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THE UNMAGNIFICENT 15
**********************
By Ben Weston
A PD FREEWARE GAME
Please copy and distribute this game if you want to, but to
distribute it without this documentation or in a partial or
altered format is an infringement of copyright.
The Game
==========
The scene is your average cowboy saloon which has become the
local hangout for an outlawed band of, erm, outlaws. You, as the
sheriff of the town, have taken it upon yourself to blast hell out
of anything that moves in the area ... luckily the local citizens
have all taken to hiding ... but can you out-draw the notorious
unmagnificent 15 ????
The idea is to move the mouse to aim the sights of your trusty
shotgun, and press the left mouse button to fire it .. reload time
is about 4/5th of a second, which may sound fast, but against the
opposition it usually pays to hit with the first shot. When all
fifteen outlaws have been disposed of, the game progresses to the
next level where appearence times are quicker and the outlaws that
much faster on the draw. There are 8 levels ... but don't expect
to beat them all. The lethal area of the outlaws is anywhere above
the waist ... well more precisely a rectangular box centered
around the neck, so that's where to aim.
Here is table of approximate speeds for the levels :
Appearance time = interval between successive outlaws (secs)
Draw time = time taken for outlaw to fire after appearance (secs)
------------------------------------------------------------------
Level Appearance time Draw time for Outlaws
No's 1-5 6-10 11-15
------------------------------------------------------------------
1 3.0 2.6 2.0 1.6
2 2.5 2.0 1.6 1.3
3 2.1 1.6 1.3 1.0
4 1.7 1.3 1.0 0.8
5 1.5 1.0 0.8 0.7
6 1.2 0.8 0.7 0.5
7 1.0 0.7 0.5 0.4
8 0.8 0.5 0.4 0.3
------------------------------------------------------------------
Note that these figures are only accurate to 1 dp and are only
a guide to speeds ( ie - don't measure them with an atomic
stopwatch).
Although it may look as if the speeds of the levels are similar
to one another, it becomes obvious when playing the game that the
slightest change in draw time (ie 0.1 seconds) can make all the
difference ... because this game is all about reactions and hand-
eye coordination. Oh - and also a good mouse .. if you play this
with a decent mouse you should be able to get to at least level 5,
with a standard Atari mouse reaching level 2 would be good !!
( uhoh, here come the liable suits)
Oh - and if you get stuck at the title screen on loading, press
a key on the keyboard to continue (well, there's always one !)
Programming
=============
This game was written entirely in Stos Basic (graphics imported
from Degas Elite). Thanx go to my sister, Emily, for the musical
help, though I guess it's still not the strongest point of the
game.
This is the first thing I have written in Stos (perhaps it
shows), but I'm pleased with it ... I can't prog a line of
assembly, so as you may expect this is the best thing I've ever
written. Partly because I was learning as I wrote it, and partly
cause I'm weird, the prog contains no sub routines, which may or
may not be of great significance (ooer ... profound stuff !).
As far as technical hitches ... I found to my horror that my
Mastersound 2 sampling cartridge was not compatible with Maestro,
so I had to cut out the sampled stuff ... the stosplay file
included with Mastersound 2 only helps a bit, and I decided the
quality wasn't worth the disc-space.
Also the Stos menu key appears briefly at the start ... though
I have tried the key off command right at the start of the prog ..
perhaps you know why, coz I don't !
Another point worth a mention is the title ... unmagnificent 15
is obviously a useless play on the magnificent 7, but as you
may or may not know Stos only allows 15 sprites on screen at once.
This is pure coincidence, however, as the 15 outlaws are in fact
all using the same sprite command ... I just happened to use
fifteen outlaws per level ... just thought I'd clear that up.
As a final point about Stos ... and for reference I was using
version 2.6 ... the maestro command install prog would not
recognize my compiler folder ... I was able to remedy the
problem however, by removing line 330 of the prog before running
it. Whether this is a unique problem I don't know, but the
maestro prog was version 1.02 and it seems to me that the prog is
in error .. but what do I know ???
Anyway, this game took me 1 week to write, and if I can do it
anyone can - so get Stos if you haven't already - it really is
an exceptionally simple and powerful language.
If you have any problems or queries about this game, contact me
at :
7 Swangley's Lane
Knebworth
Hertfordshire
SG3 6AA
ENGLAND
And if you want the sourcecode, send me œ5 and you can have it,
but it is pretty disjointed to say the least. But there might be
some desperate person out there ... or you can just write to me
anyway .. I don't care ... I'll certainly reply to anyone who
wants to ...
Well, that about wraps it up ... I've taken a week off Poly to
do this game, so it's catch up time ... (hope none of my lecturers
read this !).
So, a big hello to everyone at HATFIELD POLY, and all
appreciators of PINK FLOYD and LIVERPOOL FC everywhere ...
and Goodbye ... |
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