Index of /mmcd/GAMES/TZONE
Name Last modified Size Description
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Parent Directory 03-May-2005 19:14 -
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PLAY.BAT 08-Sep-1994 12:10 1k
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TZONE.EXE 30-Apr-1994 20:00 68k
TZONE.MFF 30-Apr-1994 20:00 1.1M
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TZONE01.GIF 08-Sep-1994 12:10 17k
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THUNDER ZONE 1.0 Documentation
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1/ Introduction
2/ System Requirements
3/ Installing
4/ Running the game and setting up
5/ Playing the game
6/ General Comments
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1/ Introduction
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This concept behind this game came from an ancient classic PC game called
"SpaceWar". The idea behind the 'over the modem' idea was originally thought of
by Peter Cellik (Sphinx) sometime in 1990. Sphinx's efforts to make a better
"SpaceWar" culminated in a prototype game called "WarSpace", which was never
released. A similar type of game to WarSpace which was not an 'over-the-modem'
game was released by myself called "HarshGame". HarshGame was definitely a
first-generation game for me, but I think it made it as far as some CD-ROMs that
are full of PD software, although I'm not sure.
In an effort to enhance "HarshGame", I wrote a next-chapter game called
"HarshGame II : The second conflict", which was a game modelled after Star
Control, but where both players had half the screen (left/right) and could fly
around and shoot at each other. This game was never finished, although I think
I uploaded it to a programming board somewhere with full source code.
Thunder Zone is an expansion and an enhancement on the original concept, with
some new ideas added that I thought were cool. I hope you enjoy it. Many hours
of programming/tweaking/debugging have gone on to get the game to this state.
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2/ System Requirements
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DO NOT RUN THE GAME FROM A FLOPPY DISK. Thunder Zone loads data from the disk
on the fly and running the game from a floppy will slow it down. Also, you MAY
experience program delays at some points if you use some types of disk
compression programs. The game seems to run fine with DoubleSpace and Stacker,
but I haven't tested other programs.
The game requires at least 550k of free base memory at the DOS prompt, less if
you have a Gravis UltraSound card. If you are not sure of how much memory you
have available, run the DOS 'MEM' program. The game doesn't care about EMS or
XMS memory or drivers for them since it doesn't use any memory above 1 meg.
The game will refuse to run under Windows or DesqView, so don't try it.
It is not recommended, but the game WILL run under OS/2 2.0 and above in a full-
screen DOS session. However, you must give the game EXCLUSIVE COM port access.
If you don't you'll probably hang the DOS session during the initial load and
set-up. Make sure that the video settings you use for the dos box (i.e.
VIDEO_RETRACE_EMULATION) are set appropriately or you'll get major jitters while
playing the game.
Although you can use a SoundBlaster for low-quality sound effects, Thunder Zone
was designed to be played with a Gravis UltraSound sound card. The Ultrasound
provide 16-bit CD-quality sound with 32 digital voices at the same or lower
price to lower-quality sound cards. Those people not owning an UltraSound will
also not get the background music since no music at all is better than FM-
synthesis.
UltraSound users will hear a mix of 8 and 16-bit quality sounds at high sampling
rates, as well as rockin' digital background music. To hear the accompanying
music, you probably need to have 512k of RAM on your GUS. (Sorry, I could only
squeeze so much into the thing!)
You need to have a standard VGA graphics controller to play the game. If you
don't have a VGA by now you are missing out on life.
The game can be played with a Gravis PC GamePad, although you may find you
prefer the keyboard. You MAY use another type of joystick, but it is not
recommended and will be hard to use. The game uses ALL FOUR buttons on the
GamePad - other joysticks probably don't support this type of functionality.
Thunder Zone can be played over the modem or over a network between two people.
If you play over the modem, the modem must be able to transmit and receive data
at least at 2400 baud. If you used a lower baud rate, the game would become
unbearably slow. There is no significant difference between playing at 9600
baud and playing at 14.4k, so I didn't bother adding options for faster speeds.
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3/ Installing the game
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If you are reading this document, then you have successfully decompressed the
game files to a directory. The game can coexist with other files in the same
directory. At least the following two files should be in the directory you
decompressed the files into:
TZONE.EXE 69,189
TZONE.MFF 1,191,101
The '.MFF' file is the core data file. TZONE will not run unless this data file
is in the same directory as the EXE file, and the file is readable AND
writeable. This means that if you place the game on a network drive, you must
make sure that you have write access to the directory.
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4/ Running the game and setting up
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Running THUNDER ZONE is easy. Just type "TZONE" at the DOS prompt and press
<ENTER>. If you want to run the game over a network, type "TZONE /network"
instead - at which point you will be asked some questions in order to set up the
game.
The game will first initialize itself and check your machine's configuration.
If you wish to use a Gravis Gamepad, you will be asked whether or not you wish
to calibrate it. If you want to use the pad, you should choose to calibrate.
Please note that the game is easiest to play using the keyboard.
As was mentioned above, without an UltraSound with 512k of RAM on it you will
probably not hear the background music as the game is playing.
Once the brief title screens have been shown, you will be presented with the
main menu. To select and change options in the game, you use the cursor keypad.
The main menu has four choices:
i) Options
This choice can be used to change from using the keyboard to using the
joystick. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A JOYSTICK INSTALLED, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO
SELECT THE JOYSTICK OPTION . Also, UltraSound users can change the volume
level of the background music and the sound effects.
ii) Help and Credits
This choice shows the credits for the game and displays the controls that
are available to be used. If you are using a Gravis Gamepad instead of the
keyboard, the following joystick movements and buttons are used instead:
_____ ||
| \____||________
| __ GRAVIS \
| / \ GamePad B |
| \__/ A C|
|______________ D |
\_____|
Left : Rotate Left Button A : Fire
Right : Rotate Right Button B : Special 2
Down : Brake Button C : Special 1
Button D : Thrust
iii) Play over the Modem/Network
If you started the game with the "/network" command line parameter, you
will see a "Play over the Network" option. Otherwise, you will see a "Play
over the Modem" option.
If you are playing over a modem, you will see a 'modem set-up' screen where
you can select and modify settings for your modem. At the bottom of the
screen are three options, "Already Connected"; "Wait for a call"; and "Call
enemy player". Whichever option you select, make sure that the modem
settings are correct or unpredictable things can happen.
The "Wait for a call" and "Call enemy player" options are self-
explainatory. If you call or wait for a call, the modems will attempt to
connect. If they cannot connect successfully, you will be returned to the
main menu.
If you wish to use another program like Telix or Procomm to connect with
the other player, you can do so and then exit that program to DOS before
running Thunder Zone. Just pick the 'Already connected' option. The only
requirement is that the terminal program does not hang up the modem or drop
the DTR signal. Also, make sure that the settings you use in the terminal
program exactly match the ones you use in Thunder Zone. NOTE: Thunder Zone
only uses three different baud rates to set up the modem: 2400, 9600, and
38400. Using another baud rate externally and then trying to run the game
will not work.
After successfully connecting via modem or if you are playing over a
network, you will be placed into a 'chat' mode, where you can talk to your
enemy before starting each round. When you are ready to play you press
F10. If you wish to stop playing, press ESC. Note that if you are playing
over a modem, exiting from the chat screen will hang up the phone.
If either player presses F10 at the chat screen, you will be placed into
the weapon selection screen. Please see section 5 below for more
information on this screen and on playing the game in general.
iv) Play against the computer
Selecting this option from the main menu will allow you to play against
your computer at one of four different levels of difficulty: "Learn",
"Easy", "Hard", and "Deadly". First time players should use the "Learn"
option at least once or twice to get the feel of the controls (the enemy
for this level is VERY stupid). The other levels increase in difficulty,
with "Deadly" being the hardest I could make him while still allowing you
to be able to kill him (I have done it, so you can too).
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5/ Playing the game
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Whoever you play against (another person or the computer), before each
'round' you will be asked to select two of eight possible 'extra weapons' that
you can use. Some of the weapons require a keypress to activate, and some are
active all the time. Here is a breakdown of the possible weapons and their
specific abilities:
Cloaking Device: This allows you to 'disappear' from your enemy's screen and
radar; rendering you invisible. Note that your energy
reserves will not charge up while you are cloaked unless you
have selected "Turbo Recharge" as your other extra weapon.
Attempting to fire while cloaked will disengage the cloaking
device. Note that you are still visible while cloaking and
decloaking, since the activity takes some time. See also
the 'Cloak detector' ability below. Pressing the key for
this ability will toggle the cloak on or off.
Turbo Recharge: If you select this ability, it is active for the entire
round - you do not need to press a key to activate it. This
allows you to have your energy reserves charge at twice
their normal rate.
Power Shield: If you select this ability, it is active for the entire
round - you do not need to press a key to activate it. This
allows you to have a double-strength shield without an
associated energy drain when transferring power to your
shields.
Mega Blasters: If you select this ability, it is active for the entire
round - you do not need to press a key to activate it. This
weapon is formidable, doubling the destructive power of your
lasers.
Cloak Detector: An anti-cloak device. Activating this weapon has a large
drain on your energy reserves, but it shows your enemy's
location on the radar and on your screen (if he is within
range) for a brief period of time. For easy location, the
enemy's position on the radar screen is accented with
crosshairs.
Proton Torpedoes: Hefty, hefty, hefty. These weapons have the highest damage
yeild, but only fly straight and have a limited range. The
torpedoes use your ship's computer for guidance, and the
computer can only handle 7 of them flying at once. As soon
as a torpedo impacts at it's target or detonates at maximum
range, you can fire another one.
Homing Missiles: These are the weapon of choice among most serious players.
Like torpedoes, these are guided by your ship's computer.
However, they will change their heading to point to your
enemy's ship and pursue him relentlessly until they hit him.
There is no maximum range to the missiles, but they will not
track a cloaked enemy. Since the overhead on your ship's
computer to calculate and update these missiles is great,
you can only have 3 of them flying at any one time.
However, if a missile hit's your enemy when he's not on
you're screen, you will see a "Missile Hit" message,
informing you that you can fire another one.
Omni-Laser: If you select this ability, it is active for the entire
round - you do not need to press a key to activate it. This
weapons makes your lasers shoot in any direction, not just
straight. If there is nothing within range, they will shoot
straight but otherwise they will lock on to the enemy.
Combined with mega-blasters (see above), this weapon is an
extremely good short-range choice.
Thunder Zone is easy to play. Basically, your ship is always shown at the
center of your screen, with a 'radar map' of the area shown in the bottom right,
and your ship's status shown at the bottom left. In the radar map, you will see
two circles, representing the earth (blue) and the moon (grey). Your ship is
shown as a white dot, and the enemy's ship is shown as a red dot. You can fly
around the zone, and when you come to the edge, it 'wraps around' to the other
side.
The status display at the bottom left is simple: there are two bars - one
indicating your energy reserves and one indicating your shield strength. As you
can get from the discriptions of the extra weapons above, your energy reserves
charge up as you play, but are drained by the usage of your lasers or your
engines. Also, you can transfer power from your energy reserves to your
shields. However, once you have transferred energy to the shields, you cannot
transfer it back again. To transfer power, press the down arrow key.
Thunder Zone can handle more than one key on the keyboard being pressed at
once - so you can do more than one action at the same time. Also, in firing
your lasers you don't have to release the fire button - you can hold it down for
rapid-fire.
If you haven't figured it out by now, the main idea of the game is to
choose weapons to counter your enemy's choices, and then to destroy him if you
can. In real life, the whole game is done in hyper-virtual-reality simulation,
so nobody gets killed. :)
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6/ General Comments
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I hope this game gives you and your friends hours of fun and excitement - that's
what I made it for. Given that the game is quite playable at 2400 baud and can
run in a machine with just a small amount of memory, I don't see too many people
not being able to play it.
The game was written with some general goals in mind:
1. Make it fun.
2. Make it easy.
3. Make it look cool.
4. Make it sound cool.
5. Make it in ANY high-level language to demonstrate that with the languages
and tools available these days, it doesn't matter which language you use.
To satisfy #5, I chose to implement the game in Borland Pascal. Yes, Thunder
Zone was written entirely in Borland Pascal 7 - 29,000 lines of it! I could
have chosen to do it in C or Modula-2 just as easily, but I thought a type-
checking fast compiler which produced quick code was better than giving myself a
headache. The resulting EXE file has been compressed to avoid tampering.
The network routines were all done by Bill Kloubek, who goes by a number of
names. Bill's quite possibly the best network guy I've ever known.
I used several programs in development, including GoldWave 2.0 (the absolute
BEST sound editor for windows), DeluxePaint IIe, and a PD screen capture utility
written by Sphinx called GRAB. All the other stuff for development I wrote
myself, including the pascal version of the Gravis UltraSound SDK and the
background MOD file player used by the game.
I used a PD graphics library for the MODE-X graphics called XLIB, in a pascal
implementation - although I had to fix it myself (Tristan Tarrant, the guy that
did the port wasn't interested in answering my email -ppppphhhhhttt!!!). XLIB
was originally written by Themie Gouthas and it totally rocks - many programmers
use it for their graphics.
A big high-ho goes to all the good european demo groups: you guys sure know your
stuff! (I wish I had a 486 in high school - man, I could have made some great
stuff all those weeknights I had nothing to do :( now I'm too busy): FUTURE
CREW/RENAISSANCE/INFINITY/DELUSION/DUST/VLA
Anybody who wants to send me email can do so at my Simon Fraser University
address or my Advanced Gravis address:
kurtt@sfu.ca
kurt_kennett@gravis.com
Have fun with the game!