KIND : GAME
MACHINE : FALCON ONLY
STATUS : FREEWARE (not finished, that is, under development. Got it?)
SBM v0.8 README (12/03/1995)
============================
I. Introduction
II. The game
III. Controls
IV. To come
V. The most important
I. Introduction
---------------
Do you know Bomberman? You don't?! Hey, you're missing
something! A really entertaining game, a real fun when played with
friends. I discovered this game on PC (shame on me, but that's all
they had in the University!), played it a lot, lost a lot (at the
beginning only :-), and enjoyed it a lot. I then competed on the NEC
version at the Crystal Summer Convention 2, and I there discovered
new bonuses such as kick and punch. I already had the idea of
converting it on the Falcon then, but I had no time. Then, after
playing hours and hours with the PC version (again at University,
you must admit it's a lot funnier than programming in Smalltalk or
in Lisp ;) against friends, I decided to convert it. I simply HAD to
do it!
II. The game
------------
A) What is it?
With this version, you can play from two to six players. The
aim of the game is to stay alive. To be the last survivor. You
control one little guy with either the keyboard, the joystick or the
joypad. You move between walls, which can be separated into two main
categories : destructibles and undestructibles ones. You must dig
your way by burning destructible walls with your bombs. Bombs? I've
got bombs? Yes, you've got a certain amount of bombs at the
beginning of each level, and this number can be increased by
getting bomb bonuses. When you put a bomb, you must escape
quickly, because after a short time, it'll explode. The length of
the explosion depends on the number of flame bonuses you got. These
bonuses appear sometimes after you blasted a wall. Be the fastest to
get them ! But beware of maluses (though they may be fun! ;-) The
wonderful idea of the game (I can say it's wonderful, it's not an
idea of mine :o) is the following : if a bomb is touched by a flame,
it explodes right away, even if it wasn't ready to! By placing bombs
the right way, you may encircle your opponent and kill him happily...
Other bonuses are :
The Speed : Looking like a roller-skate, it'll increase your speed.
Very interesting when you wanna get a bonus before your opponent.
The Kick : with that, you can kick bombs instead of being blocked by
them. A kicked bomb may be stopped where you want : with experience,
you'll be able to block your friends into dead-ends...Except if
they've got the Punch!
The Punch : another great bonus, which allow you to punch into a
bomb, making it jump over two squares of the level. But, if it's
destination square isn't empty, it'll bounce until it finds one!
And, be careful, it can wrap around the screen too!
B) Levels
There are four levels at that time
Level 1 : kind of a classic one. You begin with one bomb, flames
at length two, no speed, no bonus. Good hunt!
Level 2 : Everyone's at full equipment, in the center of the screen.
Believe me, it's certainly the shortest but the funniest fights
you'll play!
Level 3 : Everyone's at full boost too, but in the corners of the
screen. I put it because I read it exists in the original version.
But I may be wrong.
Level 4 : The Bomberman level. Full speed, but neither kick nor
punch bonuses. I put it here because I find it allows more
strategical rounds...You'll compare yourselves with level 1.
Perhaps other levels to come.
III. Controls
You may use the keyboard, the joysticks, or the joypads to
play. Let's use the word controller : with your controller, you can
move your guy, makes it put, kick, stop or even punch bombs. How?
Very simple. To do a dragon punch, do : down, down-right, right and
then press any of the punch button...errr! Wait a minute! You're not
in the good game! Sorry. To move your guy, simply choose one direction
with your controller. Not too hard to understand, uh? To drop a bomb,
here again, it's very simple : just press fire. Now, it's becoming
more complex, be very concentrated. When you kick one bomb (by just
walking towards it), it'll slide on the floor, until it hits an
obstacle : a bomerman, a wall, a bomb, etc. But you may want to stop
it at a precise place : just press fire. Yes, it means you can't put
a bomb when another one you kicked is still sliding. Don't worry, it
nearly never bothered me! The slide-time is always very short. To
punch a bomb, stop near it, face turned towards it, and press fire.
Here too, the punch will be treated instead of the bomb dropping.
It's very convenient too. In fact, many people have been playing
with previous versions without any problem, and had a lot of fun.
well, they may have encountered some problems, but not due to this!
Keyboard control :
The keys used are the following :
For one player : X & V <=> Left & Right
D & C <=> Up & Down
Left shift for fire
For the other player : Cursor keys to move
Right shift for fire
Joystick control :
Nothing special to say, it's obvious. If ever someone doesn't
manage to use them, contact me :-) !
Joypad control :
The cross to move.
C button to fire
B button to punch
I would have loved to include remote controlled bombs, however, the
lack of fire buttons made this impossible. If someone's got any
idea...(It would be more than easy with a joypad-only game, or even
a joypad-plus-one-keyboard-player-only game, of course)
After loading, you are in the front of a menu. You can move
the little bomb with your controller, except joystick 2 (to avoid
problems with the mouse, when it is connected, instead of a
joystick). Up and down to choose a line, right, left and fire for
choices.
To change the number of players, move your controller (I mean,
press the right keys, or the cross of your pad, or move the stick,
don't move your controller itself. ;o) right or left.
To assign a player a controller, select the 'controllers' line,
select the controller under the player of your choice, and press
fire. Controllers will slide, repeat this until the good controller
is under the good player.
To select a level, move right or left on the 'level' line. The
background will display the level.
To start, go on start, and press fire.
To exit, go on the little door (what, it doesn't look like a
door?! >:-| ), and press fire.
IV. To come
The final version will feature :
- Music
- Sounds
- more levels
and, depending on the number of donations
- monsters
- traps, conveyor belts, teleports, etc.
- AI driven enemies
V. The most important
Well, this game is freeware. Of course, since it's copyrighted
Hudson Soft, I can't sell it. Eventhough I did everything in this
version, algorithms, graphics and code, I don't want to have some
problems. Never knows. But, it doesn't mean it didn't take me time
to do it. It took time. Hours and hours to think on how to do this
or that, to draw graphics, to code, debug, code again, debug again
more...That's why I would be happy to receive donations for this
work. In fact, I would be happy to receive money, whatever could be
the reason why you would send it! But I think this game deserves it.
Don't YOU think? If you don't, then don't play with it. If you do,
just send a donation (address below). The amount of the donation is
free, you may send me one million of dollars (or francs, deutschmarks,
pounds, or even francs :), or two cents. However, I think a
reasonnable amount should be around 20$, 30DM, 100FF, and so on...
Don't forget that shareware or freeware is nearly the only way for
your bird to get games. This game is not DOOM, Magic Carpet, LBA, or
so. But it's fun, has a good playability. Donations will encourage
me in doing (an)other game(s).
I think share/freeware is the best way to get software : you
pay less, and all the money goes to the authors of the game. No loss.
Other games are coming this way for the Falcon : Towers II, perhaps
Crown of the Creation, and so on. They are or seem great, so, be smart,
encourage this way of programming.
And now, I would like to thank :
Thomas KRUSE, Pascal OGNIBENE, Nicolas WIDMER, Martin SCHWARTEN (many
thanxx for the bonus you included ;), Lionel RUIZ, Andreas ROTZOLL,
Christophe LUCAS, Scott TIRRELL, Chris GALARDI, Magnus KOLLBERG and
Cyril DESBOIS.
Thanks for the donations, of course, but above all, many
thanks for the pleasure I had receiving your letters. If money is
important, the nice letters you all sent were very...nice ;o)
I apologize here to Andreas Rotzoll and maybe Chris Galardi (I
don't know if you received my e-mail answer...) : I didn't replied by
mail, but don't worry, I did receive your money, and I will send you
the final version.
Greetings fly to :
Brainstorm : for the very good Assemble/Adebug kit.
Sven & Wilfried Behne : for NVDI, without which the previous
mentionned kit would be merely unusable ;-) !
Hans-Juergen Richstein : for Kobold 2. Too bad the gem desktop doesn't
use it like gemini does !
Christoph Bartholme : for Idealist. It's really nice to have it to
print 5000 lines listings on a BJ200. It cuts the listing length by two!
Markus Gutschke : for Falcon Screen. I use a myself-modified version,
and should send you a postcard. I'll do it soon.
Stefan Radermacher : for the essential Selectric. Can anyone live
without it? I don't believe it!
Oliver Scheel : for Let'em Fly! Why did you quit the Atari scene? Such
a nice prog...
(All the progs previously named are completely essential to me.
I can't imagine living without'em, and that's why I thank all their
authors. Please, give us more of this good pieces of work! All these
progs (except Assemble/Adebug, of course) should be included in the
system. Why aren't they???)
Oliver Schmidt : for Everest, on which I'm currently typing this doc.
I'm discovering this editor, and think I'll soon register!
EKO, Abstract, Digital Chaos, Griff, Aura, Avena, and all other demo
makers, that show us what our computer can do.
You, for having read this until its end, and for soon donating...
How to donate :
The best way (which has worked perfectly till now), is to send
some money (better send tickets, hu...;^), well enclosed between two
sheets of paper. It's forbidden, but works perfectly. I think that's
it's forbidden only coz if your envelop has been opened and the money
has flown away, the post office doesn't wabt to have to pay you back.
So, hide your tickets well, so that they don't jump outside the
envelop when the plane is over a paradisiacal island!
Send your donation to:
Marc BOURLON
10, rue des Tanneries
F-75013 PARIS
FRANCE (oder Frankreich, fr German ;)
You can also contact me by e-mail :
bourlon@gla.ecoledoc.ibp.fr
but it's not the easiest way to send money =);o)
Last, but not least, if it doesn't work :
- try to boot your Falcon with pressed down, and then retry.
If it still doesn't work, see the following. But you should contact me
anyway, if it bugs.
- you've got e-mail access : contact me, tell me what happens, and
give me the details of your configuration hard & soft : TSR like NVDI
or 'worst', screen extensors, free memory, TOS version, kind of
monitor, and so on.
- you don't have e-mail : either you write me a prehistoric letter
(that is, on a sheet of paper ;ø) , or you ray very hard for someone
with an e-mail acces gets the same bug and contacts me!