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Dark Pearl (c) 1992-93 MajicSoft, Inc. - Programmed by Dave Munsie
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Dark Pearl requires a joystick / color monitor and a 1 meg ST/Ste.
Step 1: Loading Dark Pearl
To run Super Dark Pearl simply execute the PEARL.PRG from
either low or medium resolution. The program works in 50hz or 60hz
video mode.
Step 2: About the game
I was inspired to write this game after seeing something similar in my
local arcade. (Yes..I'm an over-grown video game junkie...) The original
game (I forget the name..) had wonderful scaling and rotation features.
It truly made me dizzy playing. I then looked for something currently
available on the ST's that resembled this game. After many PD and
commerical games shown to me I realized I could write something much better
than was currently out there. Well, the scaling and rotation was out of the
question so I decided on fast vertically scrolling game play along with a
novel 3-D type perspective. The end result is no where near the arcade version
but I feel anybody who has played this type of game will welcome it.
Step 3: Playing the game
The object of Dark Pearl is to traverse the vertically scrolling field
while picking up (bouncing on) the red-green-blue jewels along the way.
Various tiles will help or hinder you on the way. When you make it all the
way up to the top of the field (7 screens up) and all of the jewels are
collected you proceed to the next level! If you still have jewels left you
are sent back to the start of the field to try again. Use your joystick
to guide the pearl over the tiles. There are 10 levels in all. Levels
4 and 8 are bonus rounds.
Game tiles:
Green arrows - Small jumps
Red arrows - Bigger jumps
Yellow arrows - Biggest jumps
Windows - These break when you land on them.
Hatched tiles - These slow you down.
Point tiles - Increase your score.
x2-x5 - Score multiplexers! Bounce on these...
Question marks - These cause a random event:
1) Bonus points from 10-100
2) Send out a bee that tries to sting you. (Up to 4 at a time!!)
3) Plot down a score multiplexer.
4) Plot down a free ball tile. Land on this!!
5) Cause a heart to appear around the pearl. When the heart is active you
can land on the bees to squash them and get some big points!
Misc game hints/tips.
If you make it to the top of the field on one try without losing a pearl
or having to back down again you recieve big bonus points.
Level 4 Bonus round 1:
Simply guide the pearl around the maze to grab all the jewels and bonus
points you can without falling off. Steer the pearl with the joystick.
Ther longer you last the more points you can grab.
Level 8 Bonus round 2:
Hmmmm.. I had to put a little shoot-em-up in here somewhere!! Stay alive
as long as you can by shooting at the nastys. Big points add up here.
Guide your shooter ROBOTRON style. Press the fire button button to change
firing direction.
If you complete all 10 levels you will recieve a mega bonus based on your
score. Only by completing all 10 levels are mega-scores (over 100000)
possible.
Practice rounds:
By pressing 1-0 from the title screen you can start at any of the 10 levels.
You won't be able to get your name in the high score table but at least you
can practice the tougher levels. (0=level 10)
That's about it! I hope you enjoy this game. As usual any comments or
suggestions are welcomed and asked for. Please send your comments to:
MajicSoft, Inc.
348 Meredith Square
Columbia, SC 29223
USA
DARK PEARL was written with M.A.G.E.¿ in GFA BASIC 3.5e. M.A.G.E.¿ is
½1993 by MajicSoft, Inc. M.A.G.E.¿ is now shipping!!
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The commercial version "Super Dark Pearl" is coming soon from MajicSoft.
The new "Super Dark Pearl" and nine other improved arcade titles will be
released in one big box named "M.A.G.E. ARCADE HITS - VOLUME I". Look for
it in mid February 1994 in fine Atari dealers everywhere!!!
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* * * * * S P E C I A L N O T I C E * * * * *
M.A.G.E.¿ (Majic Arcade Graphics Engine) is available now from MajicSoft!
M.A.G.E.¿ - The Majic Arcade Graphics Engine (previously known as the
GP Graphics Engine) is an incredibly powerful developers toolkit. Creating
high quality commercial software has never been easier. What used to take
months, now takes just a few days! "Frogger", "Ms Munchie", "Invaders ST",
"Kid Kong", "Megapedes", "Thurg N Murg", "Sleuth" and "Dark Pearl" are just
a few of the titles created with the M.A.G.E.¿.
M.A.G.E.¿ comes complete with everything you need to start programming your
own commercial quality games. The package includes the latest version of
GFA Basic¿ Interpreter, Compiler and Assembler on disk! The manual has
over 175 pages of comprehensive step by step instructions on how to
create games quickly. There is a Character Editor, a Map Editor, a Sprites
Editor and Animator and an Inline Maker.
The M.A.G.E.¿ loads directly into GFA Basic¿ 3.5 or higher and allows you to
effortlessly compile stand alone, ultra high speed compact programs. For
those of you that have little or no artistic talent, we have included over
2000 professionally drawn sprites and hundreds of pre-drawn game screens.
With the editor, you can modify these sprites and screens to make thousands
of variations. This gives you unlimited control over your creativity!
M.A.G.E.¿ is shipping now, so order your copy today! To order send a check
or money order in the amount of $129.95 plus $5.00 for shipping and handling
to:
MajicSoft, Inc.
348 Meredith Square
Columbia, SC 29223
or call us at 803-788-8177 and use your credit card.
Special Notice:
To introduce this incredible new product we are having a drawing
and some lucky person will win a new Atari Falcon 030 computer. To enter
send your warranty card from M.A.G.E.¿ in to us. We will randomly select
one warranty card from all warranty cards received by midnight on March
30, 1994 and the lucky person will win the Falcon computer!
Other contest for best game created and other promotions will be posted
at a later date on GEnie and on the FoRem network, so watch for them in
the near future!!
Dragon's Lair BBS is the official MajicSoft Customer Support BBS and you
may reach it at 803-788-7806.
Thank you from the team at MajicSoft, Inc.
M.A.G.E.¿ - MajicSoft Arcade Graphics Engine - Technical Notes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
M.A.G.E.¿ has been designed to offer the novice or professional game
designer a set of tools that provide powerful results with a minimum
of programming headaches. While there are other products on the
market that allow the ST enthusiast to program an arcade game,
nothing ever released to the general public has made game design more
interactive and more importantly, easier to develop. Several popular
games like, Dave Munsie's Frogger and Kid Kong took as little as a
week to finish.
Here are some of the reasons why:
Virtually unlimited sprites. You decide how many sprites you want
your program to use. A typical M.A.G.E.¿ game will have dozens of
sprites moving about the screen with a frame rate of 17-20 frames per
second.
Automatic sprite control:
The powerful M.A.G.E.¿ kernel provides TOTALLY AUTOMATIC control of
sprites. This means your sprites can follow pre-determined patterns
(Like in KID KONG and FROGGER), process complex offset patterns like
those used in ST INVADERS or lightning fast DIRECTIONAL movements as
in EVADER.
Here is a list of the M.A.G.E.¿ controlled sprite options:
TRACKING: Have your sprite TRACK other sprites.
OFFSETS: Perform complex movements ANYWHERE on the screen.
PATTERNS: The fastest way to move your sprites.
DIRECTION: Character movement, missiles, etc.
ANIMATION: Frame animation with looping.
COLLISION: Fast collision checking.
MOVEMENT: Global sprite movement. Move ALL sprites at once!!
JOYSTICK: Move 1 or several sprites based on Joystick readings.
Note: If you can move your mouse around the screen, you can create
complex pre-determined sprite paths using the included M.A.G.E.¿
Animation Editor.
What about the background of your game? With the included character
handling routines you will be able to simulate a true character based
display with lightning fast results. M.A.G.E.¿ easily detects when a
sprite moves over a character (example: power pill!!). You can
design several character MAPS and have them in memory and then have
M.A.G.E.¿ draw them for you automatically. Use the built in
character map scrolling to create that awesome WAR GAME you have
always wanted to do. You can create scrolling character displays
that span several screens wide and tall. Again, with the included
Map Editor this is a breeze.
Support routines:
There are several support routines to help maximize the overall look
and feel of your game. There are fast memory movers, screen blits
and clears. You will also find multi-purpose memory movers and
special effect routines. For instance, auto-plotting star fields
with joystick control is no problem! There is also support for color
cycling, background flashing, fade in/out. And for screen graphics,
there is a fast decompression routine for DEGAS.PC1 pictures. For
compression the engine uses the ICE data compression method.
AUDIO:
M.A.G.E.¿ comes with built in support for adding sound effects to
your games. Unlike OTHER systems that are currently available,
M.A.G.E.¿ provides direct access to a hundred "BUILT IN" sound
effects at anytime from within your program. You can also play ST
REPLAY samples using an interrupt driven routine so your program does
not hang up while it is playing.
You will be amazed at the power of M.A.G.E.¿ and at just how fast you
can put together the game you have always wanted to write! M.A.G.E.¿
supplies the tools, YOU supply your imagination. With M.A.G.E.¿ you
program with POWER!
One last note, unlike other game creators available, M.A.G.E.¿
provides complete 100% COMPATIBILITY for all versions of TOS,
INCLUDING the new FALCON TOS. No other available system can make
this claim right out of the box. M.A.G.E.¿ works in conjunction with
GFA BASIC¿ 3.5. The complete M.A.G.E.¿ system has a suggested retail
price of only $129.95 and includes the GFA BASIC¿ EDITOR, COMPILER
and ASSEMBLER on disk! You will not find an easier way to develop
high quality games on the AtariST/STe/Falcon computers.
M.A.G.E.¿ is available from fine Atari software dealers everywhere or
you may contact MajicSoft directly at 803-788-8177. Dealer inquiries
welcomed. |
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