STEtris by Paranoia [web]
STETRIS
-----------
Tetris for the STE, Mega STE
by the Paranoid / Paranoia 1998.
written in STOS using the Missing Link extension by Top Notch Software
and The Ninja Modplayer-routines by Les Greenhalgh.
Many thanx go especially to Les Greenhalgh and Tony Greenwood of STOSSER
STEtris is Freeware, but if you like this game, please be fair and
send some greetings or at least something on a postcard to :
Oliver Heun
Taunusstrasse 9
65618 Selters / Ts.
This address will stay valid, because my parents live there.
If you like to contact me, the easiest way is via E-Mail :
heuno000@goofy.zdv.uni-mainz.de ( valid for 1996-mid 1998 )
or visit my homepage in the Internet : www.uni-mainz.de/~heuno000
STEtris-History.
----------------
The idea of STEtris came when thinking of another classic to convert
to the STE. Inspired by the great Pac Man on E i was looking for other
classic games, that were more or less easy to convert but still were
fascinating. And because i have never seen a good Tetris-Clone using the
STE capabilities, i decided to go for a 2-player "battle"-tetris-clone.
STEtris-Hardware.
-----------------
The game has been written on a 8MHz 1040 STE with 4 Megabytes RAM,
TOS 2.06 and a SCSI-Harddisk. Everything SHOULD work on a 1 Meg STE with
TOS 1.06 or 1.062, but i can't take responsibility for this.
If you experience any problems running this game, why don't you tell me
this ? All i need to know are the specifications of your computer and
i'm sure we can solve it :-).
Falcon-restrictions.
--------------------
So far, the game will not work on the Falcon and crash when the special
FX menue appears. Current version is version 0.9, and as i am going to
rub out the rasterlines (the routine i use for that needs FAR too many
CPU time), i may have enough CPU time for another sample-routine that
also works on the Falcon.
The title screen
----------------
On the title screen -or rather sequence- you can select using the cursos
keys or the joystick. Use CSRS-DOWN or FIRE-BUTTON to select.
The 1. Menu - Start Game
------------------------
To start the game with the current settings, press CRSR-DOWN, Space or
Fire on Joystick in Port 1.
The 2. Menu - KEYBOARD or JOYSTICK
----------------------------------
You can select Joystick or Keyboard but ONLY for Player 1.
If you select Joystick for Player 1 , Player 2 will HAVE TO USE the key-
board and vice versa.
The control is : CRSR-LEFT moves the current block left
CRSR-RIGHT moves the current block right
CRSR-DOWN drops the current block
INSERT rotates the current block.
JOYSTICK is simply : LEFT moves the current block left
RIGHT moves to current block right
FIRE rotates the current block
DOWN drops the current block.
Beneath the selector you can see the controls.
Space will pause the game and ESC will cancel the game.
Having selected the controls you can select some game options :
In the first line in the following menu you can choose, HOW many lines
have to be dissapearing bring up the Effects (FX)-menu.
The second line offers you to select, HOW HARD your action selected
in the FX menue during the game will hit your opponent. 1/2 will, for
example, speed up his block very shortly, or he will only be given
1 half-filled line. If you select 2 here, during game this means, any
action from the FX menue will have a much nastier effect, speed up his
blocks longer or build up 2 or even 4 lines.
In the third line you can choose how many lines have to be made dis-
appear before you enter the next level.
If you think, the number of options is too limited, remember, that this
is FREEWARE. I just wanted to offer some options, which in fact are
pretty variable, but i'm far too lazy to program some user-interface
where you use up this variability ;-).
The 3. menu : 1 OR 2 PLAYERS
----------------------------
Here you can simply select between a one and a 2 player game.
The 4. menu : THE SOUND / SCREEN OPTIONS
----------------------------------------
In the first line in this menu you can select wether the rasterlines
should be switched on or off. Since the raster-lines slow down the
game a little, some players may like this option.
In the second line you can load a MOD or switch to MegaSTE- ( or
FALCON-RGB) mode.
-> loading a mod.
You can ONLY load MOD-files that are IN the STETRIS-folder ( Poor disk-
drive owners ). The name of the next MOD appears on the screen.
if you want to play this MOD, press CRSR-DOWN or fire on the PLAY-icon.
If you want to go to another MOD, press the TRACK-SKIP-Icon.
-> STE / MegaSTE Mode.
Since the MegaSTE works with a 16MHz clock, it can play MODs at a much
higher rate than the ordinary 8MHz STE can. If you have a MegaSTE
click the 16MHz icon to select a track-frequency of 21 KHz.
If you have a 8MHz STE you shouldn't try this. It will slow down the game
to an unbearable speed.
THIS option will NOT directly affect the MOD, that is currently played.
You have to load a new MOD ( or the same MOD again ) to activate the
new frequency. 8 MHz frequency is 14 kHz, giving average quality.
If you think these options are a little uncomfortable, i must agree
with you. But remeber, this is FREEWARE and i didn't like to bother
around with those things.
the 5. menu : QUIT
------------------
If you have enough of STEtris, simply click QUIT and you will leave
the game.
THE GAME ITSELF
---------------
The Game-screen is divided into 2 parts : The left box belongs to the
1. player, the right one to the 2. player. Everyone uses the controls
specified in the options-screens.
The blocks will slowly drop and you can move them or rotate them with
the keys/joystick as specified before.
If you complete a horizontal line, that means ONE OR MORE Horizontal
lines are completely filled with blocks, this/these lines will
disappear.
If you removed the number of lines specified in the title-menu (in line
2, standard is 2), the FX-menue will be activated. This menue will pop
up right beneath your playfield and offer you the follow nasty tricks
you can play on your opponent :
-> The Racecar : This will speed up your opponents block for some time
-> Brick wall : This will add some half-completed lines at the bottom
of your opponents playfield
-> The Bomb : This will remove the upper 2-3 lines of your own playfield,
but the lowest one will always remain.
-> Broken arrow : This will disable your opponents rotate-key, making
it impossible for him to rotate his blocks for a while.
-> Key/joy-swap : Your opponents's screen looks lots better ? You can
simply take over HIS playfield by this button.
-> coins : This will just add some points to your score.
-> The gift : Want to surprise your opponent a little ? Just present
him this gift, and his actual block will be changed into
something different ...
-> The fist : Your opponent is playing lousy tricks on you ? No
problem. Hit this button, and the next trick he tries
to play on you will be done to himself !!
Now, you must admit, these are very nice options and during beta-
testing i found out, that this really turns ANY nice Tetris-round
into a battlefield.
If you play alone, so to say in 1-player mode, the computer will play
nasty tricks on you (a random one from the above), if you remove LESS
than the specified amount of lines. For example you set the number to
2 lines in the title menue and only removed 1 line, then the computer
will summon up something for YOU.
Simply set number of lines to 1 if you just want to play ordinary
Tetris.
Game over
---------
If one of the 2 players will reach the top with his pile, the game
will be over, no matter, how well the other player is doing. Why
is that so ? This is meant to be 2 player Battle-Tetris, and when
there is nobody to battle against, what sense would it make to go
on ?
The Hiscores will be kept (in memory) and saved to disk when leaving
the game by the quit-button, but will have no effect on the game.
Next level please
-----------------
When having removed a specified number of lines, you will promote
a level. This means getting more points per line, but of course, the
game will get FASTER.
I'm sorry, that it won't go TOO fast at anytime, because the graphics
and music take up to much processor time, but it will get fast enough
to keep you sweating ... ;-)
Technical craptalk
------------------
There are some things i like to apologize for, mainly 2 things:
1.) The interlace graphics flicker.
Okay, it is normal for interlace graphics to flicker, but these
flicker very irregularly.
It's just that i haven't had any more possibilities to hook up
another routine on the VBL. With the MOD-Player running and
the palsplit-routine, any routine, that should be activated by
the VBL really misses some VBLs, because the VBL-interrupt is
already activating those other things.
Sorry, but i tried to solve it with the blitter, but it didn't
improve my situation much ...
2.) The keyboard/joystick is a bit fuzzy.
I have been told that a number of times, but everything i tried
to get this bug out, ended in another fuzzy control-routine.
Probably i will get this sorted out in the next version, but i'm
afraid, i can't get this bloody routine to work 100% smoothly.
:-(
Some greetings
--------------
There have been some people who really kept me working at this
project, i'd like to thank them for this and credit them here :
Neil Briscombe for beta-testing and constructive critics.
The Phantom of Phansoft for beta-testing and constructive critics.
Les Greenhalgh and the Phantom for the Ninja-Modplayer.
Top Notch Software for the excellent Missing Link extension.
Anthony Jacques for just being a great programmer. ;-)
()rm of Digi Tallis for just being ()rm. =]
David Encill of Titan Designs and Michael Ruge for speeding up my
Falcon with a Nemesis-accelerator ! :-)
Tony Greenwood and all the others at the STOS-mailing list at
STOS@man.ac.uk.
Some other greetings go to people still working on demos & games :
In Random order on the Falcon :
NPG, Avena, Toons, Misfits, EXO, EKA, Absence, Hemoroids, Therapy,
Inter, Lazer, The Mugwumps, Mega Four, Aura, Dead Hackers Society,
White Status, Doug Little, Senior Dads, tSCc, MJJ Prod, No Crew,
ESCape, RebelSoft, YESCrew and all the other Falcon groups, i just can't
remember the names of right now ... :-/
Of course i also greet ANYONE, still working, coding, painting or
making music on the Atari computers.
Paranoia -> Think you can handle it ?
----------------------------------------
Current member status :
The Paranoid : Coder, Graphician
Luebke : Talented musician
Strange : Graphician
TNT : Rendering, Raytracing
Der Komtur : Beta-testing (unfortunately he has no STE)
Marcstar : 386 coding
If you want to join Paranoia, drop me a line via eMail:
heuno000@goofy.zdv.uni-mainz.de
So long, and have a little fun with this nice game. :-)
Future products are in the making, one mysterious game called
Bang!uins (Die Penguine) has already been started, so keep your
eyes open. :-)
One last thing :
----------------
You're using an Atari - Obviously. :-)
If you don't like Micro$oft, if you fear their monopoly over all
the future software-products, if you are frightened about their
financial as well as imperative power through their lame Operating
systems and their miserable software, if you are terrified by their
actual marketing policy and behaviour, if you hate them for making
millions of $ for software, that simply doesn't work :
GET INTO THE OPPOSITION : www.uni-mainz.de/~heuno000/opposit.htm
The Paranoid
Transmission terminated ...
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