Atari ST - 1994
Catapult
1 / 4- Genre
- Shoot'em Up! - Artillery
- Year
- 1994
- Language
- Compiled BASIC
- Publisher
- [no publisher]
- Controls
- Mouse
- Distributor
- -
- Players
- 1 vs. 2
- Developer
- [n/a]
- Resolution
- Low
- Licensed from
- -
- Programmer(s)
- Dean, Janet
- Country

- Graphic Artist(s)
- Dean, Janet
- Software
- English
- Game design
- Dean, Janet
- Box/Instructions
- English
- Musician(s)
- [unknown]
- License
- PD / Freeware / Shareware
- Sound FX
- Dean, Janet
- Serial
- —
- Cover Artist(s)
- —
- ST Type
- ST, STe / 0.5MB
- MIDI
- —
- Version
- 1.3
- Dump
- Download
- Number of Disks
- 1 / Double Sided
- Dump format
- MSA
- Protection
- —
INSTRUCTIONS
.CATAPULT. A SHAREWARE GAME BY JANET DEAN. VERSION 1.3. JANUARY 1994. REGISTER AND RECIEVE SOME GOODIES. -------------------------------------- GAME DESCRIPTION: A one player practice or 2 player game, featuring randomly generated feature landcapes and shadowed mountain ranges with backdrop of twinkling stars and planets on a velvety black alien sky. Warring tribes,armed with lethal,long range, large catapults try to destroy each other by landing a direct hit on the opposing village. To do this the correct trajectory for the shot must be guessed. First the angle, then the speed of the shot must be entered into the'catapult computer'. -------------------------------------- BRIEF INSTRUCTIONS: ANGLE? ENTER AN ANGLE. USUAL ANGLES I USE ARE 45, 60, 80 ETC. SPEED? TYPE IN SPEED. USUAL SPEEDS ARE 8 9 10 10.2 10.4 10.45 11 12 ETC. DECIMAL NUMBERS ARE ALLOWED, BUT ARE ONLY REALLY USED WITH THE SPEED. BACKSPACE CAN BE USED TO CORRECT ANY TYPING ERRORS. PRESS RETURN AFTER ENTERING NUMBER. ENTERING "Q" INSTEAD OF A NUMBER WILL CAUSE A NEW LANDSCAPE GENERATION. ENTERING "T" INSTEAD OF A NUMBER WILL EXIT TO THE TITLES. -------------------------------------- TWO GAME STYLES ARE INCLUDED: NORMAL PLAY, WERE BOTH SPEED AND ANGLE NEED TO BE ENTERED. FIXED ANGLE, WERE AN ANGLE IS RANDOMLY GENERATED, AND ONLY THE SPEED NEEDS TO BE INPUTTED. CLICK ON THE CORRESPONDING GREEN FLASH TO SELECT GAME TYPE AND CLICK EITHER MOUSE BUTTON TO START. THE FIRST PLAYER TO REACH A SCORE OF 5 WINS. THE WINNER IS CLEARLY INDICATED BY THE COMPUTER. PRESS SPACE TO EXIT AFTER A WIN. -------------------------------------- Catapult is a shareware game. Converted and improved from the game of the same name by G.Wheaton. That version I found hidden within the Budgie game : ZENITH! Apart from that version, I once saw an Atari 8-bit version with the same title That version drew a similar landscape to this ST version, but took ten times or more longer to draw it than does the good old ST! Still, it had similar gameplay and it was fascinating to see the landscapes randomly generated each time. I decided to write a version that would improve upon these two versions, after seeing a couple of snowball fight games recently released in the public domain. These two were ok I suppose, but didn't satisfy me. Mainly I didn't like their method of entering the angle. Also you didn't have to enter speed and could fire at will, not in turn. All these things, plus the colourless, boring background and the need to plug in a second joystick, made it so they didn't really cut it for me and altered the gameplay for the worse. Still, they are free and probably a lot of people like them. This version has more of an educational bias, helping youngsters understand the basics of angles/speeds, ballistics etc while still keeping them amused by the destructive and competitive elements. Shots are taken in turn, which gives a little more fairness, though you can take note of your opponents numbers and see how far out they were, to help with your own calculations. For this reason the initial shot in a round is randomly drawn. Well, I hope you like my version of the classic, warring factions theme. If you keep it in your collection then please register to the address given on the title screen. Bye. J.DEAN. JANUARY 1994.

