APC & TCP 4/APC & TCP 4.iso/games/publicdomain/r/revenge/revenge.readme

Text File | 1992-09-16 | 33KB | 733 lines

*** This program is Shareware. Fee is five pounds. Details of
    registration benefits follow. Please send registration fees to:

    LLAMASOFT, 49 Mount Pleasant, Tadley, Hants RG26 6BN.



Greetings, chipheads!

Welcome to the latest Llamasoft shareware release: Revenge of
the Mutant Camels.  I hope you enjoy it as much as Llamatron.
It's a different kind of game but I hope you'll like it just
as much.

Good news for Amiga owners: your version of Revenge is bigger
and more choclatey than the ST versions! When I did Llamatron,
the Amiga version came out slower and not quite as polished
as the ST version.  Amiga Revenge is much better than its ST
counterpart, partly because the speed gain from using the Blitter
is much greater where large objects are being moved, and partly
because, as I promised in the readme on Llamatron, I took extra
time out to use the Amiga hardware.  For the techie freaks
amongst you, the main things I did were as follows:

Firstly, both the main character sprites were implemented using
the Amiga's hardware sprites, which has the double benefit
of ensuring that your camel and goat always move at 50Hz and
also taking a big load off the CPU at draw time. Next, the logical
screen has been made wider than the visible screen, obviating
the need for horizontal clipping of sprites - more CPU time
saved.  Collision-detection has been improved which helps
overall playability, as does the improved frame update rate
you get as a result of all that CPU time saved.  For the same
reason you get better firepower - extra bullets onscreen. You
also get pretty raster horizons and a scroller with bigger
and more detailed objects.  512K Ami owners don't lose out
on any smoothness or graphic details on their version - the
only difference between the 512K and 1M versions is in the
quality and number of sound samples.

So all you Amites can look down and sneer at those poor ST
owners and know that your camels are better than their
camels.  But don't get too cocky - you might meet a TT owner.
Their version is awesome.


Next some information about the release.  We're trying some
fine tuning of the Shareware procedure, and I'd like to tell
you how it works this time, and exactly why.

Amiga Revenge exists in 4 versions. One of the pleasures of shareware
is that as you're not releasing a single disk in large quantities,
you can do lots of different versions of your game.  Revenge
comes in the 512K, 1Meg, 512K/NTSC and 1Meg/NTSC flavours. We
ask that libraries, networks and whoever distribute only the
512K version.  That way, we can offer (as an incentive to register)
special versions for specific machines.  You see, we can't always
provide two different games for the registration fee - I'm the
only programmer and I'm already working flat out - but we like to
offer some benefit to those who register.  So, if the 512K version
is widely distributed, people will be inclined to register to
get a version for their machine.  We're not going to any lengths to
enforce this; in the shareware tradition we'll leave that up to
the honesty of libraries and networks.  We thank you for your
co-operation.

The deal this time is as follows:  If you register Revenge you
can ask for any of the following titles:

 Revenge (512 version)
 Revenge (1Meg version)
 Revenge (512/NTSC version)
 Revenge (1Meg/NTSC version)
 Llamatron
 Gridrunner

or, you can get a special deal and have the Amiga version of
Trip-A-Tron for ten pounds (five pounds off the usual price).

Please state clearly that you want an Amiga version.  We will also
provide you with one of our classic Llamasoft posters from the
pre-Software Empire days, featuring artwork by Steinar Lund,
an awesome dude with an airbrush who vanished out of our price
range awhile back.

You can register via conventional means or by credit card (Visa,
Master Card/Access) which is handy for those registering from
overseas.  We can be reached by phone on (UK) 0734-81-4478, our
address is 49, Mount Pleasant, Tadley, Hants RG26 6BN (UK).

Please help us by spreading the 512K version along with this
README file, and forbear from distributing the other versions.


Now.

I'm going to include a bit from the Llamatron doc file here.
It's the bit where the whole Shareware idea is explained. A lot
of you will have read it before and you can skip on to the
Revenge-specific bit after.  Those who haven't, take the time
to read the explanation. You may think that we're crazy to give
away complete games for no money.  Read the explanation and find
out exactly why we've adopted the Shareware procedure.


SHAREWARE:  WHAT, HOW, WHY....

All commercial games are designed for a theoretical entity known as Darren.
Darren is a spotty 14-year-old male who doesn't get on that well with
people, so he spends all his time in his bedroom playing games on his
computer. Darren is easily impressed by graphics and music, and he
doesn't really want to learn anything really tricky - as long as it
has Ninja Hampsters in and works with a Kempston, that's OK. Somehow
he can persuade his Dad to fork out 25 quid once every few weeks for
the latest version of R-Type with different graphics on his Amiga,
don't ask me how. Either that or he waits and hits up his mate Wayne for
a pirate version in a couple of weeks' time.

Consequently, it has become much harder for programmers to retain
their creative integrity and earn a living too.  It is virtually impossible
for a small independant developer to get games out to the people
without first hooking in to one of the larger companies for distribution
and advertising, and those larger companies tend to want stuff that's
very normal, spaceship-and-alien stuff, no llamas please and not too
weird.

However, with popular disk-based machines, the idea of Public Domain
programs has really come into its own. PD libraries give access to
a large amount of free software.  PD is usually sub-commercial stuff,
often good utilities but without the 'polish' of commercial
versions.

It would be nice to use the existing PD libraries to distribute software
to anyone who is interested, and make a bit of money too - and that
is where Shareware comes in.

The principle of Shareware is simple. The game is distributed by the
PD libraries, by uploading onto BBSes and giving copies away. Users can
get a complete version of the game just for the price of the media,
and then take it home and play it. If the user likes the game, he
sends the author a Shareware fee.  Usually, the author will send
back a few goodies (as an incentive to register) and, if enough people
send in the dosh to make it worthwhile, he may do more Shareware stuff.

Naturally you don't have to pay anything if you don't like the game.
Of course a lot of people might like the game and decide not to pay,
but if too many people do that then nobody will ever bother doing any
decent Shareware at all, and it's back to Darren's 25 quid games.
So, it's down to the users - if they're honest, then programmers will
be more inclined to work hard on Shareware releases.

The idea of Shareware is very idealistic, perhaps impracticably so,
but the advantages over the conventional videogame market are so
enormous that I thought it had to be tried, at least once.  The response
from this experiment will determine whether or not Llamasoft release
any more shareware.

Advantages of Shareware:

1- It is a totally honest way of selling. All users can try the game
and only those who get hooked are morally obliged to pay the fee.
Nobody is disappointed or feels ripped-off.

2- There are no constraints on creativity. No-one says 'we cannot
publish this because it ain't mainstream'. Programmers do what the
hell they like and the users vote with their Shareware fees.

3- Anyone can play. The mechanism of distribution is already in
place in the form of PD libraries. All the originator has to provide
is a disk to each of the PD libraries with game and documentation.
So if you have good stuff it doesn't matter if you aren't signed