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MegaBall2.1.DOC
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1992-09-20
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INSTRUCTIONS are below the version info, in case you haven't read them.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPGRADES: If you are a registered user of a previous version of
MegaBall, you may upgrade to the 2.1 board editor
for $5 (five US dollars).
I will try and notify all my registered users of this via US mail.
However, since my mailing list is several hundred names long, you
may be reading this message before you get the announcement in the
mail. If so, and you want an upgrade, you can just send the $5 and
be sure to write "UPGRADE" somewhere so I know to look in the
previously-registered users list for your name.
People who have not previously bought the Board Editor from me may
purchase the MegaBall 2.1 Board Editor for $15 (fifteen US dollars).
This is the same price the Board Editor has always been for unregistered
users.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 2.1 note: 9/20/92
This is the first version of MegaBall to be released since I got my
new Amiga 3000. I have to thank a few hundred registered users of
previous versions of MegaBall for helping me afford this new
hardware. I have improved some parts of the MegaBall game to
work better on the 3000, without losing 1.3 compatability.
Here they are:
* Invisible ball finally fixed.
* Music code modified -- should not skip notes on fast machines now.
* Board Editor no longer messes up the display with too-large fonts
under WB 2.0.
* The ball still jitters a bit under 2.0 sometimes. Try removing
commodities and other things from the input stream. Unfortunately
there is no way I can really fix this for MegaBall. Games I make
in the future will have NO hardware sprites, you can be sure.
* Paddle crashing through wall bug during overscan fixed. However, there
is also a "bug" where on systems that used to have the paddle-thru-wall
bug, clicking the left mouse button too far to the right would pause
the game. This is because intuition is letting you click outside the
screen -- MegaBall gets a message that the user has started using
some other program, so it pauses.
This is likely to happen if you have an overscanned WB 1.3 screen,
or if your overscanned WB 2.x screen is visible somewhere. It is
just the way the OS works. If it happens to you, then don't use
the left mouse button! The right mouse button and the left mouse
button have precicely the same functions in MegaBall. So if the
left is causing the game to pause at unwanted moments, use the right!
* A certain form of cheating (without using the cheat keys) has been
brought to my attention. Some people would pause the game as the
ball was coming down, think about where it was going to land,
position the mouse pointer over that spot, and continue the game.
These people are in for a suprise.
* The paddle is a bit more responsive this version. I tried to
accellerate it just a bit, without losing that MegaBall "feel."
* The default board set has changed. There are 50 new boards!
* Quicksand has changed. Muhahahha.
* Because of the above two changes, the name of the high score file
has changed from MegaBall.scores to MegaBall2.scores. This will
have the effect of reseting most people's high score list for the
default board set. The original boards can be found in a file
in the Boards subdir called "TheOriginal.BDS". If you want to put
your old high score list on this file, you should open a CLI,
and type something like the following:
cd dh0:games/megaball ;or wherever you have MegaBall installed
copy MegaBall.scores Boards/TheOriginal.BDS.scr
A lot of people asked me how to reset a high score list. All you
have to do is delete or rename whatever file contains the scores.
All MegaBall score files are compatible; the format has not
changed.
* Funny colors in top-left corner fixed.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 2.00 note:
* Now with full file requesters via the req.library!
Special thanks also go to Ron Schlosser for sending me a disk with the
req.library and its programmer's documentation, making custom board files
MUCH easier to load. Probably only registered users will ever need this,
because only they can make custom boards. So the game can run just fine
with or without this library. You just get a stupid filename entering
mechanism without the req.library.
* SHOW-THRU BALL FIXED. The ball used to show through to all screens
when multitasking. Not any more...
* PAUSE & SEND TO BACK. The ESC and P keys have always been pause keys,
but now there is a third: The B key not only pauses the game, but sends
the game screen to the back. This is useful for WB 1.3 users who cannot
flip through all the screens like you can with WB 2.0 or with a neat
program called Flip2 (by Timm Martin and Mike Monaco).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 1.20 note: CHIP BARRIER BROKEN!!! YEAH!!!!
Four out of five songs can now be loaded on any 1 Meg machine (I think).
All five songs can now be loaded on a machine with 512K CHIP RAM and
MORE than 512K of FAST RAM. But if you only have 512K of CHIP, try not
to multitask very much... MegaBall still takes LOTS of CHIP...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 1.1x never existed for some reason.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 1.01 note: I fixed a bug in the sound effect routine that caused
MegaBall to sometimes crash the computer by writing to low memory.
Thanx to Alex Matulich for helping me find and stomp this bug!
NOTHING else has changed, i.e., no new buttons or features since the first
MegaBall release.
--Ed.
Here's the DOCs from the original MegaBall release:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
******** >>>> GAME INSTRUCTIONS <<<< ********
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
HI! Welcome to MEGABALL! I finally changed the name from BALL
to something at least a little better. Well, the last version (which
was called BALL) (I think I just said that) was released as public
domain. But, THIS version (MegaBall) is shareware. So, if you
send me a small fee (the amount is given in the scrolltext on the
main screen), I will send you a very powerful, easy-to-handle board
editor so you can create your own boards and play them. Also I will
include with the board editor some boards I made that I consider to
be better than the boards that come with the game itself. And I will
of course inform users of any new versions if/when they come out. I do
request that people do not spread the board editor. But, you CAN spread
the game itself, so SPREAD IT ALL AROUND, OK?! Wait! I haven't even
told you what it is yet! It's a clone of Arkanoid, sort of. BUT, before
you start groaning and moaning about how many cheap-o clones of Arkanoid
there are out there already, let me tell you that this is NOT a cheap-o
version. Why? Er... Um... Well, YOU play it, and YOU'LL find out for
yourself!
>>>> NOT YET!!!! <<<<
Before you play this, you MUST know these keys!:
SHIFT-Q : Eventually, you will have a game that gets off to a bad start
and you want to abort. So be sure to remember about the
SHIFT-Q key which aborts your game. In two-player mode, it
only aborts the current player's game.
(Also this key makes a really neat sound effect).
DEL : This key kills the current life WITHOUT killing all the remaining
lives like SHIFT-Q. Why you would need this is beyond me,
because I think I've fixed that nasty bug where the ball gets
trapped in a loop (YAY!). If you think your ball is looping,
press a mouse button, and let it go through the loop once or
twice. If it's really a loop it should break out...
(**** NEW FEATURE ****)
P or ESC: Pressing either P or the ESC key puts you in PAUSE MODE! This
is very useful!! Press a mouse button to leave PAUSE MODE.
B : Added as of version 2.0. This is just like P and ESC except that
it sends the MegaBall screen behind all other screens, making
it somewhat easier to multitask.
The CHEAT KEYS: I'm not telling you!!
>> BEFORE THE GAME: <<
At the Main Title Screen, you may press:
A mouse button to play a ONE-player game
The number 2 key to play a TWO-player game
SHIFT-Q to exit the program.
The C key to continue previous game. (**** NEW FEATURE ****)
>> HOW TO PLAY THE GAME: <<
OK. You all know how to play an Arkanoid clone, right? I don't have to
explain that you have a paddle and a ball and you must bounce the ball
into some blocks to score points, right? And I certainly don't need to
mention that if you let the ball miss the paddle and drop off the screen
you will die, right? And I also don't need to explain about how little
bonuses can drift down from the blocks and if they touch your paddle they
can do anything from giving you free lives to blowing you up, depending
on the little pictures on the bonuses as they are drifting down, right?
Good. I was afraid I'd have to put a lengthy explanation here!
>> MOUSE CONTROLS DURING THE GAME: <<
Let's do this C= style!:
If you move the mouse left, your paddle moves left!
If you move the mouse right, your paddle moves right!!
For pin-out diagrams of the mouse port, check the Technical Reference
Section!!
Long live C= Instruction Manuals!!
By the way, sometimes the ball "sticks" to your paddle. A small blue
force-field appears to hold the ball in place. You can press a mouse
button to release it. Also, if you get Lasers (one of the bonuses),
you use the mouse button to fire them. You may have Lasers and Catch
at the same time, and in this case, the same press of the mouse button
can both fire the lasers and release the ball. Both the left and right
mouse buttons have the same effect. - -
O O
>> SOUND: << )
\_/
Awesome! Crank it up!! :-)
>> MUSIC << (**** NEW FEATURE ****)
There are now FIVE NoiseTracker music modules in the game. (There used
to be none.) But, because of the music player I got (copyright info
in the scroll with the rest) all of the songs must load into CHIP RAM.
How lame. How REALLY lame. I'd really love to fix this. But I'm a
little foggy on the details of how to buffer FAST RAM into CHIP RAM for
instrument playing. So, if you have an older Agnus, you probably won't
be able to get all the songs. But, if you have one Meg of CHIP, you
should be able to get just about all, and if you have any FAST in addition
to the Meg of CHIP you should get all 5 no problem. The game will tell
you how many it was able to load.
ALSO: If you catch the little bonus with the notes on it, music will
start to play during the game. This cuts off sound effects,
which makes it a little bit harder, which means you get one extra
point per block hit while the music is on. So it's good to have
the music on when possible!
>> GURU ALERT: <<
I really think I fixed this. But still report any bugs you find...
>> ADDICTION ALERT: << (**** NEW FEATURE ****) (Not really...)
I didn't put this in the docs for BALL because I thought it was too
egotistical. But a few users have sent me mail saying that the next
version should definitely have a warning. So here it is:
WARNING: You might get addicted to this game.
There. Short, simple, and to the point. Don't say I didn't warn you...
Various methods of communicating with me:
With InterNet: elm4@lehigh.edu (this account closes June '93)
By BBS: Call Somerton Telecomm BBS, near Philly, PA, (215) 464-6775.
By US mail: Ed Mackey (this box will be valid for many years)
P.O. Box 475
Wayne, PA 19087
In previous versions, I also had my address at Lehigh University here.
However, I do NOT want people to send stuff to that address while I
might be on Summer vacation or Christmas break or whatever, so I
took it out.
My brother, Al Mackey, did the music and most of the graphics for
this game. He is now going to Rider college, and can be reached
via email:
Internet: MACKEY@enigma.rider.edu
Bitnet: MACKEY@RIDER.BITNET
Of course he also reads most of the letters I get in the PO Box.
>> MOST IMPORTANT INSTRUCTION IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD: <<
Have fun!
--Ed.