Crystal Chaos
v. 1.1



Introduction and disclaimer
Once upon a time, there was a great game for the Macintosh called Crystal Quest. Crystal Chaos is an attempt to recreate Crystal Quest with new fresh graphics, sound effects and gameplay.
Crystal Chaos is freeware, meaning you may (in fact you are encouraged to!) download it and share it with your friends as much as you want to, provided you give me all the credits. The only thing you are asked for in return is that you send me an email (see "About the creator" below) and tell me what you thought about the game. What was good, what could be improved, if you found any bugs etc. That is, of course, if you have something meaningful to say; not just "This game sucks".

I take no responsibility whatsoever for any problems this game may cause. However, I have had no problems with it myself.



What's new?

v 1.1:
-Changed the menu.
-Did some visual enhancements.
-Added a new enemy.
-Fixed a bug with the highscore list.

v 1.01:
-Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash while changing to double buffered animation.

v 1.0:
-Fixed a bug with the sound.
-Changed the brightness of the sprites a little to make the game less dark.
-Fixed some other minor stuff.


System requirements
The lowest system I have tried this game on is a PII266 with 64 MB RAM and a 4 MB Ati 3DXpression+. It ran a little slow, but it worked.


How to play the game
The goal of the game is simply to collect as many points as possible. Control your spaceship with the mouse and fire with the left mouse button. Watch out for the enemies and mines and try to collect all of the small crystals. Once you have collected them all you can enter the portal at the bottom of the screen to finish the level. If you do this quickly you get a time bonus.
To aid you against the vicious enemies you may also collect bombs. There are three kinds of bombs that you may find:
Red bomb - kills all enemies.
Blue bomb - slows all enemies down.
Green bomb - Blasts away all enemies and stuns them.
Pressing space will blow one bomb of the type currently selected. In the top right corner you can see the type of bomb you have selected. Press the right mouse button to change.


Settings
The root directory of the game should contain a file called 'settings.ini'. You may modify this file to change the game's behaviour a little. The file may contain four lines, each with a value associated with them:
'Music' - 0 = Music off, anything else = Music on.
'Sound' - 0 = Sound off, anything else = Sound on.
'Windowed' - 0 = Fullscreen (recommended), anything else = Windowed.
'Color' - 15/16/24/32 - Use this specific color depth, 0 - autodetect.
'MouseSensitivity' - a float value that determines how much your ship will react to mouse movement. Default value is 0.8, anything lower will make the ship react less. Higher values will make the ship react faster.

For example, to run the game in fullscreen mode, with sound and music on, 16 bit color depth and normal mouse sensitivty, your 'settings.ini' file should look like this:
Sound 1
Music 1
Windowed 0
Color 16
MouseSensivity 0.8


Software used during development
Code written using Dev-C++ 4 and compiled using gcc 2.95.3-6, Allegro v. 4.0.3.
Graphics made using Blender and the GIMP. The explosion sprites were made using MkExpl 4.
Most sound effects were created by me and my little brother, some were stolen from http://www.a1freesoundeffects.com.


About the creator
All programming, game design and graphics by Hannes Jensen, Orange Camel Entertainment.
ALL FEEDBACK, POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE IS GREATLY APPRECIATED! I can be reached by email or by ICQ #64037747.