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Text File | 1995-01-24 | 22KB | 448 lines

Psycho Squares Deluxe Coding and Graphics Animated Unicorn ------------------- ---------------- Shane R. Monroe Charles Caffery Dark Unicorn Logo Musical Score ----------------- ------------- Mike Hall John Graham Beta Testers 56 Color Game Graphics ------------ ---------------------- John Graham Adam Burns Adam Burns Michael Welch Pat Cowart (c) 1993,4 By Dark Unicorn Productions and Shane R. Monroe. All rights reserved. The EVALUATION VERSION of this program may be distributed freely as long as all files are present and unmodified. The REGISTERED VERSION is Shareware and fully copyright and may not be duplicated or distributed in any manner. The DISK.FONT library is copyright by Commodore Business Machines and used under liscense. It is NOT a freely distributable file. REGISTRATION INFORMATION The EVALUATION version of this game has several functions disabled. If you enjoy this game and would like to play it with more options and more levels of play, please buy the registered version. You may purchase this game (and the other fine DUP products) from BETTER CONCEPTS, INC for $12. CALL TODAY! 800-25-AMIGA Visa/MC/COD accepted! How about a little incentive? Sure. How about this? Order the registered version of Psycho Squares Deluxe right now and receive ABSOLUTELY FREE: * A laser printed copy of this manual. * A handsomely labeled disk to brighten up your collection. * A FREE Graphic Expansion Disk! (Our choice) "Membership has its privileges!" PSYCHO SQUARES DELUXE ... SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ... Psycho Squares Deluxe (PSD) will run on ANY Amiga computer with at least one meg of CHIP RAM. Unlike the original PS, there is no reduced sound sample set. A mouse is required for one player. A joystick or the keyboard may be used for an additional player. The game will play from either floppy or another ASSIGNable device such as a hard drive or removable drive. See below for more information on hard drive installation. Most entertainment software is enjoyed more when played with your Amiga connected to a stereo or other amplifier. PSD is no exception. The music and digital speech are a major part of the game so 'pump up the jams'! ... HARD DRIVE INSTALLATION ... PSD will happily install on any ASSIGNable device such as a hard drive, Syquest Removable Media drive, RAM or RAD, or other similar device. Simply load up Workbench from your hard drive, then click the HD_INSTALL icon. In a few moments, you will be presented with the installer. There are plenty of on-screen instructions to help you out, but one point should be made here. You MUST include the final '/' (slash) at the end of your path if you are installing the game to the devices' subdirectory. For example, if you wanted to install it on DH0: you would simply enter DH0: (a new drawer will automatically be created for you for PSD). If you wanted PSD installed in your games directory on your SYQUEST drive the path may look like this: RM1:GAMES/. The installation will copy all necessary files over to your selected device. You need then only open the new drawer and click the killer unicorn icon to start the game. You do NOT need to make ASSIGN commands in your startup sequence nor does PSD do it for you. The game will ASSIGN the files when the game is run. Should you move the PSYCHO directory, you must go to your PSD directory and look for a file called 'HDPATH'. This contains the path information. Change it to reflect the new location of PSD. ... GETTING STARTED: THE BASICS ... PSD is a very easy game to learn. In fact, almost anyone can play it. It is easy enough for kids to play, but challenging enough to keep adults coming back for more. The game is broken down into thirteen levels of play called ROUNDS. Each round consists of sixty-four numbered boxes arranged in an eight by eight grid. The boxes have numbers in them ranging from one to eleven. There are both positive (red in color) and negative (blue) numbers. Behind the boxes is a picture which varies depending on the Graphic Expansion Disk (GED) you are using. (See GRAPHIC EXPANSION DISKS below for more information). If you are using the original PSD graphics, it is a miscellaneous picture collection. The players take turns 'taking' boxes. The point value in the box is added (or subtracted) from your point total. He with the most points wins the round. Should that be the end of the game mechanics, it would be a pretty boring game. Fortunately, there is a lot more to contend with! There are rules regarding how boxes may be taken. Simply put, Player One may only take boxes on the horizontal axis and Player Two may only take boxes on the vertical axis. The final twist is that a player can only choose from the column/row that the OTHER PLAYER JUST TOOK FROM. For example: 6 4 2 5 3 2 10 9 In this example, it is Player Two's turn. Player One has just taken the number 6 which used to be 1 5 3 9 7 2 5 6 where the box is on the game grid to the left. Since the highlighter box happen to start off in 10 1 8 3 2 9 11 6 that row, Player One started the game with the following choices: 6, 4, 2, 5, 6, 2, 10, 9. He 5 3 7 11 4 5 9 7 chose the second six listed. - Player Two must now pick from the current COLUMN 6 4 2 5 | | 2 10 9 which gives him these choices: 3, 7, 2, 4, 7, 2, - or 4. Should he pick the 3 on top, Player One 1 5 3 9 7 2 5 6 must chose from the top row (i.e. 6, 4, 2, 5, 3, 2, 10, or 9). 10 1 8 3 2 9 11 6 5 3 7 11 4 5 9 7 This exchange would continue until either the grid runs out of squares or there is no square available in the player up's row/column. The round is over at that time and the player with the highest score wins the round. There is one other way the round could end 'prematurely'. This will be explained later. One Player Mode - Every square you take reveals that part of the picture underneath. The computer taken squares are covered with a 'cover box' to hide that part of the picture. If you win the round, the picture is revealed in full. Two Player Mode - Every square that is taken has a 30% chance of revealing that part of the picture. The other 70% get the 'cover box'. At the end of the round (regardless of winner) the picture is NOT revealed. Take a close look, however, because the winner of the GAME at the end of the thirteen rounds will get to CHOOSE a level to see in its entirety. Between rounds, you will get a 'Psycho Squares Update' which will show the current scores of both players and the number of rounds each has won to this point. The score represents the TOTAL cumulative points earned in all the rounds to this point. In other words, you can be ahead in score but still be losing in rounds won. Good deal, though, since the game is concerned only score. At a glance you can tell who is winning by looking for the trotting unicorn. He will be galloping in the current winner's box! :) At the end of the game, the winner will be announced. At this time, in the two player game, the winner can select the round picture to view. If either player's score is worthy of the Psycho Square Deluxe's HALL OF FAME, the name entry system will pop up for each applicable player. The player need NOT win to enter his name; just beat the lowest score. ... HALL OF FAME BOARD ... You are allowed up to ten letters to 'mark your turf' on the Hall of Fame screen. Use the mouse or joystick to position the pointer on the box that contains the letter to enter and press the mouse/joystick button. The letter will be added. There are a couple special boxes available here. There is a dash "-" box for inserting a dash in your name. You may also place a space or blank for a letter by pressing the box marked "SP". To delete or 'rub' a letter out, click the box marked "RU". To end the name entry system, click the "ED" box. The Hall of Fame is displayed after the name entry routine and it appears if you wait on the MAIN MENU screen for more than five seconds or so. The Hall of Fame board will stay displayed for five seconds and then you will return to the MAIN MENU. ... MAIN MENU ... There are five options on this menu. Most are self-explanatory. BEGIN SOLO GAME - Start a one player game. BEGIN TWO PLAYER GAME - Start a two player game using the input device selected on the OPTIONS menu. IN GAME OPTIONS - Takes you to the OPTIONS menu. ABOUT PSYCHO SQUARES DELUXE - A bit of text about the author and the program. Please read once. EXIT TO AMIGADOS - Quit the game. Select the items using the mouse and mouse button. You may alternately exit the game from this menu by pressing ESC. You may also wait on this screen to see the Hall of Fame screen (see above). ... IN GAME OPTIONS MENU ... There are five options on this menu. These may NOT be so self explanatory, but they are all important. PLAYER TWO INPUT DEVICE - This toggles the method that Player Two uses to play the game. You may use either a joystick or the keyboard. You can look at the bottom of the screen to see what is currently selected. If using the keyboard to play, use the arrow keys and RETURN to move and select. NOTE: The keyboard does NOT work on the name entry screen for the Hall of Fame. You must use the mouse or joystick. GAME DIFFICULTY - This toggles between the three game playing modes for the one player game. More on these modes later. The options are EASY, NORMAL, and ADVANCED. SAMPLES ARE - This item toggles ON or OFF. If the samples are OFF, then all the 'nag' samples are removed. Especially the 'C'MON!' prompt. It is fun for awhile, but can get old. All the special samples for the Bonus Squares are left in tact. GAME GRAPHICS - This toggles whether you are using the built-in graphics that came with the game, or using a GED. If you are using a GED then it will read EXTERNAL otherwise it reads INTERNAL. RETURN TO MAIN MENU - Duh... As in the Main Menu, use the mouse to select. You may also leave this menu by pressing ESC. ... ADVANCED PLAY ... PSD is as much of a game of luck as it is strategy. The more you play, the more you will see how very true this is. This section is devoted to the deeper workings of the game. A few things on game difficulty modes. The modes are easy to remember. EASY is just that. "Amy" will not 'think' very deep on the move she makes. If you are on NORMAL, Amy will give considerably more thought to the possibilities and results of her move in the coming turns. The ADVANCED mode is truly challenging. Here you have all the 'intelligence' of the NORMAL game with the added 'feature' of being on a time limit. You have three seconds to move, else the computer will take over and move again. If the computer CAN'T move, the round is over. A couple of enhanced commands INSIDE the game include: o Pressing ESC on Player One's turn will abort the game in progress. o CTRL-S will toggle the samples during game play. o A 'backdoor' exists in the main game. Can you find it? o There is another backdoor somewhere in the game. Where is it? ... BONUS BOXES ... Well, we've touched on these special commodities of the game, now let's go into them in detail. Bonus Boxes are randomly placed BEHIND the numbered boxes before the round begins. There are at least ten bonus boxes and there may even be eleven. The bonuses on the these boxes are 'awarded' AFTER you have taken the square on top of it. The number on the square you took is the number that the bonus box affects (if applicable). Both players and Amy can get these bonus boxes. Contrary to popular belief (and I thought the same thing until I got deeper into programming logic) Amy has no idea where the bonus squares are. Granted, the COMPUTER has to know where they are, but the computer GAME PLAYER doesn't know. The odds of Amy getting a bonus box are the same as yours. Though it may SEEM that Amy gets the best boxes a lot of the time, it is all just dumb luck. Here are the six TYPES of bonus boxes that are available. The first random ten boxes placed on the grid can be any combination of the first five types. You can have all ten the same (unlikely) if the random generator deems it so. The eleventh bonus box only appears ten percent of the time. It is the ROUND COMPLETE bonus (see below). MULTIPLIERS - The first two boxes are multipliers. There are x2 and x3 bonus boxes. These multiply the square you just took by the applicable factor. The bonus points will be added to your score. NEGATE - This box simply negates the square you just took. Bad deal if you just took an eleven, but a good deal if you just took a negative eleven. PLAY AGAIN - You stay on the same row/column but you get to play again. This is usually a good deal but if you have no more boxes left to take, the round is over. TELEPORT - One of the ONLY boxes that effects your game strategy. When taken, this will TELEPORT the highlighter to a random box. If it is teleported to an empty row/column and the player up next cannot take a box, the round is over. This bonus can help you DRAMATICALLY if Amy has set you up for a long string of negative squares. ROUND COMPLETE - This box abruptly ends the round. The original PS was based on winning rounds so this box would've made a bigger impact then than now, but it still has a good place. Is this box a bad deal? Mostly. I can't really name a time that this box would be DESIRABLE except if you were losing BADLY and were looking up a long road of negative numbers. This box basically cheats you out of much needed points. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter who gets it, it is bad. GRAPHIC EXPANSION DISKS PSD was created with expansionability in mind. You may purchase additional graphic disks for the game at the cost of $4 per disk. Those of you who have purchased these disks (called GEDs) for the original Psycho Squares in the past may have noticed the price increase. The pictures are of EXTREME quality and are MUCH better than those of previous GEDs. Please note that previous GEDs are not usable with this Deluxe version of the game. You may purchase the Adult disk from Better Concepts. It is the only GED available at this time. It is an R-Rated HOT disk of new graphics for the game. Definately adds a bit of flavor... ... PLAYING STRATEGIES/TIPS ... Okay, this is the section for people who can't hack figuring out the game logic on their own. Warning; this may take away from the challenge of the game, so read on at your own risk. 1. Look ahead. If you have tunnel vision playing this game, you will probably lose. Amy has no problems looking ahead moves to bag you with the worst square possible. You do the same. 2. If you are far ahead, don't be afraid to terminate the round prematurely. Remember, you win based on points, so prevent him from getting more than you. On the same token, be careful not to terminate prematurely if it isn't in your best interest. Amy doesn't have the thought to terminate if she is ahead. She wants to get as many points possible so she will not prematurely terminate if possible. 3. Get proficient at 'looking ahead'. If you do, you will be better able to play in the advanced mode. When you scan your own possibilities, shoot out each axis and see what it leaves him. The highest number is not always the best. 4. Turning off the samples may help you. Having the computer prodding you may cause you to make bad choices (why else did I put it in there?). Try turning them off and see if your score improves. 5. Practice makes perfection. The more you play, the better you will get. ... PROGRAMMERS NOTES ... This game was developed using AMOS PROFESSIONAL probably the best, easiest, and most powerful language (next to Assembler). For those of you who are even remotely interested in developing your own games/programs, I URGE you to pick up this language. It is under $100 and EASY to learn. It has a great on-line help system and examples for EVERY COMMAND. We here at Dark Unicorn (at this point anyway) are strictly AMOS programmers. If you think that AMOS sucks, then take a look at SCORCHED TANKS, another DUP product from coder Michael Welch. Kick butt game. A fine example of AMOS at work. Other packages used in development of this game include: o Art Department Professional o Deluxe Paint IV o Octa-Med Pro o Audiomaster IV o Perfect Sound digitizer o DSS sampler o Transwrite o PowerPacker Pro o Dir Works (buy this program) o Others... Now is the time to support the Amiga. Many of you already know of Commodore's demise, but the Amiga doesn't have to die with it. Buy your programs...Support shareware...Keep the developers happy. Put your money where your mouth is and keep us alive. ... FUTURE RELEASES/DUP DEVELOPMENTS ... Well, as with all Shareware games, the more support we get the more we will do with this game. If it sells well, I will be happy to make new Bonus Boxes and add other features to the game. Here are a few things I am considering for future updates. Let me know on your registration form which of these appeal to you the most. * Two player mode over a null modem cable or modem. * Allow Player One to select a different input device. * More sound samples REQUIRING a meg or two of CHIP RAM. * More Bonus Boxes designed to take points from your opponent, cloak the highlighter, shuffle the boxes, and more. * Four player mode using 4 player joystick adapter? * Special mini-games between rounds to increase your score. * Anything else I might have missed? As for Dark Unicorn Productions, we are VERY busy at work with a whole bunch of new projects from all our coders. Michael Welch - Version 1.9 of SCORCHED TANKS is available NOW. This is too COOL! He is also working on an Atari 800 translation of the classic game JOUST. I have seen some graphics and heard some sounds and they are GREAT! Keep your eyes open! Shane R. Monroe - Well, obviously I will be working on PSD for awhile to come yet.... However, I am working on two seperate CD projects for Better Concepts, Inc. Can't say much now.... Kit Felice - A new member! Yes, we are growing stronger! His exploits include the game Gladiators. His new game, ITS THE PITS: A BOLD MINER'S SLAUGHTER is available NOW from Better Concepts, Inc. A game with 3D tunnel sequences, Thrust segments, and much more. Loads of fun. John Graham - Finally, full motion video for the Amiga without a CD ROM! TOMCAT is a fully interactive video game with 11 megs of digital video and sound. A hard drive is required but WORTH it. Get this killer game from Better Concepts. Pick up a preview of it (2.4 megs!) from BCI or from Tombstone BBS. ... AUTHOR'S NOTES/JOINING DUP ... What can I say, folks? Another round of fun is done. I would like to use this space remaining to try and recruit other coders into Dark Unicorn Productions. Here is the deal folks. I want DUP to be the Psygnosis of the Shareware world. (Well, old Psygnosis anyway). When people see our name, they will want it on the spot. That is what I would like to make DUP; the biggest Amiga shareware company in the world. There are tons of small shareware companies like PsychoSoft (Kit's company) that would benefit GREATLY from becoming part of a bigger body. But, I only want the highest quality/calibre of programs to bear the legendary DUP symbol. Our numbers are growing. We are now 13 strong and expanding rapidly. This is what you do. Apply to join us. Send a letter to the above address, send me E*Mail on GEnie (S.MONROE1), or call the DUP support BBS TOMBSTONE BBS (803) 863-0313 and leave feedback to me (WYATT EARP) and briefly answer the following questions. * What was the last program you released? If you are still on your first, what is it? Describe the program briefly. * How long have you been coding? What platforms has you coded for? * List your preferences of programming languages in order. * Vital statistics? Age, sex, other hobbies, etc. WE DO NOT DISCRIMINATE ON ANY BASIS! * What projects do you have planned? * Does working on/with Adult material bother you? Explain. If you leave your InterNet or GEnie address, I will contact you directly. Join Dark Unicorn Productions and help feed the Amiga!