Crackman in search for his dealer by Teenage
Crackman in the search for his dealer
release 1.56 [FULL / Falcon compatible] 16-04-1999
a game by Teenage
|HiscoreWare!|
--------------
This game is HiscoreWare. If you play this game, you must send us your
hiscore table! To register: Just get the HISCORES file from your Crackman
directory after you made it into the TOP-5 (Duh!), and fill out the
registration form FORM.TXT. Send both files to Phenomenon by email, and your
hiscore entry will be listed in the TOP-100 on the Teenage homepage! (If
you got high enough a score, that is.) You can send us your hiscore as many
times as you break your own score. The Crackman compo has begun! (...)
If you register, you can if you want receive the Crackman leveleditor
CrackEd for free by email (when it's finished).
If you do not have an email address, try to contact me on IRC, or ask
someone else to contact me, and let that person send me your HISCORES file.
See below for the contact addresses.
|About this game|
-----------------
Crackman in the search for his dealer is a Pacman-style game made by
Phenomenon and TiNKer of Teenage. It was under development for nearly ten
months (because of my schoolwork, we couldn't work on it all the time).
Crackman makes use of the STE hardware, including supersmooth hardware
scrolling and Powerpad support. Explanation of the title: The game is based
on drugs. -Really?-.
|The story of Crackman|
-----------------------
Ezekiel 25:17.
"The path of the righteous man is beset on
all sides by the inequities of the selfish and
the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the
name of charity and good will, shepherds the
weak through the valley of darkness, for he is
truly his brother's keeper and the finder
of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee
with great vengeance and furious anger those
who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers.
And you will know my name is the Lord
when I lay my vengeance upon you."
(From Pulp Fiction, 1994)
After a few years of enormous success, Pacman discovered the different
aspects of life...
His money didn't make him feel happy anymore, and he wanted to have some
excitement in his life. He decided to sell his cheesy appartment in Sillicon
Valley, and after two years of moving around different places throughout the
world, he finally settled in this relatively small town called Amsterdam.
He lived there happily for three years, got married and made lots of new
friends, when one day, when he was walking through the streets of the
red-light district, his appartment was broken into. When he came home, he
was shocked.
Not by the fact that his house was ruined, though. No, money wasn't the big
issue here. It was his wife, MS. P. who was lying there, in the kitchen. But
they found parts of her in the livingroom, too. The case still remains to be
solved. 'I'm sorry', said the doctor. There's nothing left for us to do.'
These were the words that changed the course of life for a once famous game
star.
First there was the alcohol. Litteraly litres where consumed each day by
our yellow hero. And then, on a sunday afternoon, drugs also became a part
of his life. He got addicted to it as rapidly as the youth did back in the
eighties with 'Pacman'. He bought his drugs from Peter ver Dovend, the local
dealer, who was selling 100 milligrams of crack for the same price as a
happy-meal. Pacman loved his crack, and it weren't the Reservoir Gods this
time to come up with a nice comedy title. A nearby living junkie, who
played Pacman a lot when he was a kid, soon 'doped' Pacman into Crackman.
'Har, har' responded Pacman when he kicked the fucker against his left knee.
But from that day he would be known as 'Crackman'.
On a rainy wednesday, after a long night on the cold streets of Amsterdam,
Crackman woke up late noon, with a strange feeling in his head. 'Damn!' he
shouted. He had been clean for nine hours, so it sure was time for some
crack. He walked to Peter's Crack Premises, knocked on the door twice,
shouted 'Goddamn!' and extended his middle finger to the closed door in
front of him. There was nobody there. The next day, when Crackman was
getting more and more frustrated there was nobody there either. Neither was
there two days later. He gazed through the window of the house, and, after
his eyes had adapted to the darkness, he could see a calendar on the wall
next to the television set. Saturday the first. That was three days ago! A
few days later, when there was still nobody there, Crackman freaked out. He
spit on the window eighty-four times, jumped around making chipsound noises
and screamed 'SEGA rules!' when he crossed the street. Then, finally, he got
himself together, and constructed a plan.
He decided to go search for his dealer.
|System requirements|
---------------------
Crackman requires at least an Atari STE with two megabytes of memory and a
colour monitor or television set. In a way, Crackman is 100% Falcon
compatible. In an other, more acurate way, it's only 99%. Read on for more
information:
// FALC-O-NOTICE --> Nice one, huh?
Crackman is a game written with the STE in mind. Eventhough lots of effort
has been put in making the game Falcon compatible, there are still a few
problems with the graphics and sound.
Known bugs:
- This version doesn't work on 14MB Falcons. 14 MB owners: pleez wait for a
bugfix!
- Some VGA monitors can't cope with the 50hz that is required for Crackman.
This causes problems with the sound as for some reasons Crackman uses the
VBL interrupt for the soundroutines. (Hey, stop laughing!) Therefore I
recommend you use an RGB monitor (Crackman DOES try to set 50hz on VGA).
- The scrolling-up of the World Information text isn't quite smooth. This
is a little syncing problem. (Arggg!)
Although these are very small bugs, erm... they're still there! :-)
//
1MB owners: Maybe, - after opening the Box of Tricks, obviously - it is
possible to make Crackman run on 1MB machines. If you contact me *, I'll
see if there's a way.
Strangeness(TM): Some STEs 'n Falcons seem to dislike Crackman's powerpad
routines. If you have problems with playing Crackman on your computer,
please contact me (Phenomenon) *, and I'll try to 'work something out'.
(Did I mention the routines where originally made by MrPink? Hehe. )
* Addresses below!
|Installing and starting the game|
----------------------------------
Crackman can be put anywhere on the hard- or floppydisk, but make sure you
extract all files from the Crackman archive into the same directory.
The Crackman archive CRACK156.ZIP should contain the following files:
\CRACKMAN\ The game directory
CRACKMAN.PRG The game executable
LAAD Datafile
W8WOORD Datafile
PIEMEL Datafile
SCHURK Datafile
PLUIS Datafile
WERELD1 Crackman World file
WERELD2 Crackman World file
WERELD3 Crackman World file
WERELD4 Crackman World file
WERELD5 Crackman World file
HISCORES Crackman Hiscore table
CRACKMAN.TXT This document
FORM.TXT The registration form
TNH.TXT Just a Teenage logo
COMEDY.TXT Some crap. Read it!
|Crack her up!|
---------------
Point your mousepointer to CRACKMAN.PRG, and give that mouse the good old
double on the back (...hmmm?) to start the game. When you do nothing, the
intro starts loading and decoding (AND running!), and THEN the game is
loaded and started. HOWEVER: To skip the intro, hold down [spacebar] or
[left shift] after starting CRACKMAN.PRG. While the intro is running, you
can press [spacebar] to abort it, and start the game.
After the game has loaded and depacked etc. the title screen appears. Wait
a few seconds if you want to have a glance at the hiscore table, or press
[fire B] or [space] to jump right into the fuzzy world of Crackman's
MorphingFont(TM) selection menu. Make your selection with the arrowkeys or
the Jaguar Powerpad touchpad, and select by either pressing [space],
[left shift] OR [fire b].
Selecting [INFO] brings up a little info-text displayer, which contains the
usual craptalk and the basic instructions for the game. Press [fire b],
[space] or [left shift] to return to the selection menu.
On the other hand, selecting [PLAY] doesn't bring up a little info-text
displayer! No. A cursor pops up, together with the 'enter a password'
message. If you know a password, then type it here to start at the desired
level. If you don't know a password, just press [return] to start at the
first level. But you can always try a word. 'You never know what happens.'.
Selecting [quit] doesn't work. Ok, it does. (I tried, I TRIED!)
|Well, PLAY!|
-------------
// CONTROLS
Crackman uses these simple controls:
keyboard powerpad
- Steering Crackman: [arrowkeys] / [touchpad]
- Laying mines: [left shift] / [fire b]
- shooting bullets: [alternate] / [fire c]
- pausing the game: [p] / [pause]
- aborting a game: [F10] / [option]
[left shift] and [fire b] are considered the main 'FIRE' buttons. So press
[fire] means: Press [left shift] or [powerpad fire b]
//
After the screen has faded off and on, you are presented with the main game.
An animation indicates where Crackman will start.
Press [fire], or [space] to start playing.
Guide Crackman through his cruel world by using either the keypad or a
Joypad. There's nothing special about this, pressing the right button steers
Crackman to the right direction, for instance to the 'left'. Har har! In
some levels you can pick up a small device called a 'mine'. You will hear a
weird sound when you pick it up. To lay it down, hit [left shift] or
[fire b]. NOTE: Mines may not be placed on some blocks, like the starting
point and outside levels. You might also pick up a bullet. 'Click-clack'.
This thingy can be used with Crackman's Magnum .44 half-automatic. Just walk
towards a ghost and press [fire c] or [alternate] to pull the trigger.
>>TIP: 'Aiming is all'.<<
The number of mines and bullets you have collected is being displayed at the
bottom of the screen, together with the score and the lives.
>>TIP: Don't use your mines and bullets on easier levels, save them for
later!<<
If a ghost gets you, he'll eat you. Slowly. You'll start again at the
starting point, the Shrinking-Circle-Animation(TM) shows where exactly this
is. The ghosts now lose their intelligence, and just walk through the level
at random. If you press fire, you can play again.
>>TIP: Be careful with your timing!<<
The aim of each level is to eat all normal pills in it. Special bonuses etc.
don't need to be picked up. But can be fun. Oh man, they can, damn.
These are the things Crackman can pick up:
// SCORE AND OTHER PILLS
* [normal pills], Crackman needs these as an alternative for his
Crack. These are needed to complete a level.
* [bonus pills], these give some more points than a normal pill.
* [special bonus pills], give lots of score.
* [extra life], one more way to die!
//
// POWER-UPS
* [SPEED pills], makes Crackman move like F1-man.
* [freeze pills], the Siberia emulator. Freezes the ghosts. This
doesn't mean the ghosts can't harm you anymore. Be careful.
* [immortality pills], who wants to live forever? For some time,
you can now walk through ghosts without being killed.
* [Pacman pills], for paranoid people. Makes Crackman eat ghosts.
All ghosts in a level turn into silly eatable Pacman ghosts. Just
walk into 'em to eat them.
//
// WEAPONRY
* [mines], a ghost on a mine is like a fish in the Rhine.
* [bullets], a ghost full of led is like.. ehmm... well... dead.
* [A-bomb], a bomb. Right. Rules. Big-time.
//
Beside these pick-ups, there are also blocks that change when Crackman walks
over them, blocks which ghosts can't pass, blocks which Crackman can't pass,
and blocks that are secret passages through a wall.
Some levels contain hidden parts, ie. a secret room full of goodies to
collect or just a way through a wall, to avoid those nasty ghosts. In some
levels it's even required to go through such a wall. So keep looking, there
are nice things to discover! (Really?)
During play you can press [F10] or [powerpad option] to go back to the main
menu. Press [p] or [powerpad pause] to pause the game.
// COMPLETING THE GAME
If you manage to eat all normal pills in a level, the level is completed,
and a short score overview is given. You will receive a skill bonus for
every life, mine and bullet left. After every world you complete, the amount
of skill bonus you receive increases. ALSO, at the end of a level, you are
given a password. This is the password of the level you just completed.
>>TIP: Write this password down!<<
After you've completed ten levels, you have completed a world, and the next
world will be loaded. There are 50 levels in total, spread over, let's see,
50/10 = 5 worlds. If you manage to complete all the levels in one go, you
might be something of a challenge for TiNKer :-).
//
|Add-ons|
---------
Crackman has this cool system that allows us to release an add-on sometime.
So if we get enough response on Crackman, we might release an add-on.
|CrackEd|
---------
CrackEd is the Crackman leveleditor, and is available for all registered
players! Send us those FORM.TXTs. It's free anyway.
|Teenage|
---------
TNH Teenage consists of
Phenomenon TiNKer Berserker Antilamah
[coder] [graphist/musician] [coder/tester] [musician]
Having problems with Crackman? Like beer? Want to join us? Contact us!
* Phenomenon:
Via email: fenomeen@atari.org
On IRC, #atariscne, #teenage, #atari-nl : ph3n0^TNH
* TiNKer:
Via email: tinker@atari.org
On IRC, #atariscne, #teenage, #atari-nl : [TiNKer]
* Berserker:
Via email: berserk@nthfen.demon.co.uk
on IRC, #atariscne, #teenage : Beer^TNH
* Antilamah:
Via email: lamah@dds.nl
For all our releases, the Crackman TOP-100, and more, check the WWW:
http://tnh.atari.org : the Phenomenal HQ
and sign the Guestbook if possible.
|Now...|
--------
...load this game and try to enjoy it. Try harder!
o---------------------------------o
|Phenomenon of Teenage, 16-04-1999|
o---------------------------------o
[ back to the prod ]