Game Killer/Game_Killer.bin/136.PG.TXT

Text File | 1992-04-15 | 13KB | 246 lines

PIRATES! GOLD SPEC SHEET

Here is the spec sheet for Pirates! Gold.  The features listed
are _tentative_ at this time.

Article III: Enhancements to Pirates Gold, IBM version

15 April 1992


Environment
* DOS resident. Must be played from hard-drive.
* VGA graphics. High-resolution, 256 colors. CGA, EGA, Tandy,
  unsupported.
* Roland, Sound Blaster, AdLib sound drivers supported. IBM
  speaker for sound-effects. Some digitized sounds.
* Mouse, joystick, and keyboard input devices supported.

Art
* High-resolution VGA graphics.
* All new pictures and animations. All new opening and closing
  sequences.
* Animation to be in high-res VGA, in as many colors as is
  practicable: 256 if possible, 16 if necessary.

Map
* Strategic map in high-res VGA. Map makeup (rendered or
  character set) to be determined by programmer and artists.
* Map is interactive and changes as game progresses. City icons
  appear and change as player learns more about city. For example,
  if player sacks a city, city's map icon changes to a burning city
  icon until city is rebuilt. Nationality flags appear next to
  known cities, and change as city's nationality changes.
* Additional cities to be added to map: from five to 20. Not all
  of these cities will be in play at one time. If feasible, some of
  the new cities will be new types: native villages and/or free
  (pirate) cities.

Ship Movement on Strategic Map
* Ship movement on strategic map is identical with current
  movement, with following exceptions:
* Accelerated Time: Player may press "Alt-T" or some other key
  combination to speed-up the passage of time and the ship's
  movement. All phenomena in the game would have to speed up, as
  well (weather, encounters, and so forth). When ship has an
  encounter, accelerated time turns off automatically, otherwise
  the player toggles it on and off at his convenience.
* Landing. When ship bumps into land, there's a two-second delay
  before crew disembarks. If player moves ship away from land
  during that period, crew doesn't disembark. (This feature will
  cut down on the number of accidental disembarkations.)
* Cargo and ship scuttling: The pirate will be able to abandon
  ships and cargo during sailing. This is useful when the pirate
  has more ships than he can crew comfortably, and when one or more
  of his ships is slow and/or damaged.
* Sun Sight: this will be deleted.
* Weather: Hurricanes will periodically wander into and through
  Caribbean. The pirate will have to run before the hurricane or
  find a port in which to weather the storm. If the pirate is
  caught in the hurricane, he runs great risk of losing all his
  ships and getting shipwrecked on a desert island for several
  months.

Ship-to-Ship Combat
* Convoys: Pirate will occasionally encounter convoys of ships.
  These will be a number of weak, unarmed cargo ships, guarded by
  one powerful vessel. The convoy sequence will run as follows:
  "Sail Ho!" If pirate investigates, next message is: "I count x
  cargo ships, Captain, and one galleon!" If pirate investigates
  again, he'll learn the ships' nationality. If pirate attacks,
  he'll get the message: "The cargo ships scatter across the ocean
  as the galleon comes out to meet you." The battle proceeds as
  normal.
  If the pirate is victorious, a die is rolled. Depending upon
  the difficulty level and how long the battle took, the pirate
  will overtake some, none, or all of the unarmed cargo vessels.
  This should be an unusual event; possibly as few as one out of 10
  encounters should be convoys. The escort ship should be powerful
  and smart and the rewards should be great.
* In battle, player will have the option of taking a ranging shot
  -- that is, he may fire off one of his cannon to find out where
  his shot will land. This will reduce the strength of his
  subsequent broadside by one; the ranging shot will not be
  reloaded until after the broadside is fired (or the player fires
  off his entire complement of cannon in ranging shots). Note that
  ranging shots don't do any damage to the enemy vessel. There is a
  slight chance, however, that the enemy vessel will surrender if
  it is heavily outgunned and the ranging shot crosses its bows.
* Terrain: When the pirate's ship goes into combat, the program
  will check to see how close the ship is to land, shoals, cities,
  etc. If any of these are in likely range of the battle, they'll
  be placed on the battle map. Ships may then attempt to make use
  of this terrain in the battle -- i.e., light-draft vessels will
  cut across shoals, hoping to cause heavier pursuers to run
  aground; ships near to a friendly port will run for it, hoping to
  draw protection from its guns, etc. This will necessitate
  significant adjustment to the artificial intelligence of the
  enemy ships.
* Weather: The weather in battle will reflect that which was
  current when the battle began: if the pirate's ship was quite
  near to a cloud, the storm will pass over the ships during the
  battle. This will increase the windspeed and decrease the
  effectiveness of cannon-fire (aiming is more difficult, and it
  takes much longer to reload, on a storm-tossed vessel). Ships
  with leaking hulls may sink.
* Battle Information: As much information as possible will be
  displayed graphically, through icons, as well as through straight
  text. Small portraits of the two combatant ships appear on the
  bottom of the battle screen. Portraits display the following:
  sail status, i.e., battle sails, full sails, or masts down; hull
  damage; guns loaded or unloaded (gunports open or closed). Wind
  direction should be shown by a weather-vane in the corner of the
  screen. Crew number could be shown by number of icons next to the
  ships' portraits.
* Victory: The player will see a screen displaying his current
  ships, their sailing condition, his cannon, crew, and cargo, and
  the prize's condition and cargo. He'll have all of this in front
  of him before he must decide whether to take the captured ship as
  a prize or scuttle her, what cargo to take and what to leave
  behind, whether to accept volunteers from the defeated crew and
  so forth.

City
* City menu to be replaced by graphic map of town. Map to show flag
  of city plus buildings representing locations. To go to the
  merchant, for instance, player would click on the building
  labeled "Ye Merchante's Shoppe" or the like.
* The locations themselves have changed from current game:
  Tavern, Governor's mansion, and merchant have lost some functions
  to new locations. The following locations have been added:
  Shipwright: pirate repairs ships and sells excess ships. Docks:
  pirate leaves town and returns to ship. City gates: pirate leaves
  town if he arrived by land. Bank: pirate divides treasure. Inn:
  save game. Town crier/newspaper office: pirate learns information
  and reviews his personal and crew's status.
* Map is mildly interactive. For example: if pirate came into the
  city by land, the docks location is inactive, and possibly
  removed from the map; if pirate cannot meet with governor, gates
  to governor's mansion are closed; etc.

Land Battle
* Scale to be reduced slightly, to allow larger tactical area.
* General unit control: Player will have a cursor on the screen.
  To activate a unit, he clicks on the unit. He then gives orders
  to that unit (move here, shoot these guys, etc.), by putting the
  cursor where he wants the unit to go or shoot, then clicking
  again. He might be able to give orders to multiple units via
  held-clicks.
* Musket fire controls altered. Currently, pirates attack
  w/muskets when they're stationary and player doesn't touch the
  controls. Instead, player will have choice of when and where to
  fire. Player will also have to give the pirates a "reload"
  command once they've fired. This will cause the pirates to become
  immobile for a certain period of time. If the player chooses to
  move these pirates before they have a chance to complete their
  reload, they must start all over from the beginning.
* Melee fire controls altered. Player will click on a unit and
  then the target; the unit will charge target and hack at it until
  the target runs away, its morale is broken, or the player gives
  it different orders.
* These changes should make little difference in the outcome of
  the battles -- they are mostly cosmetic, giving the player the
  appearance of more control. However, they may necessitate an
  adjustment of the power and/or artificial intelligence of the
  opponents to maintain play balance.

Treasure
* When he divides the plunder, the pirate will put his share into
  his "secret treasure cave." This will be a static picture of an
  empty cave; as the pirate puts booty there, it will gradually be
  filled-up with gold, gems, encrusted items, swords, etc.

Swordfighting
* The sword-fighting sequence will be enhanced so that the player
  has more control over his character. The command buffer will be
  altered or removed, so the pirate's figure will respond more
  quickly to commands.
* There will be additional figures in each animation sequence, so
  each character's movement will be smoother.
* The player will have the option to attack high, medium or low,
  or feint and attack high, medium or low. The feint attack will
  have a better chance of getting through, but will do less damage.
* There will be some kind of new ending sequence for swordfights:
  possibly, the victor will disarm the vanquished, sending his
  sword out of the screen. The vanquished will be left standing,
  hands in the air, instead of kneeling.
* There will be (if art-time permits) animations of three
  different opponents for the pirate to face: Spanish guard,
  Captain, and Pirate. In addition, if time permits, the pirate
  will be shown with three different swords: cutlass, rapier,
  longsword. Pirate's shirt may change color over the course of the
  game, as well, as he gains in fame and wealth.
* Like the ship battle sequence, the game information in the
  swordfighting sequence will be displayed in both text and art.
  There will be portraits of the two combatants below the fighting
  figures themselves; these portraits will show the expression of
  the fighters: enraged, panicked, etc. The portraits' shirts may
  become slashed as the battle progresses and the fighters take
  wounds (if this isn't too tacky). Alongside the portraits will
  appear icons representing the number of troops each fighter has.

Roleplaying
* Additional roleplaying missions will be added. If the pirate
  gets married, his wife may be kidnapped. If there is a famine in
  a port of the pirate's nationality, he may be asked to take food
  to that port.

Information Retrieval
* Improve information sequence, making it easier for player to
  find what's going on. Screen should be split into multiple text
  boxes, one showing current political info (France is at war with
  Spain, Dutch at war with English), one showing current personal
  info (Don Luego spotted in Cartagena), and one showing current
  missions (Carrying secret letter for Governor of Belize's brother
  in Havana).
* Record feature. Under pirate's diary in information screen,
  pirate can find a listing of all actions he's taken during the
  game: every battle, casualties on both sides, etc. This currently
  exists in the game, but it only keeps track of the last 10 or so
  things the pirate does. Pirate should be able to scroll through
  page after page of diary.

Economy
* Apparently, there's a flaw in the city economy algorithm. If
  the pirate doesn't pillage a city for a very long time, it will
  become obscenely wealthy. This must be corrected.

Reward Sequence
* Player will be able to view all of his honors and awards
  simultaneously (probably from his cabin in his ship). He'll see a
  scroll saying "Ensign in the Spanish Navy"; if he is promoted to
  captain, the scroll will be overlaid with one bearing his new
  rank. If he has awards from different nationalities, all will be
  viewable here. The pirate should also be able to look at "Wanted"
  posters of himself from the various nationalities.
* Retirement Screen: a static shot showing the pirate sailing off
  into the sunset. His retirement status determines the vessel-type
  he's sailing in, from a leaky rowboat to a fleet of galleons.
* Treasure Cavern: Pirate's personal wealth is determined by the
  amount he's deposited in his treasure cavern (see above). Cash
  he's taken in battle earns him nothing until he divides the
  treasure.

Forwarded by -Quentin, MPS Labs, MicroProse
Copyrighted 1992 By MicroProse Software, Inc.