Thank you for downloading our game! We hope you enjoy Spiffy Spaceguy--it's a fairly simple, no-frills shooter, but we've put a fair amount of hard and soft work into making it as entertaining and challenging as possible. As freeware programmers, our only reward for making this game (besides the grade it got us for our final project) is the gobs of e-mail telling us how much you love it, so please take 5 minutes to let us know what you think of our game.
If you are anything like us, you're just about finished reading the docs. For full documentation and story line, please see techinfo.txt; here's the crash course, though, if you just want to play:
1. Run SSG.EXE.
2. Watch the intro. (Hitting a key during the 'Puerile Productions' screen skips the intro)
3. Select New Game.
4. Play.
5. Die, because you can't win. It's too hard.
6. Either play again, or quit.
All game control is through the mouse; left button fires, right button changes weapons, and your ship moves with the mouse. If your energy meter runs out, you can't fire your weapons until it's recharged enough to fire again (this varies between the different weapons; the laser only requires a small amount of energy, while the plasma burst requires a full energy bar to fire.) If your shield meter runs out, you die a horrific death as your body is torn to shreds amidst hot, jagged metal and searing explosions. If you're under 13, though, that doesn't happen; instead, you experience a glorious, transcendental shift of being to a much nicer, happier universe, where evil aliens don't invade galaxies and parents aren't reluctant to let you play our game.
HIDDEN FEATURES
If you find any hidden features (the kind that we didn't put in on purpose,) please e-mail us and tell us what you found, and what type of computer/OS you have (i.e. Pentium II 266mHz with Windows NT 4.0). We'll send you a letter of thanks and try to fix the feature as soon as possible.
LEGAL STUFF
As freeware, you can do whatever you like with this game, with the following exceptions:
You may redistribute modified versions of Spiffy Spaceguy; however, first and last game screens (ldp.pcx and credits.pcx) must remain unaltered and implemented as they are now. If you modify Spiffy Spaceguy, you must identify yourself or your organization as having modified Spiffy Spaceguy on some part of the title screen (stitle2.pcx) and provide some form of contact information (address, e-mail, or phone).
Commercial redistribution of Spiffy Spaceguy is prohibited without full written consent from both authors. This includes distribution from sites that charge for admission. Spiffy Spaceguy may be distributed freely, but always without charge.
You may reverse engineer Spiffy Spaceguy, but you'd probably have much better luck with the code itself. If you'd like the code, please send e-mail to one of the authors, stating why you want a copy of the code; chances are, we'll send it to you.
FUTURE PLANS:
Yes, Spiffy Spaceguy leaves much to be desired. Here's what we hope to add in future releases:
1. Sound.
2. More ships.
3. More weapons.
4. Friendly ships.
5. CD audio.
6. Cheat codes.
7. Smarter (and more) AI's.
8. More level variety.
9. Big bad boss guys.
...and plenty of other things to boot. Keep watching our website!
CONTACT INFORMATION:
If you have any questions, comments, or features to report, please send e-mail to one or both of the following addresses:
darbyt@carleton.edu
lantzc@carleton.edu
Spiffy Spaceguy Website:
http://tom.dynip.com/spiffy/
Again, thanks for downloading Spiffy Spaceguy. Have fun, and don't let your boss catch you!
