1. New OidZone Beta .75!
I'm really excited. OidZone is pretty much finished. This is the last
beta, as far as I can tell. I need everyone to play it and let me know
what you think. I'm planning to officially release it to the world at
large on saturday. Download it from my Euphoria web page.
On the page there is also an exerpt from the OZ programmers reference I'm
writing. Everyone who wants to "do" games or any other kind of program
that "addresses, and mails the envelope" of what euphoria can do,
MUST get this valuable reference. OZ is very complex, and the issues that
needed to be addressed are very interesting, especially the 2 player game
issues.
Lord Generic Productions
Project: OidZone
Subject: Beta .75 WHATSUP.DOC 2/6/97
-------------------------------------
First off, thanks for helping us playtest this thing. It's getting way
cool. This document will tell you what you need to know to run it, and
the current buglist.
This zip is the complete data set for OidZone Beta .75.
Just unzip this in your OidZone directory, overwrite everything, and type
ozbeta75 [enter]
NEW FEATURES IN THIS VERSION
1) The oids start off screen at beginning of each level. Looks way cool.
Now when the level changes, oids don't appear on top of you.
2) Collision detection works now. I completely rewrote the collison detect
routines. Now you oids can't fly through you, and you can actually hit
what you aim at.
3) Hyperspace no longer moves you offscreen.
4) Current level is displayed
5) The mines AI is better. They were too easy to hit before. Now you have
to move around after you pop one, because you most likely won't be able
to hit all the mini mines if you stay where you are.
6) The mines now can start at you from any direction, instead of lower
right corner, and they move faster.
7) Hi score table works correctly now.
8) AboutOidZone clears the keyboard before exiting. No more hyperspacing
at the end.
9) F flip keys is global now. You no longer have to hit f every game.
10) Play mechanics have been seriously adjusted. Now you start with oids
of all sizes, instead of just big ones. You get the same number of
oids each level, and after level 1, the mines start appearing every
500 frames. At the higher levels you get multiple mines appearing at
once, as follows:
Level 1 no mines
2 1 mine at a time
3 1
4 2 mines at the same time from different directions!
5 2
6 3
7 3
8 4
9 4
10 5
NOTE: At this time the game is roughly play balanced and way more fun than
previous versions where you couldn't hit half of what you aimed at
and when the mines lined up for you to shoot them.
What you need to run this version of OidZone:
* A 486DX2-66 or better
* A SoundBlaster or compatible sound card.
* Your Blaster environment variable set, Jacques' sound drivers don't
autodetect the sound card (yet)
Play tester instructions:
Basically, play the game until you are sick of it, then play it another
thousand times. Your primary goal as a playtester is to break the program.
Document anything that seems weird or not right. Document ANYTHING you
think I should know. If it ain't in the big list below, I may not know
about it. I'll be compiling a list of bugs submitted by the testers and
mailing it around so you know where we are at. If you can make the program
do something weird or crash repeatedly by doing the same steps, I REALLY
WANT TO KNOW THAT!
I also want your comments\reactions to the game. If you think it's too
easy\hard let me know.
Controls:
ESC - About Box. This will bring up information and credits for the game.
press any key to step through it.
B - Boom. You blow up when you hit the B key.
Q - Quit. Anytime your ship isn't exploding, you can quit the game by
hitting the Q key.
Left ALT - Fire. You can shoot up to 6 shots. As each shot disappears,
you can shoot again.
Left CTRL - Thrust. Thust is additive - each time you hit the thrust key,
you accellerate in the direction you're facing. To slow down
you need to turn around and thrust in the opposite direction.
Right ALT,CRTL - Turn. ALT turns left, Ctrl turns right. You can fly in
any of 12 directions.
REVERSE ROTATION KEYS - F will flip the right alt\ctrl keys for you weirdos
who bought the wrong keyboard. =)
<SPACE> - Hyperspace. You can warp to another location when it starts to
get crowded where you are. You can warp right into an asteroid
too.
S - Turn off sound blaster SFX go to pcspeaker mode
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
How to play OidZone:
====================
OidZone is pretty easy to play. You drive your ship around and blow up
all the asteroids. When you blow up all the asteroids on the screen, you
get another screen full. Every once in awhile a mine will appear on the
screen and hunt you down. If you shoot it, it breaks into 2 smaller mines
that also hunt you down. Each one of them will also break into 2 tiny mines
that ALSO hunt you down. As you move, they will swarm toward you. If you
take too long shooting them, more mines will appear.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
How to start the program:
=========================
If you HAVE a SoundBlaster type card, be sure your BLASTER environment
variable is set Type ozbeta75 at the DOS prompt.
Bug List 2/6/97
-----------------
!@#%CRASH BUGS%$#@!
I don't know of any Crash Bugs in this version.
If you find one, send me the err.ex file asap!
Game Bugs
I think I've stomped all known bugs at this point. Send me ANYTHING YOU
FIND.
The sound drivers STILL hang the game for a couple seconds sometimes. I
hope Jacques can fix that soon.
Graphics Bugs
I think I've stomped all of these as well,
Michael Packard
Lord Generic Productions
lgp at exo.com http://exo.com/~lgp/euphoria
2. New OidZone Beta .75!
Reply to Michael Packard:
Hello Michael,
Isn't there another way to download big files like your OZbeta's etc?
I can not understand why it is coming so slow to me. Sometimes at 0.1 K per
second! With smaller files sometimes it goes boom! and there is the file.
In my earlier computer days I made more use of bulletin board systems and
there I could download files of many Mbytes in minutes. That would cost me
hours via the Netscape V 2.1 that I'm now using. Or am I doing something
wrong?
What should I do? In communications I'm a nitwit, I heard of mail
collectors, off-line readers, but I don't understand much of it. I would
like it much better if I could download files from a BBS. Using an 28K8
modem, this works the best for me.
Please answer!!
Ad Rienks
