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— 7K bytes
— 1980-02-01
W I P E - O U T !
-----------------
V1.0 13.4.1994
COPYRIGHTS:
None. Do whatever you want with this product, I don't care!
WHAT IS "WIPEOUT!" ?
Briefly: The Ultimate non-commercial shoot'em up :-)
Well, Wipe-Out! is the first game I've ever got finished. That
statement of course exludes numerous lame examples done by me
with programs like "Game Maker" or "S.E.U.C.K" during the past
10 years (on both Amiga and C=64, the only TRUE computers ever).
Wipe-Out! is of course 100% optimized METAL BANGING assembly.
(AMOS is for lamers ... C is too slow (and messy) ... )
My aim with this project was mainly to prove my capabilities
as a game graphics artist. (Check out the Giger-inspired 4th
level ... )
REQUIREMENTS:
-512Kb Chip RAM (Minimum, of course! More RAM won't hurt!)
-Kickstart 1.2 or later (2.0+ recommended on 68030+ CPUs)
-PAL capable machine (and monitor!). Note: you don't need
to switch to PAL with some magic utility, WipeOut! does
that itself (and returns the old display on exit).
-Joystick
CREDITS:
Take a look at the scroller! Briefly; all programming, graphics,
design and SFX by me, Tero Lehtonen alias Teeme of Fist! ultd.
The following software was used one way or another and must
therefore be credited:
-DeLuxePaint 3 -PixMate 1.0
-IFF-Master v1.0 -ProTracker v2.3b
-AudioMaster II -A68k v2.71 + Blink v6.7
-CygnusED v2
And my lovely hardware setup looks like this (again I want
to send my best regards to the manufacturers!):
-B2000 (KS 2.04 / WB 2.1, 1Mb CHIP, 2Mb FAST)
-SupraTurbo28 (68000 speeding at 28MHz, I LOVE it)
-Supra WordSync + 105Mb Quantum ProDrive (850Kb/sec!!!)
-External 3.5" floppy drive
I want to especially thank the big C= for the most exciting and
revolutionary machines on the face of the earth! THANK YOU!
And PLEASE gimme the RISC-based AAA-Amiga!!! :-)
HISTORY:
Longer than you'd believe... I planned to release WO at the
Party III in Herning, Denmark at X-mas '93, but failed...
I can just tell I've been *VERY* lazy with this project...
I have also been slowed down by my stupid decision of using
SEKA assembler in the beginning (SEKA really SUCKS!!!). It
was quite a mess to change to a68k later.
And then there have been the interfering studies....
INSTALLING:
The game can be installed on a hard disk by just copying the file
"Wipe-Out!" to a directory of your choice. If you want to get your
high scores saved, copy the file "WO-HiScores" to the same directory
and make sure that directory is the CURRENT DIRECTORY when starting
the game.
If you play from a floppy I recommend you to pack WipeOut! with
a good cruncher like Powerpacker or TurboImploder. That way the
loading time will be greatly reduced. On the other hand, more
free RAM is required.
Wipe-Out! can be launched from CLI, Shell or WorkBench. It takes
over the machine, but it's also supposed to return everything
back to normal after exit. Disk accessing is naturally via the
OS, works on any storage system (theoretically!), takes care of
write protection etc and doesn't f*** up the disk structure.
PLAYING:
Simple: shoot everything that moves!
Complex: Use joystick in the port #2. Use fire to fire (:->) and
to enter the game from the intro. Pushing the stick will accelerate
the ship and pulling will slow it down (logical, eh?). Turning the
stick to left/right will rotate the ship around its Z-axis.
Right mouse button will freeze all action (as long as it's pressed)
and left one will exit to WB/CLI. At this point the game will try
to save the high scores.
Short description of the game display:
| PLAY AREA |
|_____________________________|
______________________________
| | 2. | 1. RADAR
| 1. |___________________|
| | 3. | 2. SCORES
|_________|___________________|
3. SHIELD & SPEED
______________________________
| 4. | 4. COMMENTS
|_____________________________|
RADAR shows the enemies around you and is therefore very useful
in order to find them. But don't trust it too much! SCORES show
your current score and the highest score in the Hall of Fame.
SLD means your protection shield. It will be weakened by hits
and collisions with the enemies. Shooting will also temporarily
weaken the shield. SPD shows your current speed.
In the COMMENTS box different messages will be shown upon your
actions.
PROBLEMS:
-Due to the direct access of display (and other) hardware, there
may be all sort of weird problems with some external hardware,
especially 3rd party video cards.
-Problems may arise with the next generation (post-AGA) chipsets
for the previously mentioned reason.
-If WipeOut! doesn't get what it wants it will simply return
under the OS control without any sort of error messages (I was
too lazy to write requesters or something!). These things include
for example ALL 4 sound channels (they are allocated through the
Audio.device), version 1.2 or better of system libraries,
successful installing of input-event handler etc, etc.
An easy way to get WipeOut! to fail (not to start) is to keep
any sort of well written music player (like DeliTracker) active at
the background.
-WipeOut! runs with all interrupts DISABLED (this also means no
multitasking!), which will almost certainly cause problems if
you are transferring data through the serial port (i.e using
a modem).
-If you are using 68030 or better CPU under pre-2.0 versions of
the OS strange things may happen.
-I haven't tested WipeOut! on 680x0 machines nor under 3.0 so
strange things may happen in any case ...
-Also note the 3 second pause after starting the game; that delay
is required to let the disk drive motors to stop running (when
playing from floppies).
-If your Amiga supports PAL (all ECS/AGA machines), but your
display device (TV/Monitor) does not, problems WILL occur;
WipeOut! will force a PAL display, but you won't see it...
I can't tell exactly what you'll see, probably a blank
screen... anyway, that won't crash your system (software
wise, that is). On the other hand, your monitor/TV may blow
up ... :-)
FURTHER INFORMATION:
The game has been quite intensively tested on an A500 (512Kb
Chip + 512Kb Fake Fast, KS1.2, OCS, PAL) and a B2000 (1Mb Chip
+ 2Mb Fast, KS1.3/KS2.04, Fat Agnus, 28MHz 68000, Supra SCSI HD).
But I guarantee it still contains swarms of bugs... :-)
For all programmers (coders :->) I want to tell that WipeOut!...
- runs WITHOUT INTERRUPTS!
- features *16* coloured parallax-scrolling on standard OCS
- has system friendly disk accessing, keyboard reading and
hardware allocation
- doesn't require ANY additional fonts, libraries etc
- fits in 350Kb without any sort of packing!
All source codes are also available for US$20, FIM100 or an equal
sum in your country's currency (only cash). For that money (and an
empty disk!) you'll also get all the used gfx, sound, include-files
etc.
Oh, my addy... please, prefer e-mail whenever possible!
Send your comments, bug-reports etc to: l115130@cc.tut.fi
... or write to: Tero Lehtonen
Nuolialantie 48 a 128
33900 Tampere
Finland
And please don't hesitate to contact me! Also note that during the
summer months (June->August) I am not easily reached... (I'll
probably be writing a new (MUCH better) game!)
END