APOLLO 29
~~~~~~~~~
   by Neil Roy
   (for Speedhack 1999)

   Here it is!  It's not much but it was within my experience so this is the
game I created for the speedhack compo... I have ALOT more I wanted to do
with this (special lighting & graphics for the flames etc...) but I wanted
to complete this, not to win, but just to prove to myself I could complete a
project within a time limit to reasonable satisfaction.

   How do you play this?  You will see the title screen, the keys are
pretty intuitive, ENTER to start the game, ESC to exit it (during play
you can press ESC to exit as well).

   UP arrow = thrust up (sorry, no time to add joystick support)
   DOWN arrow = thrust down (attitude thrusters)
   RIGHT, LEFT arrows = attitude thrusters left and right

   (I wanted to add in an ABORT key that would use a massive amount of fuel
    to get you out of a sticky situation but I don't have the time)

    You have to find a landing pad and safely land on it to be successful.
    The pad ir orange in colour, you will have to search for it, it is
randomly placed.  The landscape scrolls and wraps around.  If you fly too
high you will be lost in space, if you land on the pad too hard (greater than
 .5 velocity) you will... land hard, and be marooned on the moon (that is,
 unless you crash first! :)).  Don't try to land anywhere else, it is not
 safe, trust me. ;)

   It is a fairly simple game, you will see the numbers of safe landings,
crashes, hard landings etc... when you quit the game, there is a fuel gauge
at velocity indicators at the bottom of the screen.

   The BEEP you here for the messages are actual beeps from the APOLLO 11
mission.

   I wanted to add an ABORT to this as stated above, I also wanted to have
lighting and a realistic flame and lander (I had images but there was that
size restraint).  I wanted variable gravities (Jupiter, Moon, Earth etc...)
selectable worlds to land on, people to rescue.. also a more realistic lander
sim would have been nice, I will probably do all this eventually, with a
seperate ascent stage and descent stage, so you will have to fly TO the moon,
seperate from the command module, land, get a sample or sumpin and take off
again, navigating off the moon and docking, flying back to earth etc...
(I also thought about doing a first person perspective, sitting IN the
LEM (Lunar Excursion Module... lander) looking out with realistic landscape
(digitized image of the lunar landscape) etc... lots could be done, I am a
huge fan of the Apollo era of space flight, those men were BRAVE! :))

   Anyhow, I hope you or your kids have some fun with this... only took
3 days to make... a first for me! hehehe.

      Have a good one, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY Arron!  Great idea for a compo... I
learned ALOT.. (like PLANNING, MODULES, a BETTER EDITOR etc... etc...).

      Neil Roy


P.S.:  The cheat code is.... <drum roll> "-SPLUNGE" (all caps) heheh...
       "APOLLO29 -SPLUNGE"  should do it. It gives you 10 times more fuel...
       (hmmm.. should break the fuel gauge I s'pose... dunno if the lil
       lander can carry all that fuel without something happening... >8)
       heh heh heh


