KIND : GAME MACHINE : FALCON ONLY STATUS : FREEWARE (not finished, that is, under development. Got it?) SBM v0.8 README (12/03/1995) ============================ I. Introduction II. The game III. Controls IV. To come V. The most important I. Introduction --------------- Do you know Bomberman? You don't?! Hey, you're missing something! A really entertaining game, a real fun when played with friends. I discovered this game on PC (shame on me, but that's all they had in the University!), played it a lot, lost a lot (at the beginning only :-), and enjoyed it a lot. I then competed on the NEC version at the Crystal Summer Convention 2, and I there discovered new bonuses such as kick and punch. I already had the idea of converting it on the Falcon then, but I had no time. Then, after playing hours and hours with the PC version (again at University, you must admit it's a lot funnier than programming in Smalltalk or in Lisp ;) against friends, I decided to convert it. I simply HAD to do it! II. The game ------------ A) What is it? With this version, you can play from two to six players. The aim of the game is to stay alive. To be the last survivor. You control one little guy with either the keyboard, the joystick or the joypad. You move between walls, which can be separated into two main categories : destructibles and undestructibles ones. You must dig your way by burning destructible walls with your bombs. Bombs? I've got bombs? Yes, you've got a certain amount of bombs at the beginning of each level, and this number can be increased by getting bomb bonuses. When you put a bomb, you must escape quickly, because after a short time, it'll explode. The length of the explosion depends on the number of flame bonuses you got. These bonuses appear sometimes after you blasted a wall. Be the fastest to get them ! But beware of maluses (though they may be fun! ;-) The wonderful idea of the game (I can say it's wonderful, it's not an idea of mine :o) is the following : if a bomb is touched by a flame, it explodes right away, even if it wasn't ready to! By placing bombs the right way, you may encircle your opponent and kill him happily... Other bonuses are : The Speed : Looking like a roller-skate, it'll increase your speed. Very interesting when you wanna get a bonus before your opponent. The Kick : with that, you can kick bombs instead of being blocked by them. A kicked bomb may be stopped where you want : with experience, you'll be able to block your friends into dead-ends...Except if they've got the Punch! The Punch : another great bonus, which allow you to punch into a bomb, making it jump over two squares of the level. But, if it's destination square isn't empty, it'll bounce until it finds one! And, be careful, it can wrap around the screen too! B) Levels There are four levels at that time Level 1 : kind of a classic one. You begin with one bomb, flames at length two, no speed, no bonus. Good hunt! Level 2 : Everyone's at full equipment, in the center of the screen. Believe me, it's certainly the shortest but the funniest fights you'll play! Level 3 : Everyone's at full boost too, but in the corners of the screen. I put it because I read it exists in the original version. But I may be wrong. Level 4 : The Bomberman level. Full speed, but neither kick nor punch bonuses. I put it here because I find it allows more strategical rounds...You'll compare yourselves with level 1. Perhaps other levels to come. III. Controls You may use the keyboard, the joysticks, or the joypads to play. Let's use the word controller : with your controller, you can move your guy, makes it put, kick, stop or even punch bombs. How? Very simple. To do a dragon punch, do : down, down-right, right and then press any of the punch button...errr! Wait a minute! You're not in the good game! Sorry. To move your guy, simply choose one direction with your controller. Not too hard to understand, uh? To drop a bomb, here again, it's very simple : just press fire. Now, it's becoming more complex, be very concentrated. When you kick one bomb (by just walking towards it), it'll slide on the floor, until it hits an obstacle : a bomerman, a wall, a bomb, etc. But you may want to stop it at a precise place : just press fire. Yes, it means you can't put a bomb when another one you kicked is still sliding. Don't worry, it nearly never bothered me! The slide-time is always very short. To punch a bomb, stop near it, face turned towards it, and press fire. Here too, the punch will be treated instead of the bomb dropping. It's very convenient too. In fact, many people have been playing with previous versions without any problem, and had a lot of fun. well, they may have encountered some problems, but not due to this! Keyboard control : The keys used are the following : For one player : X & V <=> Left & Right D & C <=> Up & Down Left shift for fire For the other player : Cursor keys to move Right shift for fire Joystick control : Nothing special to say, it's obvious. If ever someone doesn't manage to use them, contact me :-) ! Joypad control : The cross to move. C button to fire B button to punch I would have loved to include remote controlled bombs, however, the lack of fire buttons made this impossible. If someone's got any idea...(It would be more than easy with a joypad-only game, or even a joypad-plus-one-keyboard-player-only game, of course) After loading, you are in the front of a menu. You can move the little bomb with your controller, except joystick 2 (to avoid problems with the mouse, when it is connected, instead of a joystick). Up and down to choose a line, right, left and fire for choices. To change the number of players, move your controller (I mean, press the right keys, or the cross of your pad, or move the stick, don't move your controller itself. ;o) right or left. To assign a player a controller, select the 'controllers' line, select the controller under the player of your choice, and press fire. Controllers will slide, repeat this until the good controller is under the good player. To select a level, move right or left on the 'level' line. The background will display the level. To start, go on start, and press fire. To exit, go on the little door (what, it doesn't look like a door?! >:-| ), and press fire. IV. To come The final version will feature : - Music - Sounds - more levels and, depending on the number of donations - monsters - traps, conveyor belts, teleports, etc. - AI driven enemies V. The most important Well, this game is freeware. Of course, since it's copyrighted Hudson Soft, I can't sell it. Eventhough I did everything in this version, algorithms, graphics and code, I don't want to have some problems. Never knows. But, it doesn't mean it didn't take me time to do it. It took time. Hours and hours to think on how to do this or that, to draw graphics, to code, debug, code again, debug again more...That's why I would be happy to receive donations for this work. In fact, I would be happy to receive money, whatever could be the reason why you would send it! But I think this game deserves it. Don't YOU think? If you don't, then don't play with it. If you do, just send a donation (address below). The amount of the donation is free, you may send me one million of dollars (or francs, deutschmarks, pounds, or even francs :), or two cents. However, I think a reasonnable amount should be around 20$, 30DM, 100FF, and so on... Don't forget that shareware or freeware is nearly the only way for your bird to get games. This game is not DOOM, Magic Carpet, LBA, or so. But it's fun, has a good playability. Donations will encourage me in doing (an)other game(s). I think share/freeware is the best way to get software : you pay less, and all the money goes to the authors of the game. No loss. Other games are coming this way for the Falcon : Towers II, perhaps Crown of the Creation, and so on. They are or seem great, so, be smart, encourage this way of programming. And now, I would like to thank : Thomas KRUSE, Pascal OGNIBENE, Nicolas WIDMER, Martin SCHWARTEN (many thanxx for the bonus you included ;), Lionel RUIZ, Andreas ROTZOLL, Christophe LUCAS, Scott TIRRELL, Chris GALARDI, Magnus KOLLBERG and Cyril DESBOIS. Thanks for the donations, of course, but above all, many thanks for the pleasure I had receiving your letters. If money is important, the nice letters you all sent were very...nice ;o) I apologize here to Andreas Rotzoll and maybe Chris Galardi (I don't know if you received my e-mail answer...) : I didn't replied by mail, but don't worry, I did receive your money, and I will send you the final version. Greetings fly to : Brainstorm : for the very good Assemble/Adebug kit. Sven & Wilfried Behne : for NVDI, without which the previous mentionned kit would be merely unusable ;-) ! Hans-Juergen Richstein : for Kobold 2. Too bad the gem desktop doesn't use it like gemini does ! Christoph Bartholme : for Idealist. It's really nice to have it to print 5000 lines listings on a BJ200. It cuts the listing length by two! Markus Gutschke : for Falcon Screen. I use a myself-modified version, and should send you a postcard. I'll do it soon. Stefan Radermacher : for the essential Selectric. Can anyone live without it? I don't believe it! Oliver Scheel : for Let'em Fly! Why did you quit the Atari scene? Such a nice prog... (All the progs previously named are completely essential to me. I can't imagine living without'em, and that's why I thank all their authors. Please, give us more of this good pieces of work! All these progs (except Assemble/Adebug, of course) should be included in the system. Why aren't they???) Oliver Schmidt : for Everest, on which I'm currently typing this doc. I'm discovering this editor, and think I'll soon register! EKO, Abstract, Digital Chaos, Griff, Aura, Avena, and all other demo makers, that show us what our computer can do. You, for having read this until its end, and for soon donating... How to donate : The best way (which has worked perfectly till now), is to send some money (better send tickets, hu...;^), well enclosed between two sheets of paper. It's forbidden, but works perfectly. I think that's it's forbidden only coz if your envelop has been opened and the money has flown away, the post office doesn't wabt to have to pay you back. So, hide your tickets well, so that they don't jump outside the envelop when the plane is over a paradisiacal island! Send your donation to: Marc BOURLON 10, rue des Tanneries F-75013 PARIS FRANCE (oder Frankreich, fr German ;) You can also contact me by e-mail : bourlon@gla.ecoledoc.ibp.fr but it's not the easiest way to send money =);o) Last, but not least, if it doesn't work : - try to boot your Falcon with pressed down, and then retry. If it still doesn't work, see the following. But you should contact me anyway, if it bugs. - you've got e-mail access : contact me, tell me what happens, and give me the details of your configuration hard & soft : TSR like NVDI or 'worst', screen extensors, free memory, TOS version, kind of monitor, and so on. - you don't have e-mail : either you write me a prehistoric letter (that is, on a sheet of paper ;) , or you ray very hard for someone with an e-mail acces gets the same bug and contacts me!