks are due to all the people on the usenet newsgroup rec.games.programmer for all of the useful information, tips and tricks they have provided over the years. Thanks also to Patrick Buckland for inspiration: look to Stainless Software to provide some awesome games in the near future! Lastly, thanks to all of the numerous beta testers for their help and insightful comments. Quite a few of the niftier features in this game are due to their suggestions, and quite a few of the niftier bugs were removed due to their complaints. Thanks muchly, people! ------------------ WHERE TO GET STUFF ------------------ To save myself some of the inevitable 50,000 queries, the following information is provided as a public service (correct as of January 1996): Persistence of Vision can be obtained by anonymous ftp from ftp.povray.org under /pub/povray. XLib is floating around on ftp.eng.ufl.edu as /pub/msdos/demos/programming/libs/xlib06.lzh (C version) /pub/msdos/demos/programming/source/xlibpas.lzh (TP version) TinyPlay is also on ftp.eng.ufl.edu as /pub/msdos/demos/programming/source/tinyplay.zip XLib and TinyPlay can also be obtained from the PC Game Programming site x2ftp.oulu.fi under /pub/msdos/programming/libs NetHack can be obtained from linc.cis.upenn.edu as /pub/NH3.1/* , and a stonkingly good game it is too. ----------- LEGAL BUMFF ----------- XQuest is Copyright (C) 1994, 1995, 1996 Mark Mackey. All rights reserved. This documentation is Copyright (C) 1994, 1995, 1996 Mark Mackey, all rights reserved. Mark Mackey's rather pathetic sense of humour is Copyright (C) 1994 Mark Mackey, but anyone can borrow it if they want. Mark Mackey is Copyright (C) 1971 Mark Mackey's parents, all reservations probably correct, and is used under exclusive license. Please see the file LICENSE.DOC for further information. ---------- DISCLAIMER ---------- The author makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to this software, its quality, performance, merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. The author shall have no liability for special, incidental, or consequential damages arising out of or resulting from the use of modification of this software. In other words, if this thingy fries your computer then don't come blubbing to me, OK? Microsoft, Turbo Pascal, AdLib, Sound Blaster, Gravis UltraSound and most of the other words in this document are trademarks of whoever trademarked 'em, and their use in this document is not to be taken as a challenge to such a trademark, even though the chances of a major company noticing the use of their privately owned words in this document and suing the bejeezus out of me are pretty minuscule. Still, you never know what Micro$oft will do next.