Breakdance

Paranoia
			
		       (Think you can handle it ?)
				
				   of
				   
			  the Lunatic Asylum
			  
			        presents:
			        
     ______		       
    /___  /\                     __         __
   _\__/_/ /___  ____     ____  / /\__   __/ /\ ____  ____      ___  ____
  /___/_ \/ __/\/   /\  _/   /\/ /_/_/\_/   / _/   /\/ __/_  __/__/\/   /\
 _\__/ /\/ /\_\/_  /_/ /    / / __/_ \/    / /    / / /\/ /\/_/___\/_  /_/
/_____/ /_/ /  \/___/\/____/ /_/\/_/\/____/ /____/ /_/ /_/ /\/__/\ \/___/\
\_____\/\_\/    \___\/\____\/\_\/\_\/\____\/\____\/\_\/\_\/  \__\/  \___\/
-------------------------- The ultimate scene game -------------------pA---


Hello and welcome to BREAKDANCE.
Here comes some Craptalk.

1.) What the heck is this all about ?

Remember a company named Epyx ? In 1984 they released a game called
Breakdance for the C64, Atari XL, later the Spektrum, C16 and Amstrad.
It was a simple game, a bit like these "follow me" games that were
popular in the 80s.
I played this game for hours, although it was so simple. It was a bit
too simple, it never was very popular.
Now i decided to convert this simple game, but this time not just with
no name sprites, this time, it had to be characters from the active
Atari scene, people i already know or even have met, like Sage, Llama,
Grey, Mike or 505.
Even Tat appears as a guest star, but see for yourself ... 

2.) What does this game need ?
Patience and a good sense of humor. Usually a 1040 STE with 1 Megabyte
will do, a Falcon will work as well. A simple ST version will follow, but
so far i am not quite sure if it will then feature chipsound or a Module
as well.
So run this game on
- 1040 STE with 1 MB or more, harddisk installable, TV Set/Colour Monitor
- Mega STE with 1 MB or more, harddisk installable, TV Set/Colour Monitor
- Falcon030 with 1 MB or more, harddisk installable, RGB/VGA Monitor

You can play this game with 1,2,3,4,5 (or 6) players. Controls can be
configured to use :
- Keyboard
   Player one : Cursor up, down, left, right for the directions
                Insert as a fire button (Icon is the cursorblock)
   Player two : Left Shift is left, < is right, control is up,
                alternate is down, space is fire
                (icon is the left part of the keyboard)
- Joysticks
- PowerPads connected through the extended Ports.
Since the Mega STE doesn't feature these ports you're limited to 3/4 players.
Problem is that 2 players can't play with the keyboard at once.
Normal game mode is therefore restricted to 5 players, the second 
player using keyboard will just be banned, meaning, the one who was 
about to play with Left Shift, <, CTRL, ALT and SPACE will not be
taking part in a normal game.
6 players is only possible in competitive mode.

                                              
3.) What you have to pay for this game ...
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. This game is absolute Freeware and should
be copied as often as possible. A bit of feedback would be nice, but
is not a must. Anyhow, if you enjoy this game (and it CAN be fun to
play with 4 or more people), it would be nice if you somehow tell me.

4.) Let's get to it: The game itself.

4.1.) The title-sequence
After loading the game, you face the 5 heros of the game and 1 stupid
STOS programmer and in the bottom line you're being bored to death
with some craptalk. After a while, the characters are being introduced
and the host of this game appears, telling you how to play it.
Press SPACE or RETURN anytime to start the game.

4.2.) The selector screen
When you pressed space the screen clears and displays the selector
screen. Using the function keys one you can do the following changes
- Change controls (mainly WHICH device controls WHICH sprite)
- Change music (in case you don't like the original music)
- Number of players (more or less WHICH sprite is active and which is not)
- Game mode
- Start the game
- Leave the game

4.2.1.) Change controls
This is quite easy (like the rest of the game). Each of the 6 
available players will be given one control unit. So first Llama is
asking for a control unit, displayed by the ? icon below him. Press 
the fire button on the appropriate device to choose this control for 
him or RETURN to skip Llama. For example, you want LLama to be 
controlled by the PowerPad in Port B, so press any fire button on this 
device. Next Paranoid is given a control the same way, then Sage etc.
No control device can be given twice.
This way, you can assign all 6 players, but remember, the one you
give the second keyboard control (LSHIFT, CTRL, <, ALT, SPACE) will
be automatically deactivated in normal game mode and can only be
used in competitive mode.

4.2.2.) Change music
If you don't like Luebke's soundtrack, press F2 to load another one.
This function will simply browse through all the modfiles in the 
current directory, so if you want your mod being played there, just 
copy it into your Breakdance folder and press F2 until it is being 
played.
Be prepared that it may sound very very lame. I am using only 14 kHz 
on 8 MHz and 21 kHz on 16 MHz machines.
BTW, memory is being checked before loading, so 1 MB machines 
shouldn't crash.

4.2.3.) Number of players
You can deactivate players that feature a control unit additionally 
here, so your control setup is not being altered in any way.
Press 1 to 6 to activate/disactivate each player, press 0 to leave.
Players that do not have a control unit can't be activated.
This option is more or less additional so you don't have to assign
ALL controls again in case one of your players wants to quit.
You don't need it if you set up the controls like you want them
using the option Change controls.

4.2.4.) Game mode
There are 2 ways of playing, the normal mode and the competitive mode.
In the normal mode, Miss Atari dances and the other players have to 
follow, in the competitive mode, a player is selected by random to 
repeat the dance and add one move.
Default is normal, press F4 once to switch to competitive (it is being 
displayed in the menue) and F4 again to switch back to normal.
Remember that only 5 player can take part in the normal game and that
the second player using the keyboard - the one NOT using the cursor 
keys - will be banned.

4.2.5.) Start game
This actually starts the game.
Be warned.
It is very stupid.
And even worse, again, only 5 players can take part in a normal game,
the player using the left half of the keyboard will be banned.
Play the competitive game for 6 players. 

4.3.6.) Leave the game
Pressing F6 exits the game.
This may be a good alternative to the F5 key ... ;-)
        

4.3.) The game itself (Mode normal)
When the game starts, the scene-guys are being beamed away and beautiful
Miss Atari appears. She will now do one "Breakdance"-move.
The players then reappear and every player needs to follow that move by
moving the joystick up, left, down, right or pressing fire. After that,
Miss Atari reappears again and performs 2 moves.
The players will now again have to follow these 2 moves, of course in
the same sequence.
This repeats for quite a while and Miss Atari will always add one move
to the sequence, the players have to follow.
The player who does his moves fastest "wins" the round and is awarded
one point. If a player does NOT follow the correct sequence, his game
will be over. The game then continues until only one player is left.
Well, and that's all there is. This is "Breakdance". Play it with
several people, play it alone to train your memory, be quick, but not
too quick, the scene-fellows are usually lazy and don't move very quick.
By the way, the player who wins the round will be "underlined" by
the GO! key, so you know when you won the round.
( So at least ONE knows if his dance was the correct one ;-) )

4.4.) The game itself (Combat mode)
Well, this game is identical to the game above. But this time it's not
the computer who adds moves every round.
Each round, one player will be picked out by random who has to add one
move to the sequence.
This runs of course a bit different.
The computer chooses one player by random. This player then has to
dance the sequence as it was before and add one move he can choose
himself. The computer will NOT display if he did the dance correctly
before he added his own move.
Then another player will be chosen (or perhaps even the same ?!?), who
again will have to repeat the sequence as it was and add his own move.
This chosen player will be "underlined" by the GO! key.
If one player does not repeat the sequence correctly, he will be out
of the game, the rest of the players continue until only one player is
left.
There is no way of winning rounds of course, as only one player is
active each round.
In contrast to the normal game, this mode can actually be played by up 
to 6 people at once.

4.5.) Controlling the game
In normal mode, each round is introduced by Miss Atari, and her dance
cannot be "paused". 
The "players" screen doesn't need to be paused, there is no time limit.
At each time you can abort the game using the "ESC" key.
The player controls are
- Joystick port 1
- Joystick port 0 (where the mouse is plugged in usually)
- Keyboard -> Cursor keys up, down, left, right, Insert
- Keyboard -> The keys left SHIFT for left, < key for right, CTRL for up,
	      ALT for down and space as the fire button
- PowerPad in port A (the lower one)
- PowerPad in port B (the upper one)

4.6.) Game over
Each time a game is ended, that means, last player has failed somewhere,
a statistic is being updated. Each player receives the number of rounds
he has survived as points. So if you lose the first few games in early
rounds but then manage to survive an enourmous number of rounds, you
can still beat your opponents.
The bars show how long your "dance" was or rather how many moves each 
player could memorize. They are being added together so you can follow 
the progress through several games.
The number shows how many rounds each player has won. This score 
refers only to the game being over, not all played games in total.

4.7.) Technical details
The game has been written in STOS, using the Missing Link, the Ninja
Modplayer routine as well as Anthony Jacques' Falcon extension. 
Credits for these go to Top Notch Software and Tony Greenwood for
registering for me (Sad you left the Atari scene THIS way, Tony :-( ,
Les Greenhalgh and NEWLine for the Modplayer and Anthony Jacques of
course.
The code has been patched to run on several TOS-Version, so you shouldn't
have any problems.
I hope this will be the last game i completely write in STOS although i
also have planned two projects i plan to do with Mr. Future, TNT and
Luebke.

4.8.) Credits and Craptalk
I am not very proud of this game, anyone could have done it better in
GFA or Omikron Basic (Hi to Mr.Ni! of TOS Crew). Let's name some people
in this project though:
- Graphics: The Paranoid with a little help from Strange
- Music: Luebke and MC Laser (tSCc)
- Code : The Paranoid
- Help : TNT, Luebke, Marcstar and Mad Butscher of Foundation Two

4.9.) Bug report
The normal mode should run fine, thanks to TNT, dem Komtur, Kai
and Stefan. The competetive mode has been written on Thursday the
29th at around 11 o'clock PM meaning : I haven't had the time to
beta-test it properly, but it seems to work fine.
If you run into any bugs, please send them to me via eMail or
snail mail, contact address given below.
On the Falcon however, some minor troubles occur.
The player using joystick in port 0 (where the mouse normally is) can 
suffer from an internal STOS problem. If the sprite of this player 
does not react at all, reboot your machine. This shouldn't happen, but 
since this problem is so deep within STOS, i haven't had the time to 
work around it.
Furthermore the Falcon may stop drawing the bars displaying the length 
of your memory in the game over screen out of thin air. Neither i nor
Anthony Jacques (STOS Falcon expert) know why this actually happens -
but it definetly happens. I haven't had the time to figure this out 
yet, if i have some spare time i might recode the routine so bars get 
properly displayed all the time.


4.10.) Offical craptalk
If your machine explodes running this program, i and no one of 
Paranoia can be held responsible.
If you die laughing because of this lame code and gamedesign, we will 
not pay for funeral and all this gear.
This game should be copied to anyone who wants a copy and anyone who 
doesn't want a copy either.
This only counts for Atari owners. This game should be sold to PC 
owners for as much money as you can make out of it. Send me half of 
THAT money.
And as usual, i take absolutely no warranties to whatever damage may 
occur to you, your computer, your peripheral hardware, your software, 
your car, your brain, your TV set or whatever.


5.) Why the heck did this puny little game take so long ?
Easy. The sprites were smaller but very well animated in the first
version we planned. Then i had the idea to use people from the scene
instead of simple sprites and also to make them bigger.
Strange couldn't help anymore and Luebke also moved to another town,
which took lots of his time.
So the first date of release, the QuaST party in Poland, August 7-9th
1998, was not to be kept anymore.
After that, i slowed down a little and also went on vacation to rest
my tired bones for a while.
Now i'm on the job again, but i am also doing the graphics for Earx
(FUN) newest game, Neurobotics 2, along with Rich Davey from Fatal
Design, so i am also taking part in another project.

6.) Thanks to the following people
- Marcstar for joining me at the GigaFUN
- Mad Butscher (Foundation Two) and MC Laser (tSCc) for coming to
  the GigaFUN as well
- Grey of Mystic Bytes for being Grey of Mystic Bytes
- 505 for sending me a postcard for STEtris
- ST Survivor and Thyrex for some nice chats on the GigaFUN
- Adrenaline for company and a few jokes at the GigaFUN
- Olivier Heissler for a description how to find McDonalds in Strasbourg
- Senser for changing the topic of IRC #atariscne at my request ;-)
- TNT, Kai Kllmer, Stefan Rauch, Lbke and dem Komtur for beta 
  testing.
- Evil of DHS, 505 of Checkpoint (again), ph3n0 of Teenage for 
  checking the current version for STE bugs and comments about the 
  menu

7.) Greetings
First Megagreetings of course go to all people of the Lunatic Asylum:
Deez and The Viking of MinD Design
ST Survivor and Thyrex of LouD!
Luebke, TNT, Marcstar and Der Komtur of Paranoia.

I will try to greet several groups in - i hope - alphabetic order:

Absence - ACF Design team - Adrenaline - Aura - Avena - Checkpoint - Cobra -
Cream - Dead Hackers Society - D-Bug - EKO - Elite - Escape - EXA -
Fatal Design - Foundation Two - FUN - ICE - Idemline - Impulse - Inter - 
Maggie Team - MJJ Prod - Mystic Bytes - NEWLine - Poets of Decay - RDT - 
Reservoir Gods - Sector One - Senior Dads - Sentry - STAX - ST Knights - 
Syntax - .tSCc. - TNH - Trio - Typhoon - Vectronix - Wildfire - Yes Crew -

8.) What the future brings
Well, Paranoia is going to stay here for sure.
Although Paranoia is mainly a "Multi-Platform"-group, our products are
mainly going to be for Atari ST, STE and Falcon computers. TNT is
on Amiga, but mainly uses it for Raytracing, Luebke is on Apple PowerMac
and also codes a game, so all you MagicMac users, watch out ! Strange
is currently "idle", we'll see if he returns when he has his new job.
Marcstar is very passive, too, but as a student with an additional
Full-time job, you're pretty bad off. He joined just for the fun of it
anyhow. Der Komtur does not code at all, but he's damn good at
organising things, so be on the lookout ... ;-)

I decided to DROP THE IDEA of writing a worms clone named "The Bang!uins".
Since both Sage of Escape and Deez of Mind Design are currently coding
something similar on the Falcon 030, i decided not to try, too.
Since i am also learning 68k Assembler (as well as C) there might be
not much time to engage on larger projects, but i will concentrate
on the following games:

- Neurobotics 2 : Just doing graphics with Rich Davey for it
- a 24 hours game on our small miniature party Nov 21st and 22nd.
- Cartoon Network games
  ( Have a look on Windows PCs or Apple Macintoshs and download them
    at www.cartoon-network.co.uk - They are simple, but cute )
  - Dee Dee's Dexterdoll
  - Dee Dee's dodgeball
  - Scooby's haunted kitchen
  - Cow and Chicken's there's milk in your eye
  ( These will all be ST and upwards )

Okay, that's all for now. Enjoy this simple game, stay with Atari
and see you soon !


9.) Contact addresses

The Paranoid
Oliver Heun
App.1012
Max Hufschmidtstrasse 15
55130 Mainz
Germany

eMail : paranoid@cyberstrider.org
phone : You better not call me, it's expensive.
www   : paranoia.atari.org     or if that's too slow
        paranoia.cyberstrider.org
IRC   : _Paranoid on channel #atariscne



Signing off.



						The Paranoid
				Paranoia (from The Lunatic Asylum)

                  cetero censeo et Micro$oft esse delendam