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THE ORIGINAL - VERSION 2.xx
===========================
Preface
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Once upon a time, little Gerrit wanted a computer at any cost.
So he took all his saved money, went to the next computershop
and bought an Atari 800XL (œ300). Soon he had the need of a pretty
little 90KB-Disk Drive - wow - fast! - and added some never-ever-seen
mega-extensions like 360KB RAM, additional OS-ROMS and god-only-knows-
what-else-units.
Then he was the lucky owner of the only triple-OS - 80 characters -
96er keypad - 360KBRam - 180 KB-Diskdrive - black coloured - super-
duper-mega computer of the whole world.
Later in time he saw a glittering package imprinted with 'BOULDER
DASH Construction Kit' in one of these itty-pitty Computershops ...
took it with him (œ60) - played it for months ( 100 gallons Coke) and
became a lunatic called 'Rockford' (Imagine the man with the smart
voice telling this story smiling at 360 degree angle around his throat)
Years passed, and then the Sunnyvale-gods created the 1040ST.
1 Mbyte Memory !!! 16-Bit-Processor !!! 640x400 Pixels !!!
Integrated 720KB drive !!! Wow ! And then he whoooooshed to the nearest
computershop again, dropped all his money and there it was !
Now he was able to scrap this little grey made-of-plastic-thing on some
magazines to move around this pretty cursor on the grey screen. What a
feeling!
Well, one day he saw some kind-of-boulder-dash-games, and everytime he
clipped their disks in his drive the earth quaked due to a
BUUUURP! somewhere in Germany. Bullshit !
Truly, most of these PD-Clones are trash! So Gerrit (now 20 years old, by
the way) decided to do something and then he painted (pixel by pixel,
until it looked like the original), coded ( till it even worked like the
original), debugged and started again.
Then, some months later, the first betatest-version was finished:
MUCH too slow, no sound, this doesn't work, that won't fit, why does
THIS happen ? And why does that NOT ?
So he just added some few months and then: still too slow, sounds like
Meep-Peep-Muup, now this works, but now that does not. Why are these
Monsters only move one step every 2 Minutes?
Two years were wasted debugging and developing, but then it was finished!
And now YOU got it !
Developing costs:
electricity, coffe, coke, pizza, p&p, phone, disks, paper, joysticks,
mouses and much more - approx. œ2500
Hardware:
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ST,MST,STE,MSTE,TT or Falcon with at least 1MB RAM !
Colour Monitor or TV (ST-LOW resolution)
Joystick(s)
testet with TOS 1.02(BlitterTos), TOS 1.04(Rainbow-TOS) and KAOS 1.4.2
at home.
Betatesters said it runs on ST, MST, STE, MSTE, TT and Falcon 030
in ST-Low-Resolution (320x200 16CLUT)
Memory should be free, no accessories, no resident programs on 1MB-machines!
Installation
------------
Installation is easy:
unpack ORIGINAL.LZH with LHARC, if possible.
If not, make sure that ORIGINAL.SOS, ORIGINAL.GAM, ORIGINAL.PRG,
EINGANG.SOS, MUSIC1.SOS, MUSIC2.SOS, TUTORIAL.CAV
and the CAVES.ORI-folder are in the same directory, otherwise it
just won't work! Oh, by the way, all .CAV-files must be on folder
CAVES.ORI !!!
And then: plug in joystick an GO!
Code-Requester (Registered version only!)
==============
There's a sheet of paper with some codes on it which you need once
everytime you start ORIGINAL.PRG.
These Codes differ from version to version, depending on the name and
serial-No.
This ensures highest protection against unauthorized copies.
These codes will be replaced by a single key soon...
Titlescreen
===========
When the titlescreen is displayed, there's a menu offering 7 selections:
F1. Start playing (fire button)
F2. Cave + (V2.10> :not used)
F3. Cave - (V2.10> :Setup Menu)
F4. Players (registered version only)
F5. Load gamefile (registered version only)
F6. Highscore list
F7. Info screen
F10.Exit to Desktop
-F1 or fire button starts to play. (naturally)
-F2 and F3 selects Number of cave to start playing in
Only caves that were already solved may be selected.
-F4 toggles number of players (1 - 4)
-F5 loads a Sequencefile (Gamefile)
A gamefile is a file determining the sequence of caves in play.
Using this function you may load new caves without the need of
'Original II' or something...
Press F5 to pop-up a fileselector showing all gamefiles stored in
the first 100 folders of the actual data medium. When using a
hard disk, the program will spend some seconds on searching...
When all Gamefiles were listed you may use mouse, cursorpad or
joystick moving the cursor to select the gamefile to load.The selected
file will be displayed in inverse mode. Click on OK to load it, or CANCEL
to return to main menu without loading.
-F6 shows higscore list. Press any key to return to main menu
-F7 displays the infoscreen. Press any key to return to main menu
-F10 is used to quit the game and enter the desktop.
May not function properly... Better is to reset your computer.
How to play
===========
If you already know how to play 'Boulder Dash' you know how to
play 'The Original' ,too.
You start playing with three lives, beginning each cave on a red square
marked 'IN'.
A cave is four times as large as the displayed part on screen. During play,
the game tries to keep you centered on screen, the cave scrolls depending on
your moves.
At the bottom of the screen the status line is located : lives, score, time
and so on.
The goal is to collect at least the amount of gems shown and move to the exit
square in time.
The status line is ordered as following (from left to right):
Gems collected, gems needed, score, time (countdown) and lives.
Collecting more gems than needed (normally) switches score-per-diamond to
a higher value...
The exit square will be opened only, when at least the needed amount of
gems has been collected, but may be hidden in some caves...(will be
displayed not as exit square but like an 'indestructable' steel wall)
To make life interesting there are several monsters to kill you, rocks and
gems will fall down and lots more .
Pressing the fire button will dig without moving, otherwise you will dig
and move. Useful in complicated situations...
And there are lots more of features offered to the player. Walls.
Normal walls may be eliminated by explosions, steel walls won't.
(Monsters may explode when hit by a rock, e.g.)
There are magic milling walls converting rocks to gems and gems to stone,
amoeba killing monsters, becoming stone or gems sometimes, and lots more.
(Some Monsters produce gems when killed...)
I won't describe all features now, 'cause i think it is much more
interesting figuring out all of them.
For those who already know the idea of the game i introduced three new
monsters and some other new features...
Of course you may get some extra-lives while increasing your score...
End of game
===========
If all your lives are exhausted, the titlescreen appears and the game is
over. If you had enough score, you may enter the highscore list before...
PLEASE NOTE:
============
Do not protect your disk against write access, the highscore list will
be saved ! Do never remove your disk while playing!
Thanx to:
-Holger Tag, who initiated the whole project,
-šlo Vainum„e, who made me meet
-Rainer Hecht. Rainer held much proposals and helped debuggin' and
optimizing the code.
-Tarmo, for creating many many caves
-Raivo Vainum„e, demonstrating that the game is good stuff for children
-Stephan F”lske, first registered user, later he became beta-tester
and delivered some caves
-Jrgen Witte and Karl-Heinz Wachtendorf, my SysOps offering me many
helpful things in their mailboxes to guarantee efficient support in
the german Maus- and Z-Netz.
-Holger Ehrling for produciung most of the cavefiles
-Hauke Wessels, Romeo Rakow, Michael Wolf and Rainer Wiesenfeller as Betatesters
-Boris Hulsch and Klaus Stumpf for shaking the shit out of my head by
discussing about PC's,Sex, work and crime...
(You know:MS-DOS - More Space Due to Organized Systemcrash)
-my girlfriend for never being angry about my computer sessions (think due
to the fact that we never ever met....) :-)))
Previews
--------
- more Caves (already available)
- optional Graphic Sets (already available)
- THE ORIGINAL EDITOR !!!! (just developing)
- 256-Colour version, even on 'normal' ST (just developing)
- simultaneous play - two players on splitted screen
- - up to four players on two machines!
- new Monsters, lairs, what-the-heaven-is-this-features
- leave this boring background behind - complete Pictures !!!
- perhaps some animations
and lots more...
Time will see...
Bugs
----
Please let me know of any bugs or errors immediately!
In case of an error or bug note your system configuration and anything
that might be important. May the effect be reproduced?
Note as much as you can and send your notes to my adress.
By the way, in case of a fatal error, the program will show a screen
(in German language) where some numbers are shown. Please note these
numbers and send them with your description to me.
And now - HAVE FUN!
Gerrit Meyer
Oldenburg, 11/24/1993
Oldenburg, 05/13/1994
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