*********************** * * * KUNGFU CHARLIES * * VERSION 1 * * * * By Andy Walker * * * *********************** Kungfu Charlies Version 1 is shareware. I would like it to be widely distributed, so give it to all your friends, copy and spread it as much as you like! This document must always be included. Kungfu Charlies is a scrolling platform / martial arts type game with an injection of strange humour. Version 1 has 3 floors to battle through. Each floor contains 10 rooms full of trouble: FLOOR 1: The Way Of The Ninja FLOOR 2: The Shape Of Things To Come FLOOR 3: The Military Section Version 2 has 10 floors ( i.e. 100 rooms ). Kungfu Charlies is a one or two ( simultaneous ) player game. Complete instructions follow in a moment.. K.C. does not need more than 512k to run. If you have more than 512k you won't get any extra features, sorry! ( If anyone wants to know, I have a 512k Amiga with a 0.5 meg upgrade ) Registering ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fed up with paying lots of cash for your games ? Are they sometimes a waste of money ? Well here's the answer to your problems! If you like Version 1 you can register with me, and I will send you: 1. Version 2 of Kungfu Charlies ( with 10 floors ) and 2. A free game called Duel. A brief description of this is given below. NOTE: Version 2 of Kungfu Charlies is not to be spread around, it is not to be copied for other people. Only the Version 1 can be spread around. How to register ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To register send me your name and address and a registration fee of 6 English Pounds. This includes the cost of the disk and the cost of posting it to you. Make cheques payable to Andrew Walker. My address: Andrew Walker, 57 Brackensdale Avenue, Kingsway, Derby, DE22 4AF, England. Please allow about 2 weeks for the game to arrive ( I can't really give you an exact time ) because I will have to wait for any cheques to be cashed before I can send you your disk. I will not waste time, I will send you your disk as soon as possible. Also: (1) Remember, this is for all you Amiga freaks out there looking for quality software that won't make a hole in your pocket! (2) The more people that register, the more likely it will be that I write more ( and better ) games. A Word About Duel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Duel is the first game I wrote on the Amiga ( K.C. being the 2nd ). It is a 2D tank battle game for two players, one on each joystick. You may have seen games like this before, but this has: (1) Advanced graphics. There are several different battle grounds to play on, there are tunnels and buildings to hide inside, there are safety zones, slow zones, killer zones, there are transporters. (2) Extra Weapons. You can collect extra energy, extra machine gun ammunition, missiles, heat-seeking missiles, bouncing bombs, devastation bombs, mortar bombs, temporary shields, delay bombs. This game is a lot of fun, and best of all it comes free on the K.C. disk! Kungfu Charlies Instructions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The best way to learn how to play it is to play it because this is a really simple game to get to grips with, but there may be some things some of you may want to know... To load Kungfu Charlies: (1) The current directory must contain the "Kungfu_Charlies" executable file. (2) The current directory must contain the directory "KC_Levels". KC_Levels must contain the floor data. There is a file for each floor, "floor.n" where n can be 0 to 9. (3) To run K.C. you must execute the "Kungfu_Charlies_V1" file by typing "Kungfu_Charlies_V1". (4) Do not take the disk out, as floor data will be loaded when neccessary. The Story ( Version 2 ) ~~~~~~~~~~~ ( O.K. So it's a rubbish story, but I'm making it up as I go along! ) Somewhere in time and space there once existed a small planet called Ik-ik-wigga-wigga-banana-six ( until it got eaten by an intergalactic space elephant who mistuck it for a tin of carrots ). On this planet lived Charlie and his twin brother Charlie. From birth they were trained in the martial arts ( by watching too many martial arts films ). Anyway, one day when they got out of bed they noticed something strange in the back garden - a massive building had been built among the begonias. The evil mind behind this was that of Jean Claude Van Tomato. Jean Claude was very nasty ( he sold his family to a cheese and tomato sandwich company ) and was using the building to conduct his twisted experiments. This made the Charlies mad, they couldn't watch this going on in their own backyard. They decided to enter the building and sort this bloke out. Unfortunately for the two Charlies, Jean Claude is hiding in the 10th room of the 10th ( and top ) floor. To get to him they must battle through all 100 rooms, each of which are filled with Jean Claude's nasty helpers and wierd lab creations. Below is a list of floors and an idea of what to find on each ( Version 2 only ): FLOOR 1: The Way Of The Ninja - various ninjas! FLOOR 2: The Wonders Of The Animal Kingdom - killer snails, frogs cute fuzzy things with massive teeth, e.t.c. FLOOR 3: The Shape Of Things To Come - robots, flying saucers, e.t.c. FLOOR 4: Jean Claude's Laboratories - hovering eyeballs, jumping heads, mummies, e.t.c. FLOOR 5: Nuclear Experiment Laboratories - walking bananas, helipigs, e.t.c. FLOOR 6: The Military Section - soldiers, tanks, missiles, e.t.c. FLOOR 7: Return Of The Ninja - more ninjas! FLOOR 8: More Weird Lab Creations - killer false teeth, jetpacking tortoises, e.t.c. FLOOR 9: Killer Geometrical Nasties - killer parallelograms, vicious circles ( what a joke! ), e.t.c. FLOOR 10: The Final Floor - killer carrots, insane onions, angry apples, Jean Claude Van Tomato, e.t.c. There are loads of monsters not mentioned here, you will have to discover them for yourself ( look out for end-of-floor guardians ). To complete each room you must defeat all the baddies that live there. You do this by giving them a quick dose of your martial art skills. How To Control A Charlie ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Player 1 must use the usual joystick port, Player 2 ( if you want two players ) must use a joystick in the mouse port. Joystick Move Action ------------- ------ LEFT or RIGHT Charlie walks left or right UP Charlie jumps up DOWN Charlie ducks FIRE Charlie does a front kick in current direction Whilst ducking: LEFT or RIGHT Charlie looks left or right whilst ducking FIRE Charlie does a sweep kick in current direction Whilst jumping ( or falling ): LEFT or RIGHT Charlie moves to the LEFT or RIGHT FIRE Charlie does a flying kick in current direction Jumping onto higher or lower platforms: --------------------------------------- Whilst standing up, press and hold FIRE. Pushing UP will make Charlie jump onto the platform directly above him ( if there is one ). Pushing DOWN will make Charlie jump onto the platform directly below him ( if there is one ). Remember to keep holding FIRE whilst pushing UP or DOWN. Once The Room Is Clear ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Once the room is clear, a 'GO' sign starts flashing in the middle of the screen. This tells you to make your way to the far right of the room and go through the door to the next room. In room 10 of each floor lurks a specially big and nasty monster who appears after all the small monsters have been cleared. This monster takes more than one hit to kill. After killing it, you may procede to the next room ( and floor ). Collecting Special Items ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ At regular intervals a special item will appear in the current room. This item may give you extra points or extra weapons when collected. Extra weapons usually come in the form of a pod with a letter on it: S: A temporary shield giving Charlie invincibility, F: A temporary enemy 'freezer', K: A temporary shield that will kill any enemies that touch it, B: A smart bomb. You may collect a pod with an arrow on it. This takes you to the next room. Extra lives also sometimes appear. Lastly, you may also see a machine gun. Picking this up gives you a temporary chance to blast everything with bullets. This is my personal favourite ( I'm not a violent person, but there's something funny about shooting jetpacking tortoises and walking bananas! ). The Status Bar ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ At the top of the display is the status bar. To the left of this is player 1's lives and score. To the right is player 2's. In the middle the number of credits remaining is displayed. To the left of this the current room and floor number is shown. To the right two gauges are displayed. The top one tells you how many enemies still exist in this room. The bottom one tells you how many hits the end-of-floor big enemy can take before being destroyed. Also kept a note of is the number of monsters you have whacked. This is displayed on the floor intermission screen along with the name of the next floor and the floor's password ( see later ). On the room intermission screen the name of the next room is displayed. When you lose a credit, your lives are replaced and your score and number of 'whacks' are reduced to zero. If you don't have any credits left it's game over I'm afraid! Altering game parameters ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Pressing fire during the title screen sequence takes you to the parameter selection screen. There are 4 options, each of which can be activated by first selecting it ( by moving Player 1's joystick UP or DOWN ) and then pressing FIRE. The options are: Credits: selecting this increases the number of credits that you are given. The maximum allowed is 9, the minimum is 1. If you select this whilst displaying 9, it will go back to 1. Player Speed: Selecting this toggles between fast and slow. The normal speed it fast, which seems the best to me.. Password: selecting this allows you to alter the password. The password allows you to restart the game on a specific floor, providing you have the correct password for that floor. If it is incorrect you will start on floor 1. The first letter of the password will be flashing. To change the letter you must push UP or DOWN on player 1's joystick. To alter one of the other 3 letters you must select it by moving the joystick LEFT or RIGHT. To exit you must press FIRE. Start: this starts the game! Initially, 'Start' is selected, so you can press fire straight away without messing about. the parameters are initially set to their default values. Entering Your Name In the Highscore Or Hiwhack Table ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ No matter how many credits you use, the best score or whack number you achieved using one of these credits is recorded. After 'game over' you may have got your name into the highscore or hiwhack table. Entering your name is easy, it is done using the password changing method which is mentioned above. Keyboard Controls ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ During the game press 'p' to pause the game. Whilst the game is paused you can press 'p' again to carry on or you can press 'q' to quit and return to the title screen. You can only quit whilst in pause mode. Also ~~~~~~ You get an extra life every 50000 points. I Thought I'd chuck that in for those of you who find it a bit too difficult. Oh yes, I nearly forgot, there IS a cheat mode. I'm not going to reveal what it is yet, though I guess someone out there will find out what it is. Bugs In Kungfu Charlies ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bugs? the cheek of it! No, seriously, if there are any bugs they will only be very minor, will not reduce your level of enjoyment and will probably never happen again until you've played the game 10000+ more times. I have play tested K.C. loads of times and I am sure all the bugs have been killed. A Bit About Me ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ At the time of writing this ( 1.35am, 13/7/93 ) I am 20 years old ( and need my bed ). I have just finished my 2nd year of a three year course at the University of Nottingham. I am studying for a degree in ( you've guessed it! ) computer science. It may not suprise you to know Kungfu Charlies took me 2 years to write. This was because I spent only a few hours a week on it - sometimes none at all. If I was working on it full time, I think I could have got it done in under six months easily. Don't worry though my next game will be out in less than a year! When I finish University, I am hoping to become a full time games programmer, so if there are any interested software companies reading this, drop me a line, especially if you are situated in Derby or nearby. I did all the coding for this game. That includes all the graphics. I'm afraid I'm not a brilliant artist but I'm getting better. K.C. is the 2nd game I have done on the Amiga, Duel being the 1st. So you won't find anything else by me floating about, unless you have aquired this after the release of my next program. Below is a list of computers I've had in the past and stuff I wrote on them ( O.K. you may be bored by now, but humour me! ): 1. Dragon 32 - never wrote anything, just played games. 2. Commodore 64 - My only game was a Frogger clone, never showed it to anyone else, now i've taped over it ( sniff ). 3. Atari ST - wrote 'Pacmong', a Pacman clone and 'biomong', a puzzle/maze game. I still have these on disk, but have never shown them to anyone except friends.. 4. Amiga 512k - Already said loads about this one! K.C. is the first full blown game I've ever done. All other games have been small in size ( memory wise ) and much simpler. I have learnt lots of things during it's creation and I mean LOTS. I will use my experiences to create even better games in the future. O.K. now to get even more boring. My interesting hobbies are: trying to play the guitar, trying to keep fit, listing to decent music ( Nine Inch Nails, Metallica, Slayer, Ministry, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, Sepultura, Morbid Angel, Faith No More, etc, etc ) and the usual stuff, beer, girls, aardvarks. Have I Forgot Anything? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I don't think I have forgotten anything important. I hope you enjoy Kungfu Charlies. Best Wishes, Andy..