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Winglord was released as freeware in 7/2016 by the author. |
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WingLord
by
Victor Bruhn
Copyright 1994
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Note: if you have a HISCORES file written by the demo version of
Winglord, delete it. Due to a dumb programming error when I was
coding the demo version, it's an unexpected file size and will
crash some systems.
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Guardian Castle, which sits high above the villages in the
valley below, has come under attack by the evil wizards of the
Northlands and their minions. They have found a way into the
tunnels under the mountain atop which it sits.
The enemy has gained control of most of the caverns and
passages that run through the ground underneath the castle, as well
as a very large portion of the castle itself. Sinister beings roam
through these areas at will, and have crushed all resistance offered
by the sentries posted there as well as the reinforcements sent from
the castle's contingent of soldiers. Evil creatures, some mounted by
riders and some not, continue to advance into the halls of the
castle and through the caverns in a seemingly unstoppable march,
leaving the peaceful valley residents at risk against invasion.
Now, however, hope has come to the valley...Teleporting into
the air above the castle, WingLords arrive from the forests to the
south to do battle with the invaders. Mounted upon winged unicorns
whose beauty is matched only by their quickness and power, they
descend into the depths of Guardian Castle and drop into a castle
room from the ceiling to intercept the group of creatures which has
been sent to occupy it...
As the WingLords watch, two Apprentice riders enter the room,
also through the ceiling. Battle is joined, and an airborn jousting
battle begins between the adversaries. The powerful Fire Lances
carried by the WingLords easily destroy the enemy riders upon
superior contact, while providing their wielders with a shield
against the enemy that will absorb one blow, giving the magnificent
unicorn steeds time to use their natural teleportation ability to
leave the battlefield to have the lance re-charged. These weapons
will also put forth a burst of energy that will destroy those
enemies who also use distance weapons.
The WingLords wait for the onslaught that is sure to come,
ready to do battle with the fire spitting Yellow Jackets, the Dark
Riders that are also armed with fire spitting lances, and the
dreaded Wing Masters, deadly flyers who are immune to missile
weapons and must be jousted against...
System Requirements and Stuff
-----------------------------
WingLord has been tested on and runs on all Atari 680x0 systems.
It can be run with Warp 9 in residence (no effect), though it
doesn't get along with MultiTOS very well, and on the TT it was tested
on GDOS had to be disabled.
WingLord was intended to be run on STe/post STe Ataris, and as
a consequence machines without DMA sample playback capability will have
minimal sound. Also, regular ST machines (no blitter at 8 MHz) may run
into a small amount of flicker in two player games when the screen gets
crowded (due to the 50 Hz screen update rate).
WingLord: Overview
------------------
WingLord is a fast action game with a shoot-em-up element
thrown in for variety. Each player controls a warrior who is
mounted upon a winged unicorn, and battle is joined in the air with
a number of different enemy types through direct contact and the use
of missile weapons.
The arena consists of a ground level, a ceiling, and different
combinations and layouts of ledges in between. Combatants enter the
arena by dropping through sliding doors located in the ceiling.
Collision with ledges and the ceiling or ground does no direct harm.
The screen wraps in the horizontal direction (that is,
flying/walking through the side of the screen simply transports the
player to the other side.) Players control their mounts using
joysticks.
Title Screen
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Various options are set and game play initiated from the title
screen. Periods without any user input lead to other displays, such
as a demonstration, credits, and enemy descriptions.
Each player has two settings that can be manipulated: flap
power and control. Flap power defaults to medium, and can be changed
by moving the joystick up or down. This is simply a measure of how
much vertical force accompanies each wing flap; high power allows
the player to climb faster, and low power gives the player better
control. The control option refers to who is controlling the player: a
human, the computer, or nothing. This is set using the appropriate
function key, as indicated on the screen. It is possible to set
both players to computer control and have the game play itself,
which gives a nice demonstration of game play and potential
strategies.
In this, the registered version, the player may begin the game at
wave 1, wave 21, or wave 41. This option is displayed along the right
hand side of the title screen, and is controlled with the arrow keys.
Pressing the space bar starts the game.
Pressing the escape key from the title screen will end the
program.
Control
-------
The game is joystick controlled.
The joystick button controls the wings. If the button is up
(un-pressed), the wings are up. Pushing the button down brings the
wings down. Flapping the wings causes flight. Gravity pulls down
constantly on the player/mount, and the mount can land safely at any
speed.
The stick provides horizontal control. Moving the joystick to the
side always causes the player to face that direction. If the player
is not in flight, it will also affect the movement of the player; it
will either increase the speed of walking (running?) or cause the
mount to skid to a halt. If the player is in flight,
joystick movement must be accompanied by a flap of the wings to
change horizontal speed.
The players also have at their disposal a missile weapon that
fires from the tip of the lance. This is only useable while the
player is flying. Pulling back (down) on the joystick fires a bolt
of energy from the tip of the lance that travels horizontally. Be
warned, however, that this bolt will only affect Yellow Jackets and
Dark Riders; Apprentices and Wing Masters are not affected by it.
Each player has a door in the ceiling of the arena whose color
matches the color of their mount, either yellow or white. When the
player is not in the arena and is in the game (ie the game hasn't
ended for that player), the appropriate door in the ceiling will
slide open. The player then may enter the arena by pressing their
flap button. The door opens at the beginning of the game, whenever
the player gets hit (until the game is over), and after a new arena
has appeared. The player may wait as long as they please to make
entrance; this can be used tactically, as a pause, or to prolong a
game for a player (while the other player continues to do battle).
During game play (any time that the arena is on the screen),
pressing the escape key will end the game and exit back to the title
screen. When the game is over for both players, the game will stay
in the playing screen until this is done; it does not automatically
return to the title screen.
Pressing the space bar during game play pauses the game.
Playing
-------
The main manifestation of combat occurs through jousting. When
enemies collide, the combatant with the higher lance (or stinger, in
the case of the Yellow Jacket) wins. The other either dies (the bad
guys) or is teleported out of the arena (players) by their unicorn
mount. When the player exits, if their game isn't ended, their door
in the ceiling slides open to allow them to re-enter the arena.
Battle can also be done (sometimes...) from a distance using
the missile weapon. Certain enemies are vulnerable to this, and
others aren't. Those that are vulnerable, however, also posess a
missile weapon which they can use against you.
If two shots collide, it is possible that they will intercept
each other, although this doesn't happen very often.
At the beginning of each wave, the four outer doors slide open,
and your enemies for that wave will begin dropping out of them. When
all of that wave's enemies have entered the arena, the doors will
close.
Again, during and after a game, pressing the escape key on your
keyboard will return you to the title screen.
Other Stuff
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The player's score and the number of times you can teleport out
of the arena during comabat (read: lives) are shown at the bottom of
the screen. An extra combat teleport (ie extra life) is awarded for
every 10,000 points.
Also shown at the bottom of the screen are the numbers of each
type of enemy that you can expect to have to face during the current
wave.
A couple of ways to gain extra points are to hit shootable
enemies from long range (for an extra 200 points), or to get through
the Survival Waves without being hit. Survival waves occur every
five waves after the first one (which occurs at wave four), and a
successful performance on the player's part is accompanied by 3000
bonus points and a small touch of fanfare at the end of the wave.
There are four different enemies. Information on them can be
accessed from the title screen by waiting a bit (shortly after the
game's instructions). Note that the Apprentice and the Wing Master
must be jousted against, and cannot be affected by missile weapons,
while the Yellow Jacket and Dark Rider can be shot. If a player
cannot be shot, it cannot shoot you.
Use the ledges to your advanage! Many of the layouts were
specifcally designed to allow you some type of advantage, such as
divide/conquer possibilities or making enemies vulnerable when
entering the arena.
When the computer controls a player, it will usually reach a
score of around 20-40k, though it many times does much better (I've
seen two computer controlled players reach beyond wave 34.) They
are most vulnerable on waves with many ledges, as their thought
processes don't take them into account. The computer will do a very
good job of helping the beginning player out or helping the advanced
player reach higher levels more easily.
TIPS
----
Remember that your shots travel farther than the bad guys' shots...
The manner in which the computer players begin each wave, that is,
by hovering in the top-middle of the screen, isn't such a good idea after
wave 20 or so...particularly on swarm waves, because the Yellow Jackets
are very quick by this time and can reach you fast.
It's tempting to want to shoot it out with them, but when possible,
try to bounce the Yellow Jackets. Once you learn to keep above them,
they are pretty easy to take out, at least individually.
Don't be afraid to run from groups of Yellow Jackets; sometimes it's
just plain foolish to hang around and try to outshoot them.
Yellow Jackets are stupid, and will always simply move toward the
closest player to them, even if it means they try to go up/down through
a ledge. Getting them to 'key in' on one player who is safely under or
over a ledge from them is a great strategy if there is another player
that can pick them off from a distance while they're distracted.
Use the screen warp. Hovering near the edge of the screen and firing
across the boundary sometimes gives you free shots, as your enemies don't
see across it.
Use the ledges to your advantage. Hover underneath them at the start
of a wave as you try to pick off any Yellow Jackets and Dark Riders as they enter the arena.
The ledge layout with the four short ledges illustrates a great
strategy if you can hover in the middle of the arena (horizontally
speaking) at the height of the upper ones...As enemies drop into the arena
from the outer doors, they hit the ledge and stop for a moment...this is
a really good time to take a shot, as they are sitting still, and they
are too far away to return your fire...
For waves with Wing Masters, try to hang around at the bottom of the
screen, standing/walking, at the start. Wing Masters will sometimes walk
slowly until one player has higher altitude than they, at which point they
begin flapping their wings. This is how they behave at the beginning of
a wave. If you wait near the point where they will hit the bottom of the
screen as they walk off a ledge like this, you can flap once or twice and
take them out, since they will be travelling downward too fast to
recover quickly and will be vulnerable for a moment; this does take some
practice to learn, though.
Dealing with Wing Masters is easiest if you make your move on them
while they are travelling *down* and you are below them. When you can
fly up over them while they are coming down, you have a moment in which
they are at a disadvantage as they try to recover from their downward
movement. Bouncing off the top of the screen or off the bottom of a
ledge and into them is also good to try in this situation; Wing Masters
are fast, and you need to make quick moves on them. If you make a move
and 'miss', don't push it; retreat to a safe place and try again on your
own terms.
Vital Statistics
----------------
WingLord was written on a 2 meg Atari STe, TOS 1.62, no hard
drive system with an Atari SC1224 monitor.
WingLord was written primarily for the Atari STe and is meant
to take advantage of some of its features not found in the original
ST line (DMA sample playback and the BLiTTER chip, specifically). It
was written using Heat 'n Serve C, with Easy-Go by Mountain Software
as the environment (thanks, Anthony), and edited with ST-Page (the
fastest text editor I've seen on the ST with the possible exception
of Tempus). Icons and text font designed by Victor Bruhn using Iconner
(by Victor Bruhn). Custom samples taken on a Roland S-10 and
transferred using S-10 Converter (by Anthony Watson). Sample
editing performed with SoundLab (WingLord would not have __any__
decent sound if not for this program; thanks DMJ!) Text files were
edited with Mountain QWK and SpiritEd. Title screen text/graphics and
ledge designs by Victor Bruhn and Anthony Watson. All programming code
(with the exception of the resolution change) by Victor Bruhn.
All main coding and graphics generation was done in C. All
sample playback is done using the STe's DMA capability, and is done
at at least 12 kHz to allow for use with the Falcon.
The program runs in ST low res. All graphics refreshed at 50
Hz.
Thanks to:
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Anthony Watson for being a faithful tester, week after week,
and for recording and converting the music and frying samples. Also for
all the help and prodding where the fixed graphics (title screen, ledges,
etc.) are concerned. WingLord would have looked/sounded cheap otherwise.
Jim Dalgleish for coming up with some *really good* suggestions.
Gary Lee Lentz, Sr., for running a great BBS that I could stay
in touch with Anthony on.
My Mom, Bette Bruhn, for drawing me a nice castle (even though
I did a poor job of transferring it to the computer...)
Clayton Walnum for C-Manship.
Ian Lepore for putting out and supporting a great PD C compiler.
Kelly, for being my wife. I love you.
Jesus Christ, for being my Savior.
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I hope you enjoy this game. Any questions and comments will be
answered to the best of my ability, so bring 'em on!
Thanks for buying WingLord!
Victor Bruhn
AMENDMENT, 04July2016: my current contact info is gusset27@yahoo.com, if anyone cares. |
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Hardware Supports Blitter Supports STe DMA sound
Sound Features partially digitized sound fx at 12.5KHz on STe
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