YPA: Your Privacy Assured/YPA.ISO/other_goodies/games/carnageg.lha/Carnage/carnage.doc

Text File | 1995-03-11 | 23KB | 521 lines

$VER: carnage.doc 1.00 (11.03.95) by Joseph Carlson and Randall Richards

== PANDAGUN SOFTWARE PRESENTS =================================================

                                ---------------
                                 C A R N A G E
                                ---------------


Copyright ⌐1994 Randall Richards and Joseph Carlson, All Rights Reserved

   This software, in its SHAREWARE RELEASE form is freely distributable as
long as no files in the archive are modified or deleted.  This program is
SHAREWARE so if you like it, please send $20 (US) to the authors and in return
you will receive the full featured REGISTERED VERSION which includes more maps,
fully functional weapons, more lives per player, PLUS full support for Sega(TM)
Genesis(TM) control pads (with purchase of optional hardware adapter - more info
later in the docs), and more...

The registration form and mailing address are at the end of this file.



== SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ========================================================

   Requires Kickstart 2.0 or higher, 1 meg Agnus or AGA.

   Any Amiga from A500 to A4000.  This program uses the best available screen
mode for a 640x400 screen (including ECS/AGA modes). It's a little slugish
on a stock A500 in Local Game mode, but plays nicely over modem.

   Requires 1.5 Meg total RAM, 1 Meg of it must be CHIP RAM!

   Tested on an Amiga 4000/EC030 and Amiga 1200 running AmigaDos 3.0 and an
Amiga 500 using AmigaDos 2.04.

   Recommended system:  68020+ with AGA chipset and harddrive.



== PROGRAM DESCRIPTION ========================================================

   CARNAGE - An addictive two player game in which you must seek out and
kill your opponent with the nastiest weapon you can find.  This 2d split
screen overhead scroller features high-res graphics, well thought out
stereo sound, mazes, teleports, all kinds of weapons ranging from rifles to
bazookas, and terrifying killer robots that seem to know your every move.
Also features serial/modem link support for playing against a friend (or
foe) who is only a phone call away.  And you can type messages to each
other in real time so you can express your true feelings about having a
grenade tossed at you.  Carnage is written by Randall Richards and Joseph
Carlson.  Sorry about the delay on this one...


-- THIS ARCHIVE INCLUDES: -------------

ROOT: Carnage.info                        - The drawer icon.

      Carnage/Carnage                     - The game and its icon.
      Carnage/Carnage.info

      Carnage/Carnage.doc                 - This file and its icon.
      Carnage/Carnage.doc.info

      Carnage/Carnage_Data/cargfx.000     - 11 data files
      Carnage/Carnage_Data/console.mcr
      Carnage/Carnage_Data/laugh.mcr
      Carnage/Carnage_Data/level.000
      Carnage/Carnage_Data/level.001
      Carnage/Carnage_Data/link.mcr
      Carnage/Carnage_Data/loading.mcr
      Carnage/Carnage_Data/main.mcr
      Carnage/Carnage_Data/nolink.mcr
      Carnage/Carnage_Data/pgshare.mcr
      Carnage/Carnage_Data/sound.mcr



== INSTALLATION ===============================================================

   This archive decompresses into its own drawer.  Just copy or move the
drawer and its icon into whatever directory you want to keep it in.  Sorry,
there's no install script yet, but you really don't need one, do you?



== OVERVIEW ===================================================================

   Welcome to the world of CARNAGE, where death and dismemberment is your
purpose in life.  In this world, your only friends are your speed, quick wit,
and your custom-deluxe fully-automatic battery-powered ammo-replicating weapon
of mass destruction (aka gun).  You know only one thing...kill..kill until there
is nothing left to kill.
   To assist in your vengeful quest, you are equipped with your aforementioned
"gun", a custom-deluxe fully-automatic solar-recharging energy storage cell
(battery), and a custom-deluxe object-sensitive fully-configurable
solar-powered multi-purpose scanning device (radar).


-- WEAPONS ----------------------------

   Your gun is the latest advancement in weapons technology.  It is light-
weight, battery powered and can replicate and fire any type of ammo based upon
the programmable ROM installed.  ROMs for different ammo can be found laying
around the playfield.  Unfortunately your weapon only has one ROM slot, so
you must carefully decide which ROM will serve your twisted desires best.  Each
ROM defines a set of unique properties for its ammo.  These properties affect,
among other things, the amount of battery power and time required to regenerate
the ammo.

There are several ROMs available to choose from:

   ROM                  FIRING            BATTERY
   TYPE        RANGE     RATE    DAMAGE    USAGE      COMMENTS
   ----        -----    ------   ------   -------     --------
   RIFLE       long     fast     medium   tiny        surprising potential
   SHOTGUN     long     medium   medium   small       covers large area
   LASER       long     medium   large    medium      fast and brutal
   SHIELD      short    slow     small    tiny        protects you from any
                                                      damage when activated
   GRENADE     short    medium   large    large*      goes over walls and
                                                      explodes
   BAZOOKA     long     medium   large    large*      high-speed, exploding
                                                      weapon
   MISSILE     medium   slow     medium   large*      seeks other player

* In the freely-distributable demo version, battery usage is 100% for these
   weapons (ie. only one shot from a fully charged battery.  Just enough to
   get a brief glimpse of the awesome firepower available in the REGISTERED
   VERSION.)

   The rifle ROM allows the weapon to fire small bullets rapidly.  It uses
little battery power, so this is more useful than you might think.  This ROM
comes with the stock weapon.

   With a shotgun ROM, your weapon fires pellets that cover a larger area,
making it easier to hit an opponent.  Although this ammo travels faster than
rifle ammo, it takes slightly longer to regenerate the ammo and uses more
power.

   A laser ROM makes your weapon fire a high speed laser beam.  While this
beam causes extreme damage, it also takes more power and time to regenerate.

   The shield ROM allows your weapon to create a protective barrier that
completely surrounds you.  This barrier protects you from incoming ammo
and inflicts damage to any oppenents that it touches.  It uses little power.

   The grenade ROM makes your weapon fire a deadly grenade.  Grenades are
unhindered by walls and detonate after hitting a player or travelling a fixed
distance.  They cause much damage but drain your battery quickly.

   Your weapon can fire a devastating blast when equipped with a bazooka ROM.
Much pain is associated with all who come in contact with its ammo.  However,
its battery drain can be equally devastating.

   Watch out for the ever-popular homing missile ROM.  This fire-and-forget
missile has a radar-tracking system that will seek out your opponent.  It
causes much damage, however, it has a limited range, does not travel around
obstacles, and cannot track a player with a stealth chip.  NOTE: a missile
will travel in a straight line while your button is pressed.


-- RADAR ------------------------------

   To aid in your grueling quest, you are equipped with a multipurpose
programmable radar.  It's purpose is to display locations of objects or
enemies (depending on ROM) relative to your position.  You will always
be centered on your radar.  Blips indicate distance and direction of
objects being tracked.  The ROM chips affect function as follows:

   The GREEN chip is a standard issue enemy locator.  All blips indicate
hoverbots or opponents.  This gives you advanced warning of approaching threats
and helps you find your enemy.

   The BLUE ROM is a weapons locator.  It indicates the position of all usable
weapon ROMs and batteries.  It also detects the other player's weapon chip,
but does not detect hoverbots.

   The RED chip helps you find medical kits (large and small).  This is very
helpful when you are low on health.  Be forewarned...  It doesn't detect
hoverbots or your opponent (unless he also has a red chip).

   Finally, the chip of choice.  There is a chip that renders you undetectable
to standard radar.  The YELLOW chip is the stealth chip.  It operates just
like the GREEN chip, except you won't show up on standard radar.  Hoverbots
can no longer track you (unless you are within visual range) and a homing
missile fired at you will only go in a straight line.

   Also note that each radar chip will indicate other radar chips of the same
type.  (i.e.  red chips locate red chips...)  This includes the radar chip
carried by your opponent.  (if you both have YELLOW chips, you can see each
other on radar.)


-- OTHER EQUIPMENT --------------------

   Medical kits (medikits) are dispersed randomly throughout the terrain.
There are two types of medikits, large and small.  When picked up, the large
one increases your health by 25%, and the small one by 15%.  Then the medikit
is placed in another random location.

   Batteries also come in two sizes.  The large batteries hold twice as much
charge as small batteries.  Since the battery display reports percent of total
capacity, the small battery appears to charge/discharge faster than a large
battery.  Rest assured, both charge/discharge at the same rate (i.e. the large
battery is better than the small one in every imaginable way).  Both players
begin the game with fully-charged small batteries.  Other batteries can be
found lying about the terrain with random charges.  Any battery recharges
automatically when installed in a weapon.


-- HOVERBOTS --------------------------

The terrain is patrolled by nasty hoverbots.  Their mission is to kill any
humans.  They are equipped with radar to hunt down players.  They shoot
lightning balls when a player is within visual range.  These balls stun and
hurt you so its difficult to get away from them.  You can kill them, but
when you do, another reappears in a random location, even faster and more
viscious than before.

If you're lucky enough to find a Stealth Chip, you won't be visible on
their radars either.  But if you get too close to one, it'll still attack
you.



== STARTING THE GAME ==========================================================

When you run the program (from a shell or Workbench) a title screen will
appear.  Your first options are:

   F1: LOCAL GAME  - Both players playing on same computer.

   F2: MODEM LINK  - One player per computer with the two computers linked by
                     modem.  This uses your serial preferences settings.

   F3: DIRECT LINK - Same as modem link but uses fixed settings (19200 baud).
                     For use with NULL modem cable between two Amigas.


-- LOCAL GAME -------------------------

If you select "F1: LOCAL GAME" the next screen will give you a choice to
either "F1: START GAME" or "ESC: QUIT".


-- MODEM LINK -------------------------

When you select this mode, a miniature split terminal screen will appear.
The Transmit window will show any keys you press and any messages from your
computer (like "<START>").  Any messages received from the modem will
appear in the Receive window.  This mode opens the Amiga serial port using
your saved serial preferences (See AmigaDos manual.)

You have to type in modem commands manually.  Usually what I will do is
call a friend up, both of us will run Carnage.  When we both are looking at
the terminal windows, one of us will type ATX3D <enter> and the other will
type ATA <enter>.  The two modems will then connect to each other.  Once
they are connected, anything you type will show up in your transmit window
and in the other players receive window.  One of you can press F1 to START
or ESC to QUIT.  When you are finished, you can continue voice conversation
on the phone if you both pick up the phone before pressing Escape.

Another method of connecting would be to set up one modem for auto-answer
and have the other player dial in with his modem (with Carnage running on
both machines.)  See your modem manual for more details.

"ATA" is the command to make your modem pick up the phone in Answer Mode.
"ATX3D" is actually 2 commands, the "X3" tells the modem to ignore dialtone and
the D instructs the modem to pick up the phone and wait for the answer
tone.


-- DIRECT LINK ------------------------

This mode is for 2 Amigas linked via a NULL modem cable.  It works just
like MODEM LINK except there are no modem commands involved.  Your serial
preferences are ignored in this mode and the serial port is opened at 19200
baud, 8N1 data/parity, and RTS/CTS handshaking.

You should immediately be able to type to each other.  Pressing F1 STARTs
the game, and Escape quits.



== PLAYING THE GAME ===========================================================

After pressing "F1: START" the title screen and music will fade out and the
gamescreen fades in.

In Local Mode players will be centered in the left and right halves of the
screen.  Both these windows scroll independently as each player walks off
in his/her own direction.  In Link Mode, one half of the screen will show
your player while the other displays a split terminal screen.  You can type
messages to each other during the game.


-- TERRAIN WINDOW ---------------------

This is the large window which displays the player and his surroundings.
The player is centered in this window and the terrain scrolls in whatever
direction the player moves.


-- STATUS WINDOW ----------------------

Underneath the terrain window is a status window for each player.  The
status window displays the players radar, health, battery power, lives, and
inventory.  Note that in Link mode the other player's status window only
shows health, battery power and lives, not inventory or radar.

The bar at the top of the status window is a bar graph showing the player's
health.  The bar displays health of 0 to 100% and also changes color
depending on the amount of health left.

The bar immediately below the health bar is a bar graph showing the player's
battery power.  The battery bar operated the same as the health bar.

The Radar shows objects (the type of objects depends on the radar upgrade
you're using) relative to the player.  The player is always in the center
of the radar scope.

The inventory boxes show Radar Chip, Weapon, and Battery.

To the right of the inventory boxes is a box showing the player's movement
and number of lives remaining.


-- PICKING UP OBJECTS -----------------

To pick up medikits, all you have to do is walk over it.

To pick up weapons or radar chips, you must walk on top of it and press
your button.  The item will be picked up, and the one that it replaces will
be dropped.  You can only carry one weapon and one radar chip at a time.

To trade/steal weapons from another player, you must touch that player and
press your button.  This gets very interesting if one player has a killer
weapon.


-- TELEPORTS --------------------------

A teleport is a device which will instantly move you to a random location.
It is very useful for escaping when you are in danger.  To teleport, just
walk over it.


-- YOUR PURPOSE -----------------------

You have only one sole purpose in life.  Kill the other player.  Kill him
before he kills you.  Game ends after one player loses all his lives*.

The player that survives a level, keeps his inventory.  The other player
starts with standard equipment.

* NOTE: Each player has only two lives in the unregistered version.


== WARNING! ===================================================================

On Amigas with KickStart v3.0 and up:  If you have monitor types in your
"devs:monitors/" drawer that your monitor or computer do not support, the game
might try to use that mode!

We are not responsible for any damage done to your monitor because YOU had an
unusable monitor file in your "devs:monitors/" drawer!

On my AGA system, the game will check for the availability of the following
monitors in order: DblNTSC hires noflicker, Euro72 productivity, Euro36 hires
lace, NTSC hires lace, VGA productivity, DblPAL hires noflicker, PAL hires
lace.  So make sure any modes your monitor doesn't support are moved back to
the "sys:storage/monitors/" drawer.

(Under 2.x or with no monitors available, the game will come up in either NTSC
or PAL hires lace)


== KNOWN BUGS =================================================================

- We calculated that the theme music (a looping sample) will stop playing after
  3 days, 15 hours, and 57.3 seconds (though we don't want to positively
  confirm this).  We may be switching to MOD support in future versions.



== THE AUTHORS ================================================================

Carnage is a PandaGun Software production:

Coding, graphics, and sound are by:  "Psycho Panda" Randall Richards
                                and  "Gunner Joe" Joseph Carlson

All work was done using:  Amiga 4000/EC030 and Amiga 500 - (Company Pending)
                          SAS/C 6.51 - ⌐1993 SAS Institute
                          Cygnus Ed Professional V3.5 - ⌐1993 CygnusSoft
                          Deluxe Paint 4.6 - ⌐1992 Electronic Arts
                          Perfect Sound 3.0 - ⌐1989 Anthony J. Wood
                          Too many manuals.
                          Too many hours.
                          Too many trips to Carl's Jr.  ("You hungry?")
                          Too many months (about 15 so far)

We have tried our hardest to rid this game of all bugs.  We have tested
this again and again and again.  Some problems had only occured once every two
weeks!  But we finally found them...  Amazingly enough, another bug popped
up on an A1200 when the same thing NEVER happened on an A4000 or A500.
(Weird...)  But finally, we figured it out.   Should you find a bug, please
notify us of the problem.  We will either fix it (sending the 1st person
reporting it a free registered version with the fix) or hold a mass suicide
pact depending on our mood.

Contact us at GEnie:  J.CARLSON10
or internet:          [e-mail]
                      [e-mail]


== ALSO FROM THE AUTHORS ======================================================

   QMousePrefs -  This program gives you a preferences window for
                  adjusting any options for QMouse by Dan Babcock.
                  Also includes icon for your WBStartup drawer so you
                  don't have to modify s:User-Startup to use QMouse.
                  By Joseph Carlson.

   Slider      -  Slider is a puzzle similar to those little number slide
                  puzzles we have all played with at one time or another.
                  It features a nice high res marble background with embossed
                  wood pieces and was decribed as "elegant" by AmigaWorld.
                  The size of the puzzle is adjustable in width and height from
                  2x2 to 8x8.  It is AGA & ECS compatible.  By Joseph Carlson.

   ControlPad.Library and CP-1 ControlPad Adapter:

   Tired of the old joysticks that only have one button?  Having trouble
finding an old standard joystick?  Well this little adapter allows you to
use any controlpad made for the Sega Genesis(TM) with your Amiga.  Sega
Genesis Controllers are easy to find (any Toys 'R Us) and inexpensive (about
$13 for the SEGA brand).  The joypad and trigger (B) button will work for any
game, and we developed a simple shared library that other programmers can use
to utilize the A, B, C, and START buttons in their games.  Future games we
release will (of course) use these extra buttons.  The registered version of
Carnage already does!.  We both are currently using the adapter with SEGA
infrared cordless controlpads on our Amigas.   It is cool not being tied
to the computer during games!

SEGA and GENESIS are trademarks of SEGA.


-- COMING SOON ------------------------

   Read        -  A fast text file reader which adapts to any screen mode and
                  any fixed width font.  Fast (and fine) scrolling via mouse or
                  cursor keys.  Scrolls left and right as well as up and down.
                  (Just when you thought you've seen enough text readers...)
                  By Joseph Carlson. (Very soon...)

   KNAPSACK - A file utility that allows you to effortlessly copy as many
files as possible onto floppys of any size or format (or device for that
matter) that your system understands including the diskspare.device (by
Klaus Deppisch) which lets you save up to 2 Megs of files onto a single
3.5" High Density disk!  Great for those who download lots of files and
need to move them off their hard drive.  Full intuition interface.  More
efficient than anything else like it that I've seen.  Knapsack is written
by Randall Richards. This ones been hanging around on our systems for a
while now.  We're adding support for PFS and PC file systems before
releasing this (if we ever get around to it).


== CARNAGE REGISTRATION FORM ==================================================

Cut here:

---8<--------------------------------------------------------------------------

   PandaGun Software Registration Form for:

   CARNAGE - Copyright ⌐1994 Randall Richards and Joseph Carlson

   Please mail this registration form to:


            RANDALL RICHARDS
            7773 LONGS PEAK DRIVE
            RIVERSIDE, CA  92509




   NAME:_____________________________________________________________

   MAILING ADDRESS: _________________________________________________

   __________________________________________________________________

   __________________________________________________________________

   EMAIL: ___________________________________________________________

   PHONE: (optional) ________________________________________________


   Cost is $20 (US) for each registered version.

   Quantity:________               Amount Enclosed: $________________


   Payments accepted in US currency or personal checks with funds drawn on
   a US bank only.

   For the latest information on the Control Pad Adapter or if you have any
   problems or questions concerning Carnage, you can contact Joe Carlson at
   the following email address:

            [e-mail]


---8<--------------------------------------------------------------------------

===============================================================================