.CATAPULT.
A SHAREWARE GAME BY JANET DEAN.
VERSION 1.3. JANUARY 1994.
REGISTER AND RECIEVE SOME GOODIES.
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GAME DESCRIPTION:
A one player practice or 2 player game,
featuring randomly generated feature
landcapes and shadowed mountain ranges
with backdrop of twinkling stars and
planets on a velvety black alien sky.
Warring tribes,armed with lethal,long
range, large catapults try to destroy
each other by landing a direct hit on
the opposing village.
To do this the correct trajectory for
the shot must be guessed. First the
angle, then the speed of the shot must
be entered into the'catapult computer'.
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BRIEF INSTRUCTIONS:
ANGLE? ENTER AN ANGLE. USUAL ANGLES I
USE ARE 45, 60, 80 ETC.
SPEED? TYPE IN SPEED. USUAL SPEEDS ARE
8 9 10 10.2 10.4 10.45 11 12 ETC.
DECIMAL NUMBERS ARE ALLOWED, BUT ARE
ONLY REALLY USED WITH THE SPEED.
BACKSPACE CAN BE USED TO CORRECT ANY
TYPING ERRORS.
PRESS RETURN AFTER ENTERING NUMBER.
ENTERING "Q" INSTEAD OF A NUMBER WILL
CAUSE A NEW LANDSCAPE GENERATION.
ENTERING "T" INSTEAD OF A NUMBER WILL
EXIT TO THE TITLES.
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TWO GAME STYLES ARE INCLUDED:
NORMAL PLAY, WERE BOTH SPEED AND ANGLE
NEED TO BE ENTERED.
FIXED ANGLE, WERE AN ANGLE IS RANDOMLY
GENERATED, AND ONLY THE SPEED NEEDS TO
BE INPUTTED.
CLICK ON THE CORRESPONDING GREEN FLASH
TO SELECT GAME TYPE AND CLICK EITHER
MOUSE BUTTON TO START.
THE FIRST PLAYER TO REACH A SCORE OF 5
WINS. THE WINNER IS CLEARLY INDICATED
BY THE COMPUTER.
PRESS SPACE TO EXIT AFTER A WIN.
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Catapult is a shareware game. Converted
and improved from the game of the same
name by G.Wheaton. That version I found
hidden within the Budgie game : ZENITH!
Apart from that version, I once saw an
Atari 8-bit version with the same title
That version drew a similar landscape
to this ST version, but took ten times
or more longer to draw it than does the
good old ST!
Still, it had similar gameplay and it
was fascinating to see the landscapes
randomly generated each time.
I decided to write a version that would
improve upon these two versions, after
seeing a couple of snowball fight games
recently released in the public domain.
These two were ok I suppose, but didn't
satisfy me. Mainly I didn't like their
method of entering the angle. Also you
didn't have to enter speed and could
fire at will, not in turn.
All these things, plus the colourless,
boring background and the need to plug
in a second joystick, made it so they
didn't really cut it for me and altered
the gameplay for the worse.
Still, they are free and probably a lot
of people like them.
This version has more of an educational
bias, helping youngsters understand the
basics of angles/speeds, ballistics etc
while still keeping them amused by the
destructive and competitive elements.
Shots are taken in turn, which gives a
little more fairness, though you can
take note of your opponents numbers and
see how far out they were, to help with
your own calculations. For this reason
the initial shot in a round is randomly
drawn.
Well, I hope you like my version of the
classic, warring factions theme.
If you keep it in your collection then
please register to the address given on
the title screen.
Bye. J.DEAN. JANUARY 1994.