Conference hydra::amiga_v1

(thanks for asking!)

    Could u send me the source code???I would like to look at it and
    I know a EXCELLENT programmer who lives around me that may be able
    to make improvments!!
    
    mat
    

*******************************************************************************
*                             A N N O U N C I N G                             *
*                                                                             *
*                          The first ever release of                          *
*                                                                             *
*                      S P A C E   K I L L E R S   1 . 0                      *
*                                                                             *
*                               by Paul Wisner                                *
*                                                                             *
*******************************************************************************

"Okay.  Don't shoot it until I get closer.... Okay! SHOOT! SHOOT! SHOOT! 
Get that spider!"
"Alright, just scoop up those crystals.  Do we have enough to buy a part?"
"Almost, do you see any merchants around here?"
"Watch out!!  There's another spider after us."
"I can't shake him!"
"I shot him!"
"Look out for that mine field!  That was close! Stupid saucers"
"Do you see any more large rocks on the radar?"
"No, it's getting really dangerous on this level.  We better go for 
the stargate."
"Okay, let's just get a few more crystals then we'll--  There goes a 
shield!  Get it! Get it! Get it!  Oh No!  BRAIN MONSTER!"
"Brain! Brain! Brain!  Ahhhh!  It got us!"
"Let's get to the stargate!"

Space Killers 1.0 is a fast action video game that two people can play 
together as a team.  The pilot can stear his ship in any direction in 
the scrolling playfield of asteriods, merchant ships, stargates and many
hostile creatures.  The gunner controls a turret attached to the ship.
Both players control powerfull laser weapons, the pilot can only shoot in
the direction the ship is moving, the turret gunner can shoot in all
directions.

You must mine the asteriods for Orbis Crystals.  Dock with merchant ships
to exchange crystals for components of the "Mega Gun".  While your 
constructing the Mega Gun, you must progress through stargates to reach
level 20 and confront the Evil Emperor.  To destroy the Evil Emperor you 
must have the Mega Gun working.

This game has been through thousands of hours of play testing.  The software
is free and may be distributed to anyone.  Completing the game is very
difficult.  But it is possible and has been done many times.

FILE LOCATION:

AIAG::DISK$FUN:[WISNER.AMIGA]SPACEKILLERS.ZOO           ! ZOO format, 300K
AIAG::DISK$FUN:[WISNER.AMIGA]SPACEKILLERS-INSTALL.DOC   ! this text
AIAG::DISK$FUN:[WISNER.AMIGA]ZOO.BIN                    ! Amiga ZOO 2.0 program

I have uploaded it, downloaded it (using Kermit) and un-zoo'ed it successfully.

SPACE KILLERS installation instructions
---------------------------------------

These instructions are written for a 512K Amiga with one disk drive.
(I believe it will work on such a configution, however, I have only tested
it on a 2.5Meg Amiga with one disk drive.)

You must have a working version of ZOO.  ZOO.BIN and SpaceKillers.ZOO 
are available at AIAG::DISK$FUN:[WISNER.A1000].

1) Download the file SpaceKillers.ZOO (300K) to a floppy disk.

2) Reboot your amiga using Workbench

3) Make some commands resident:
  (if you have a two-drive system, move your Workbench disk into df1: or 
   df2:)
AmigaDOS> resident c:install
AmigaDOS> resident c:cd
AmigaDOS> resident c:execute
AmigaDOS> resident c:rename
AmigaDOS> resident c:makedir
AmigaDOS> copy WorkBench:System/Format RAM:

3) Copy the zoo command to ram:
   
4) Copy SpaceKillers.ZOO to ram:

5) cd RAM:

6) Format drive DF0: Name SpaceKillers

7) Install DF0:

8) cd DF0:

9) ram:zoo -extract RAM:SK.ZOO
(This takes about 12 minutes)

10) execute INSTALL-SK

11) REBOOT to start SpaceKillers

On your disk is the file Instructions.doc.  This is the players manaul.  I
found one error:

The line  :  "You cannot destroy the Evil Emperor with the Mega Gun"
Should say:  "You cannot destroy the Evil Emperor withOUT the Mega Gun"

    Lift your file protection dude....
    							Thanks!
    								Ed
    

Should be OK now:

$ set file/prot=w:Re amiga.dir
$ dir [.amiga]/prot

Directory DISK$FUN:[WISNER.AMIGA]

PRIVATE.DIR;1        (RWE,RWE,RE,)
SPACEKILLERS-INSTALL.DOC;6
                     (RWED,RWED,RE,RE)
SPACEKILLERS.ZOO;1   (RWED,RWED,RE,RE)
ZOO.BIN;1            (RWED,RWED,RE,RE)

Total of 4 files.
$

    Yesterday I added the SpaceKillers disk to the public domain software
    libraries at OmniTek in Tewksbury Mass., and at The Memory Location in
    Wellesley.  So, if you can't download it, you can go to these stores
    and make a copy for some small fee.      
    
    

    When I tried to copy your program the system returned with an "invalid
    login information" error.  Can you make spacekillers available for a
    couple more days?
    
    mark
    

     Bad news, I was only able to stop the flickering once, now it does it 
    everytime I load it.
     Cold boots, the Esc key, and the pause key have no effect whats so
    ever on curing the flicker.
    	Any Ideas?
    							Ed

    
    Hi,
     
    I've been giving spacekillers a try, and I really like the game.  I was
    wondering if there is any way of stopping the flickering?  It hurts my
    eyes after a while.  Not so much with the space screen, but when I look
    at the screen with the radar on the right, my eyes start to freak.
     
    Thanks,
     
    Jk
    

spacekillers.zoo is on wjg::amiga:

Nice program, Paul! I'm not a game player, but this one had me determined!

I couldn't seem to get the guy in the ship to sell me stuff. It said
"so and so is offering xxx, hit ENTER to accept", well I hit, banged, begged
and pleaded :-) with both enter and return to no avail... Guess I'll
have to resort to RTFM....

john

    I down loaded SpaceKillers last Friday night. I put it on a floppy
    as per instructions and it came up working the first time (no problems.)
    
    I made the mistake of showing the game to my son and the computer
    was lost to me for the next 2 days.  My son and his friends played
    continously for hours and hours.  Here's a recap of there comments.
    
    Problem: After 3-4 hours of play the screen suddenly freezes.
             The only remedy was a reboot. They were mad because this
             meant they lost their MegaGun.
    Problem: They got a Software Error once. (all tasks held etc...)
    Request: Saving the game would make it easier for me to kick them
             off so I could do some real work.
    Request: Hard disk installation. I gave it a try, but I didn't have
             much luck. I got the title screen and the status panel
             at the right to come up. Then its guru time.
    Request: If hard disk installation can be made possible, an exit
             key would be helpful.
    
   Thanks for the Great game,
    Rich
    
    
  

re: .8,.9  flicker
That's three seperate reports of flicker.  Yet, I've never seen it.  I assume
that not everyone has flicker... right?

re: .10
>"so and so is offering xxx, hit ENTER to accept", well I hit, banged, begged
>and pleaded :-) with both enter and return to no avail...
The messge sais "offering a XXX for NN cystals".  You must collect these
crystals by shooting the asteriods and then flying over the small purple
diamonds the float out.  A counter on the control panel shows how many you've
collected.  If you try to buy something without enough cystals, nothing wil
happen.  (I guess a message would have been nice here).

re: .11
Glad to hear you liked it!  I'm sorry that the game froze up.  I've seen
this happen, but I find it to be a rare occurance (= difficult to debug).
I've played hundreds of games and it's only frozen twice.  Once it was about
90 degrees where the computer was.

I've had it running from a hard disk.  You have to make sure you get all
he assigns right (see :s/startup-sequence).  I could never get it to
work from an icon.

In AMIGA programs, a quit option has to be designed in from the beginning,
so that the program can free all its resources when you quit.  Adding
a quit option would require a lot of work.  Too much.

    Another Flicker.
    
    Amiga 500 68010 CPU,  Cltd SCSI500, Spirite insider. One external
    floppy, 5 1/4 with <CB>'s interface. 200 Watt power supply.
    
    I got it not to flicker once after a colb boot (being off over night)
    since then it flickers all the time.  Switching to the CLI screen it
    flickers also.  Maybe if the people with the flicker post their config
    we can find a common cause.
    
    Nice game my kid loves it.  so do I.
    
    
    Alan
    

    I get the flicker also.  Could it be some issue with chip vs. fast ram?
    I have seen some strange behavior in programs that expect all memory to
    be chip.

    I changed the assigns to point to the directory I'd stuffed it into 
    on the hard disk and it runs fine from there.  No flicker on my 
    2500 with flicker fixer...  
    
    Gotta fix my 2nd joystick and get my son on the turret gun.  We play 
    a lot of games as two player games (I fly, he shoots, we get pretty 
    good scores that way).  It's real nice to have a game that was 
    designed to be played that way!
    
    Yours
    Erg

I like the game too. It is definitely up there with the best of PD games and,
of course, better than some commercial stuff. I suppose it will be selling in 
Europe soon (a recent usenet posting says it happens).

I have had the flicker ( I can't imagine trying to play with it!) 
with a 1 meg A500.  I know that it worked correctly at least one time when I 
turned off the computer and inserted the disk AFTER I turned it back on. I 
think it didn't work when I cold booted with the disk already in the drive. 
Is this a helpful clue :^).

Dave

    The flicker problem is gone.  Placed "RUN NoFastMem > nil:" in the
    StartUp-Sequence.   Nice game and no eye strain.  Now I got to go out
    and buy another joystick.
    
    Thanks for the game good work.
    
    Alan
    

    
    re: No Fast Mem and flicker...
     
    I'm afraid that won't work for me...  since I have the new Fat Agnus
    chip, I can't use NoFastMem...
     
    JK
    
    

    re .12
    
> he assigns right (see :s/startup-sequence).  I could never get it to
> work from an icon.
    
    Once I got it running on the hard disk, I created an icon for it using
    ICONX.  I put the entire distrubution into a :games/spacekillers
    directory. I created command file (GO.COM) that does assignments
    similar to that in startup-sequence (expept, pointing to
    :games/spacekillers.) I created the directories the Install-SK created,
    but under :games/spacekillers and renamed files appropriately. 
    
    I then created another command filed called Space-Killers.  There are
    three lines in this file.
      Run SYS:system/NoFastMem > nil:
      Wait 2 sec
      Execute go.com
    
    Next I created a 'project Icon' (with iconmaster) and put as default
    tool "sys:c/ICONX" and named it :games/spacekillers/Space-Killers.info.
    Voila, a clickable space killers from my hard disk.  Now the kids don't
    have to mess with floppies. 
    
    Caveat?
    I tryied to run nofastmem from the same file that ran spacekillers.
    This only resulted in guru's.  Don't really know enough about the
    Amiga to explain this.

    BTW, I have a A2000HD with 1 meg Chip and 2 megs fast RAM.
    
    G'Day,
    Rich

    re: .8,.9  flicker
    
    If memory servers me, I get the flicker if I depress the spacebar or
    hit (left)Amiga N. Then I can't get rid of it. So, I don't hit them. 
    
    re: .12
    
    The kids tell me freezing happens about 2 times a day (during
    continous use.) 
    
    How about saving/restoring the game? 
    
    ...R    

    Nice game, Paul. Runs w/o flicker on my A500/501 w/ the NoFastMem in the
    startup-sequence. One question though. The instructions.doc file states
    that the spacebar pauses the game - it doesn't seem to do this, but does
    act as a "smart bomb", wiping out everything (aliens, crystals) on the 
    screen. Documentation error or feature?

							-Dom

    The NoFastMem fixing the flicker (in *some* cases) is really odd.  I 
    developed and testing the game on a 2.5 Meg A1000 and never used
    NoFastMem.  Maybe it has something to do with wait states or longer
    memory refresh times?  I can experience with difference bitmap swapping
    methods in the double buffered display.
    
    re: -1
    That's a documentation error.  The spacebar activates a smart bomb 
    (there is an unlabeled smartbomb counter on the control panel).  The
    "P" key pauses/unpauses the game.

    
    
    For a real good time;
    
    
    I built a button controller for games out of parts that I bought
    at radio shack to use for games.  It really enhanced spacekillers
    due to the use of buttons for rotation.  There is a note I wrote
    describing it somewhere here... but I don't have it handy.  In any
    case rotation by button is how the old asteroids system worked and
    this is similar (IE flying through space) so I decided to try it.
    
    It was great for this game!!!
    
    It looks like this;
    
    
    LEFT   RIGHT   UP  DOWN  FIRE1  FIRE2
    
    

    
    re -1
    
    This is a better description;
    
Howdy y'all,

  Well I created my own control box using low profile switches and a
custom box.  This is my layout;

    B1       B2         B3         B4       B5

   Left     Right     Reverse    Forward   Fire
  Joystick Joystick   Joystick   Joystick  Button


  This layout proved best for running games which required rotational
motion and rapid fire.  You will notice that the reverse key would be
difficult to operate, and it is, however most of the time I will simply
rotate and thrust to stop.

I have tried this out with the following games and have liked it with
each one of them.

Alien Killer
Space Invaders
Fire Power


Regards Harry
    

>    Caveat?
>    I tryied to run nofastmem from the same file that ran spacekillers.
>    This only resulted in guru's.  Don't really know enough about the
>    Amiga to explain this.
    
    Could it be that the current task had it's stack in FAST memory and
    you need to create a new task with EXECUTE so that you'd be running
    the game off a stack in CHIP memory?
    
    - steve

    
    I might as well add my observations to the flicker problem.  On my
    A2000 with 5meg I was able to stop the flicker (actually I'd call
    is flashing, it's far more iratable than flicker). 
    
    What I discovered is the once the game is loaded and running without
    flicker I can introduce flicker again by using the LEFT-AMIGA-M/N keys.
    Once It comes back you seem to be able to play with those keys and
    vary the rate.
    
    What does it mean? I have no idea, I thought it may trigger an idea
    in someones mind.
    
    Game is fun when it's not flashing!
    
    Frank
    

    
    Re .-1
    
    OOPS! I forgot to mentionin the previous reply that the NoFastMem
    in the startup sequence stopped the flicker initially.
    
    Frank
    

    My flicker can be stopped by switching OFF my extra 512k on my Amiga
    500. Anyone else tried this.....
    
    Greg

My flicker returned last night after a week without it. We put NoFastMem
into the startup and the flicker went away.

I have an Amiga 500, thin Agnus = 512 Chip + 512 other memory.

When SpaceKillers is flickering I have tried the P=pause key. Half the
time you press it, the picture freezes and the word "pause" appears. The
other half of the time you get a completely blank screen. This is
consistent with SpaceKillers switching between two screens and one of
those screens being blank, thus causing the flicker. Perhaps one of the
screens ends up in non-chip mem and causes this?

Nick

    My flicker stopped last night when I put the NOfastmem command in the
    startup-sequence, now it works without me switching between 1/2 ans 1mb
    memory
    
    :^)
    
    Greg