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Tower Power
Written by Johnnie Chan
Copyright 1992
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Note:- This program is freeware, but it is still copyrighted material, the
files are not to be altered in anyway. The programmer reserves the right
to remove this program from the public domain at any time.
Disclaimer:- The team accepts no responsibility for any damage caused to
any computer system or data as consequence of using this game. This game
to be played entirely at your own risk.
Credits
-------
Programming...............Johnnie Chan
Game Design...............Johnnie Chan
Huw Davies
Presentation Speech.......Ben Boxall
Graphics..................Johnnie Chan
Huw Davies
Matt Wakelam (Necromancer sprite)
Title Screen..............Ben Boxall
TCB Tracker Tune..........Huw Davies
Character Speech..........John Bowen
Johnnie Chan
Huw Davies
Matt Wakelam
Joanne Ireland
Playtesting...............Johnnie Chan
Richard Chan
Huw Davies
Ben Boxall
Matt Wakelam
John Bowen
DOC file typing...........Johnnie Chan
Hardware used for development
-----------------------------
520 STFM (1Mb, TOS 1.4), 520 STE (4Mb, TOS 1.6)
Mastersound 2 sampling cartridge
40Mb Power Computing Hard Disk
Software used for development
-----------------------------
STOS V2.6, STOS Compiler V2.7, STOS Maestro
Mastersound 2
Canvas
Degas Elite
GFA Basic V2.0, GFA Basic compiler
Hi-Soft Basic V1.31
TCB Tracker
Pack Ice V2.11, Pack Ice V2.40
1st Word
Thanks go to
------------
Martin Dryden (SWSL) Advice, excellent service on pd disks
Asa Burrows/ST Format STOS STE Extension
Axe of Delight/Superior Pack Ice 2.11 and Pack Ice 2.40
Ben Gould Virus Detector Bootsector (I had to modify it
for low res, I've lost your contact address,
please contact me!)
Warpzone PDL Excellent service on pd disks
ST Review Hi-Soft Basic V1.31 in issue 4
ST Format GFA Basic V2.0 in issue 19, Canvas in issue 34
STOS Mega STE/TT fix in issue 43
L Greenhalgh Optimisation method used in V1.41
How to Play
------------
What's needed/supported
-----------------------
Atari ST/STE computer (Tested on TOS 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6)
Minimum memory 520K (1Mb recommended, 2Mb+ needed for deluxe mode.)
Colour TV/monitor
Double sided (720K) disk drive
Two Joysticks
What is Tower Power?
--------------------
Tower Power is a game of arcade strategy for 2 to 4 players. It is based
on a 10 by 10 grid of squares, there are four 'Power' squares near the
centre. Each player starts with 3 pieces. It is rather similar to chess in
that you move the piece around on the board, pin down the opposition with
deviously placed pieces. But when you go to take a piece, must first
defeat it in an arcade combat screen, if you kill it, then you've occupy
the square it was on, if it kills you, then your attacking piece dies. So
it makes sense to have lots of very good pieces. As the game progresses,
you accumulate gold, which can be used during your turn to buy more
pieces. Each player possesses a tower, this square must be defended at all
costs, because if any opposition player moves onto that square, the player
is instantly eliminated from the game.
Loading the game
----------------
Turn on ST, with game disk in drive A, Press space on title screen to load
up game. You should eventually be told to press RETURN, press RETURN.
(keys L,V,M,D,B,G,R will also have an effect, more on this later..)
How to Win
----------
Either wipe all the other players out of the game by occupying their
'Tower' square, or occupy all four 'Power' squares simultaneously. Simple.
Controlling the Game
--------------------
The main game is joystick controlled. The rule to remember is that the
player who's turn it is ALWAYS uses joystick 1, (the one that can't be
used by the mouse). This is especially important in combat, the attacker
(the player who's turn it is) used joystick 1, the defender always uses
joystick 2.
Keys:-
Q - Quit (on main menu)
SPACE - Cancel action
Moving a Piece
--------------
Select 'Move Piece' on the main menu, then move the cursor over one of
your pieces, press fire, then move the piece in the direction you wish is
to move. Press fire to end move, (or SPACE to cancel, then try again, if
you go wrong).
Gold
----
Reinforcements cost gold, you get gold throughout the game. At the end of
your turn, you get 1 gold as standard, plus 1 for each 'Power' square you
occupy. Also You get 2 gold for each battle you win, and 10 gold when you
eliminate someone from the game.
The Pieces
----------
Listed in order of ascending price:-
Peasant Attacks using a stick, weak and slow, does little damage.
Orc Uses a short sword. Gains energy from victims.
Knight Uses a sword. Slow, but very resilient.
Archer Fires arrows, weak, but can fire at a range.
Ninja Uses throwing stars, weak, but quick.
Giant Scorpion Slow, but can fire poison which drains energy.
Unicorn Fires energy bolts from it's horn, fast but weak.
Wizard Casts fireballs. Can teleport up to 5 times. (Special FX)
Soldier Carries a semi-automatic rifle. Quick rate of fire.
Gorgon Fires a bolt which slowly paralyses it's victim. Feeds on
the life force of its vitcim.
Green Dragon Fires poison clouds. Strong and fast, handle with caution.
Earth Elemental Slow, but very strong, hurls boulders.
Water Elemental Shoots water, which slows down it's victims
Rocket Launcher
Man Carries a rocket launcher, supreme firepower.
Fire Elemental Fires fireballs.
Air Elemental Hurls tornados, and gains strength from hitting.
Gold Dragon Strong, fast and breathes fire.
Darkness
Elemental Fast, strong and can turn invisible (Special FX).
Necromancer Slow, but strong, fires energy bolts. Has the ability to
reverse the direction of an opponent's missile (up to 5
times) back towards the sender! (Special FX).
Sidhe Fast, strong and powerful, don't mess with it.
Combat
------
This is a fight to the death for possession of a particular square. The
survivor (if any), gets the square. Each piece gets to use it's weapon,
which is activated by the fire button, once fired, it has to reload, which
takes time. Whether the weapon is available for use or not is indicated by
and 'X' next to the appropriate player's energy bar, an 'X' meaning that
the weapon is available.
In addition to the joystick, each player has a special effect key. The
attacking player has 'SPACE', and the defending player uses 'ENTER'. What
this key does depends on what piece you are controlling. With most pieces,
nothing happens, but with some pieces it has an effect (eg. Wizard-
teleport, Darkness Elemental-toggle visible/invisible, Necromancer-return
missile back to sender).
Other things
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Game modes
----------
There are three game modes, selected depending on how much memory your
computer has.
Economy Mode (512K):-
Sampled effects
Graphics
Presentation Speech
Stores information about combat screens. (ie dead bodies)
Standard Mode (1Mb):-
All the above, plus..
Player character speech
Sampled music whilst loading data files
Deluxe Mode (2Mb+):-
All the above, plus..
Nice title screen shown at options screen
Stores more information about combat screens.
STE enhancements:-
TCB tracker tune and some samples played through DMA chip
On 1Mb+ STE, another 50K sample is played throughout the game in the
background. (This can be turned off by pressing 'Q' at the press RETURN
prompt, 'S' turns it on again.)
Note also, the more memory you have, the less reloading files off disk. On
2Mb+ machines, all files are only loaded in once. On 1Mb machines, they
may be some reloading of files. On half meg machines, you'll just have to
put up with it! (Though there is no disk loading in game - don't know what
ST Review was going on about in their review, issue 10)
Loading extra characters
------------------------
The game has four different characters, one for each player. This game has
the facility to change these, other characters can be loaded in. On the
Press RETURN prompt, press 'L', and insert a data disk containing
character files (should be released soon). There are five characters on
the game disk (four default ones and one extra).
Screen Background options
-------------------------
If you prefer a black background on the board screen during play rather
than the default grey one, then press 'B' at the press RETURN prompt, 'G'
reverts back to the default grey one (Better in my opinion, but it's all a
matter of personal taste).
Information about Program
-------------------------
At the Press RETURN prompt:-
Press 'V' for version number of the game, remember, the higher the number
the better.
Press 'M' to show amount of free memory.
Press 'D' to show the date of release of the version.
Press 'R' to show where the version was released.
Copying the disk
----------------
You can't copy the disk from the desktop. Using Fastcopy III will do the
trick.
The disk has been formatted 800K. Just for the record, the files take up
about 1200K unpacked, and about 800K packed.
Cheat
-----
On the select number of players screen, press 'G' to start with lots of
gold.
Version History
---------------
V1.00
The first release version.
V1.01
Fixed small bug, in the 'cheap pieces' mode. The bug meant once chosen,
the pieces remained 'cheap' in any subsequent games, and choosing it twice
gave horrendously high prices for the pieces! (This could be overcome by
using 'cheap pieces' many times). Also raised the maximum number of dead
bodies per screen (in deluxe mode) from 300 to 500, after running out
during a pretty long game! Also improved memory management, since some of
the data files on the data disk were larger than originally anticipated,
and could not be loaded into V1.00, this however has been fixed. Also the
sampled sound whilst loading data is now also available on half meg
machines, thanks to the better memory management.
Changed the timing method for waiting for samples to be played, since it
didn't wait long enough for some of the longer samples on the data disk,
and waited too long for some of the shorter ones, now it waits depending
on the length of the sample.
V1.10
Improved gameplay a bit, after some advice from Warpzone PDL - you start
off with a ninja, a unicorn and a peasant instead of an orc and two
peasants, also made pieces half price, and thus removed the 'cheap pieces'
option of the earlier versions. Added a 1Mb STE enchancement, you can now
have a little digitised tune playing quietly in the background (through
the DMA chip). Removed disk copier due to lack of disk space. Reduced
senisitivity of the joystick detection on selection screens, after seeing
people struggling to choose an option! Removed emulation of 'lower' game
modes since it was rather pointless.
V1.11
Optimized program by about 900 bytes, printed "a DOC file is on this disk"
in the intro. No other changes, everything runs exactly the same as V1.10,
no speed increase or anything! Don't know why I even bothered!!
V1.20
Changed the crappy 'Amstrad' font to a better one, it is now a modified
version of the DESCEND font from 'Top Notch'. Also fixed a small bug, but
can't remember what it was.
V1.30
Program should now run on Virtually all TOS versions up to V3.06, thanks
to the STOS fix in ST Format issue 43. Put a nice title picture on the
options screen, you won't see it unless you've got 2 meg or more though,
this program is very memory hungry! Also optimised the program a bit. Also
altered the DOC file a bit.
V1.40
Major changes here. The pieces statistics have now been altered slightly,
and now some pieces have a vampiratic shot, where they gain some of the
hit points damage they inflict upon their victim. Also fixed a bug where
people move backwards if over paralysed.
V1.41
Adjusted the air elemental. It was too powerful, and unbalanced the game.
Also Optimised the storage of dead bodies, cutting it from 600K to 4K
memory usage, thanks to L. Greenhalgh.
Thanks
J.Chan.
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Tower Power data disk 1 is now available. It features many more characters
and with details of how to make your own characters, a few are programs
supplied with it to automate the process as much as possible.
It can be obtained from: Warpzone PDL, Caledonia PDL or New Age PDL.
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Watch out for :-
Bio-Hazzard - A 3d Captive clone, written by L. Greenhalgh, available from
most good pd libraries, and also August ST User cover disk.
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