Additions/Modifications in Peter's Quest v. 1.2 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is a list of the most recent changes and additions that I have made to my game, Peter's Quest. Please read! I hope most of the changes are for the better. If you encounter any additional bugs or have a suggestion for me, please feel free to write. I'd love to hear from you. David W. Meny 2923 Carmel Way Fairfield, CA 94533 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ADDITIONS IN V. 1.2: 1. OPTIONS! After completing a level, you are now taken to an options screen where you can use the coins you have collected to buy options that will make your game easier or just fun to play! Available options include: a) Extra Time.....Adds 20 seconds to the timer for each level. b) Super Speed....Makes Peter run faster and jump longer horizontally. c) Super Jump.....Makes Peter jump higher. d) Coin Detector..Shows you the location of all the coins on each level. e) Extra Man......Adds an extra life to your current game. f) Key Detector...Show you the location of the key if the key is on the current level. g) Walk on Water..Prevents Peter from dying when he falls off the bottom of the screen. With this option, he will be able to walk across the bottom of the screen. h) Porc. Immunity.Enables Peter to walk through or on top of the porcupines without dying. i) Rocket Pack!...Allows Peter to fly around the screen collecting hearts! (Note: with this option, Peter will not be able to jump) After purchasing these options, they will last until your current man dies. Also, options can be added to each other, so experiment, and have fun! These options are not available on the hard difficulty level, because they make the game a lot easier to complete! On the hard difficulty level, when you get 10 coins, you automatically get a free man, like in the previous versions. So if you find the game too easy with the the options, play with difficulty set to hard! 2. Command line arguments to prevent the loading of the sound and music files has been included. This allows the use of the game on machines with limited memory. These arguments are: -m Prevents the loading and playing of the background music. -s Prevents the loading and playing of the sounds. NOTE: 512k machines should run the program with the command "PQ -m -s", or use the included PQ512k icon which invokes the game with these options. 3. Some of the text such as "Game Over", "Get Ready", "Player 1", etc. were made larger, to stand out. 4. A splash sound is now played whenever Peter falls beneath the screen bottom. 5. Three new files are required for the game to run correctly: sounds/thrust sounds/splash graphics/options Make sure these are in the correct directories before running the game. 6. When a high score is now obtained, the high scores list is now displayed right after your initials are entered. A blue bar also signifies the position of the obtained high score. High scores also now display the difficulty level with which each score was obtained. 7. Menu options and choices can now be selected with either the joystick or the mouse. This allows the entire program to be directed using solely the joystick, so no more switching between the mouse and joystick is required. 8. All game menu options and choices have been implemented with a common look and feel. 9. The sound player was modified to allow all four channels to be used for sound, even if the background music is playing. The music will resume on any specific channel as soon as the sound playing on that channel finishes. 10. A new joystick routine was implemented, hopefully for more accurate results. 11. The game was tinkered with to try to speed it up. A little extra speed was obtained. 12. A fix was implemented to try to fix the occasional screen flash that occurs if the music is playing. It did not cure the problem; just reduce the frequency. 13. A new, smaller (!) icon was created for the program. Dated: November 20, 1991 ***************************************************************************** Additions/Modifications in Peter's Quest v. 1.1 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ADDITIONS (in no specific order): 1. BACKGROUND MUSIC!!!!!!! (courtesy of Teijo Kinnunen) There are two new files in the "sounds" directory: "menu.song" and "game_play.song". These are songs in MED Module format (Teijo Kinnnunen's music program - version 3.10 is available on Fred Fish disk #483). You can change the background music by simply copying a new song over these files (make sure it was saved in the Module format and keep the same filenames). This feature lets you play any of the innumerable songs in ST-MOD/NoiseTracker format that are available, simply by loading them into MED and saving them in the Module format. When music is playing, the game uses only the upper two channels to play the sounds; if there are more than four tracks in the "game_play.song", the game will overide a music channel just as long as is needed to play the sound. If you turn music off, the game will use all four channels to play sounds. 2. Peter now ducks (or squats) whenever the joystick is pulled down. He will also check for anything in a block at the same time, if he is on top of a block. 3. In a two player game, if the other player is dead but hasn't continued when the first player beats Brutus, the other player will be given the chance to continue his/her game (this is more like a bug fix! It should have been this way in the first version!). 4. A "Peter" now appears next to the high score of anyone who has saved Daphne. 5. Hearts now graphically "pop" when gotten. 6. "Rising scores" (I couldn't think of any other way to describe it!) now appear whenever Peter gets a heart, coin, mushroom, or key. 7. The status bar will flash red when time is getting close to be up (from 10 seconds left down to 1 second left). 8. A bonus is given for each additional man you have at the end of the game when you save Daphne. 9. Keyboard input is now trapped in the "Player ##, Get Ready" screen, but not acted upon (they are simply thrown away). This is to safeguard against multiple strikes of the DEL key. 10. If the game window is inactivated (such as when you pull down the screen and activate another window on the Workbench screen or on a custom screen), the game automatically pauses (if it isn't already) and the heart sprites disappear so that they will not get in your way when you are doing other work. They will return when the game is reactivated. My game does not free up the hardware sprites however! So please do not try to run other programs that require the hardware sprites while "Peter's Quest" is running; weird things may happen (most likely a system crash!). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGES (in no specific order): 1. Difficulty level now selects number of men to start with, not amount of time to complete level. Five men for easy level, three men for medium level, and two men for hard level. 2. The status line now shows a graphic reprsentation of a coin and Peter's face for the coins gotten and men left counter (instead of C01 and M01). 3. The DEL key is now used to kill off only the current man. The ESC key is used to kill of ALL men! 4. The porcupines' noses were changed from blue to brown (wow!). 5. Whenever the top high score was beaten, the system would crash. This is now fixed. 6. The main menu is now accessed through the mouse instead of the joystick. 7. The color palette was made brighter. 8. The game now runs from and returns to Workbench correctly. 9. Attempts were made to make the game play faster. However, no really noticeable speed increases occurred. 10. The game used to "recurse" for every level and new game (bad, bad, bad programming on my part!). This would cause a system crash after sufficient amounts of playing. This has been fixed! 11. The pause feature now incorporates a Wait() command so you can return to Workbench and my program shouldn't eat up 99% of the CPU time. 12. Time is now measured in real-time seconds. 13. The sound files are now in raw data format for faster loading and playing. 14. Scoring has been changed slightly. Scores should be lower on average. See the "Docs" file for complete scoring information. 15. Sound and music can now be toggled on and off during pause mode. 16. The "invisible crevices" have been replaced with small rock ledges. 17. You can now turn around successfully when you are on the very edge of a block or ledge. Previously, you would fall. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- KNOWN PROBLEMS/SPECIAL FEATURES: 1. There is a little, random screen "flash" when the background music is playing. I believe this is just the result of an inconsistency between my animation routines and the music player. If it bothers you, simply turn off the music (press M). 2. It is possible to land on a porcupine and live, but it requires excellent timing and is very rare. I know of this "special feature" but have decided to leave it in for those daring and skillful game players. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dated: March 17, 1991