Crackman in the search for his dealer
betarelease 1.46
a game by TNH
[TNH]
TNH, pronounce Teenage, consist of:
Phenomenon, coder,
TiNKer, graphic artist / musician / designer / lazy,
AntiLamah, musician / imaginary member.
See below for addresses.
[About Crackman]
Crackman is yet another game based upon the legendary 'Pacman', though this
clone has, unlike others, some extra features to keep your eyes aimed at
your monitor. Ermm, hopefully, that is. The game is still under development,
and this is the LAST beta release.
[GetPhenomenonAFalconWare(TM)]
The betas of Crackman were originally being released as HitWare(TM), but
although there were several hits on our page, hardly anyone signed the
guestbook. So now we changed our friendly policy! I (Phenomenon) still want
to have a Falcon, if you play this game, send your Falcons to the following
address:
GetPhenomenonAFalcon HQ
123 Lamer Street
1288 AX Lamersfoort
Nah.
[The story of Crackman]
Ezekiel 25:17.
"The path of the righteous man is beset on
all sides by the inequities of the selfish and
the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the
name of charity and good will, shepherds the
weak through the valley of darkness, for he is
truly his brother's keeper and the finder
of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee
with great vengeance and furious anger those
who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers.
And you will know my name is the Lord
when I lay my vengeance upon you."
(From Pulp Fiction, 1994)
After a few years of enormous success, Pacman discovered the different
aspects of life...
His money didn't make him feel happy anymore, and he wanted to have some
excitement in his life. He decided to sell his cheesy appartment in Sillicon
Valley, and after two years of moving around different places throughout the
world, he finally settled in this relatively small town called Amsterdam.
He lived there happily for three years, got married and made lots of new
friends, when one day, when he was walking through the streets of the
red-light district, his appartment was broken into. When he came home, he
was shocked.
Not by the fact that his house was ruined, though. No, money wasn't the big
issue here. It was his wife, MS. P. who was lying there, in the kitchen. But
they found parts of her in the livingroom, too. The case still remains to be
solved. 'I'm sorry', said the doctor. There's nothing left for us to do.'
These were the words that changed the course of life for a once famous game
star.
First there was the alcohol. Litteraly litres where consumed each day by
our yellow hero. And then, on a sunday afternoon, drugs also became a part
of his life. He got addicted to it as rapidly as the youth did back in the
eighties with 'Pacman'. He bought his drugs from Peter ver Dovend, the local
dealer, who was selling 100 milligrams of crack for the same price as a
happy-meal. Pacman loved his crack, and it weren't the Resevoir Gods this
time to come up with a nice comedy title. A nearby living junkie, who
played Pacman a lot when he was a kid, soon 'doped' Pacman into Crackman.
'Har, har' responded Pacman when he kicked the fucker against his left knee.
But from that day he would be known as 'Crackman'.
On a rainy wednesday, after a long night on the cold streets of Amsterdam,
Crackman woke up late noon, with a strange feeling in his head. 'Damn!' he
shouted. He had been clean for nine hours, so it sure was time for some
crack. He walked to Peter's Crack Premises, knocked on the door twice,
shouted 'Goddamn!' and extended his middle finger to the closed door in
front of him. There was nobody there. The next day, when Crackman was
getting more and more frustrated there was nobody there either. Neither was
there two days later. He gazed through the window of the house, and, after
his eyes had adapted to the darkness, he could see a calendar on the wall
next to the television set. Saturday the first. That was three days ago! A
few days later, when there was still nobody there, Crackman freaked out. He
spit on the window eighty-four times, jumped around making chipsound noises
and screamed 'SEGA rules!' when he crossed the street. Then, finally, he got
himself together, and constructed a plan.
He decided to go search for his dealer.
[System requirements]
Crackman ITSFHD requires at least an Atari STE with 2 MB of free RAM, and is
Falcon compatible. If you run the game on the Atari Falcon 030, it's
recommended to use a television set, as some VGA monitors can't cope with
50 hz and go either crazy or just make the game run in 60 frames, which
causes many problems with the sound and graphics routines.
The game can be controlled with the keyboard, however, we strongly recommend
playing this beta with a Jaguar Powerpad, since the keyroutines aren't
optimised yet (just a stupid $fffffc02 reading routine). This will be fixed
in the full version.
[Installing and starting the game]
Crackman can be put anywhere on the hard- or floppydisk, but make sure you
copy the CRACKMAN.PRG and the ADAM.CMW files in the same directory.
This Crackman release should contain the following files:
\CRACKMAN\ The game directory
CRACKMAN.PRG The game executable
ADAM.CMW The CrackMan World file
CRACKMAN.TXT This document
BETATEST.TXT The list of betatesters
TODO.TXT What's to be done?
TNH.TXT Just a Teenage logo
When spreading this game, please copy ALL of these files. Acknowledged?
[Crack me up, baby!]
After the game has loaded, the title screen appears, and if you wait a few
seconds, there will even be some credits! Press Fire B or spacebar to
go to the selection menu.
You will now see the legendary MorphingFont(TM) selection menu, right there,
on your very own monitor! (Go out and scream!) You can select an item with
both the keyboard (arrowkeys) and the Jaguar Powerpad. Press fire B or space
to activate.
Selecting [INFO] brings up a little info-text displayer, which contains the
usual craptalk and the basic instructions for the game. Press fire B or
space to return to the selection menu.
Ok you bikkel, select [PLAY]...
[Well, PLAY!]
After the screen has faded off and on, you are presented with the main game.
An animation indicates where Crackman will start.
Press fire B or space to start playing.
Guide Crackman through his cruel world by using either the keypad or a
Joypad. There's nothing special about this, pressing the right button steers
Crackman to the right direction, for instance to the 'left'. Har har! In
some levels you can pick up a small device called a 'mine'. You will hear a
weird sound when you pick it up. To lay it down, hit spacebar or fire B. You
might also pick up a bullet. 'Click-clack'. This thingy can be used with
Crackman's Magnum .44 half-automatic. Just walk towards a ghost and press
fire C or alternate to pull the trigger. 'Aiming is all'.
The number of mines and bullets you have collected is being displayed at the
bottom of the screen, together with the score and the lives.
There is also an atomic bomb in the last level of this beta version. Picking
it up destroys all ghosts in the level, but also kills Crackman. So make
sure you have enough lives if you pick it up!
>>TIP: Don't use your mines and bullets on easier levels, save them for
later!<<
If a ghost gets you, he'll eat you. Slowly. You'll start again at the
starting point, the Shrinking-Circle-Animation(TM) shows where exactly this
is. The ghosts now lose their intelligence, and just walk through the level
at random. If you press fire, you can play again.
>>TIP: Be careful with your timing!<<
The aim of each level is to eat all normal pills in it. Special bonuses etc.
don't need to be picked up.
These are the things Crackman can pick up:
* [Normal bonus pills], Crackman needs these as an alternative for
his Crack.
* [Bonus pills], these give some more points than a normal pill.
* [SPEED pills], makes Crackman move like F1-man.
* [Mines], a ghost on a mine is like a fish in the Rhine.
* [Bullets], a ghost full of led is like.. ehmm... well... dead.
* [Extra life], one less way to die!
* [Special bonus pill], for lots of score.
* [A-bomb], a bomb. Right.
Beside these pick-ups, there are also blocks that change when Crackman walks
over them, blocks which ghosts can't pass, blocks which Crackman can't pass,
and blocks that are secret passages through a wall.
Some levels contain hidden parts, ie. a secret room full of goodies to
collect or just a way through a wall, to avoid those nasty ghosts. In some
levels it's even required to go through such a wall. So keep looking, there
are nice things to discover!
During play you can press [F10] to go back to the main menu. [PAUSE] only
works with the Powerpad yet, although smashing the P hard enough might also
perpetually pause the game. And your computer.
Special note for Paranoid Germans:
Crackman CANNOT EAT GHOSTS, THIS IS NOT A BUG OR A MISSING FEATURE, SO IT
WON'T BE INCLUDED IN A FUTURE VERSION OF Crackman. Verstanden?
[Custom levels]
These can be created with the Crackman level editor 'Lev El Dito', which can
be downloaded from our homepage (see URL below). To play them, hit [F1] on
the titlescreen. The GEM-FileSelector will guide you through the dungeons of
the directory, in the search for Crackman levels.
[What can Crackman do?]
This version has the following features: (in psycho-pathetical order)
* [UCDM(by Blade/NewCore)-based soundsystem], providing 4
channel 50 khz stereo music and sound, even while playing. Note
that unlike 'Bombaman', the sound is not pre-emptive-priorised.
(Sick joke no. 829A :-))
* [Hardware scrolling in 8 directions]
* [Blitter sprites]
* [Blood], it's red and the ghosts love it!
* [AI ghosts], sorry Paranoid!
* [Mines], ghosts think these are candy. Wrong.
* [Bullets -new!-], shoot your way through.
* [BoulderDash blocks -new!-], well...
* [Drugs], Crackman likes to be hyper-active. Weeeeeh!
* [Bugs], (just sounds cool after 'drugs').
* [Hidden levelparts], with extra bonuses.
[Final Release]
The final release of Crackman was expected the 27th of December 1998, but
this is quite impossible a task (School, final grade for me, and the extreme
productivity of TiNKer).
Nevertheless, Crackman will probably be finished Januari-Februari 1999.
[Contact us!]
If you want to report all those ugly bugs you discovered, join TNH, like
beer or just want to say 'hello!', please contact us:
* Phenomenon:
Via email: fenomeen@dds.nl
On IRC, #atariscne, #atari-nl: ph3n0^TNH
* TiNKer:
On IRC, #atariscne, #atari-nl: TiNKer
To get the latest Crackman release visit our homepage:
http://tnh.atari.org
and sign the Guestbook if possible.
[Now]
...load this game and try to enjoy it. Try harder!
/ÿÿÿ /
/ Phenomenon of TNH Teenage, 14-12-1998 /
/ using Tempus 2.06 ___/