________________________________________________________________________ Platinum Edition - The ultimate (?) grayscale shoot-em-up for the TI-89! Version 0.83 - Released August 3, 2001 This program is in the public domain. There is no warranty. E-Mail - pad@calc.org Web Page - http://pad.calc.org/ ________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction ..................................................... 25 2. System requirements .............................................. 48 3. Legal stuff ...................................................... 70 4. Instructions ..................................................... 93 5. Shop Items ...................................................... 167 6. Contacting the Programmer ....................................... 244 7. Acknowledgements ................................................ 276 8. Version History ................................................. 213 9. The Future ...................................................... 355 _____________________________________ INTRODUCTION Platinum Edition is a free/open source shoot-em-up style game for the TI-89 and TI-92 Plus calculator. This game was written completely in 68000 assembly language to fully take advantage of the calculator's capabilities, with the exception of a small amount of initialization code in C. It is based on a previous game' which I first wrote for the TI-92 in early 1998 and then subsequently adapted to the TI-89. This particular version includes major enhancements made during the summer of 2001. If you want to obtain other calculator programs or learn more about TI calculators, I would suggest visiting the web sites listed below. They all have large archives as well as help sections. If you don't know how to transfer programs to your calculator, or how to run them once you've transferred them, you need to read their help pages to learn how. http://www.ticalc.org/ ticalc.org (English) http://www.calc.org/ Dimension-TI (English) http://www.ti-fr.org/ TI-FR (French) Modification of this program is encouraged. To facilitate this, I have placed the program in public domain. _____________________________________ SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Needless to say, you need a TI-89 or TI-92 Plus calculator for this game. Hardware and AMS version compatibility: For TI-92 Plus users only, you need at least AMS 1.01. If you have the very old AMS 1.00, you should get an upgrade from TI's web site. If you have AMS 2.03, the uncompressed version will not work due to the size limit, but the compressed version will Except as mentioned above, this program should be compatible with all AMS and hardware version combinations Memory requirements for the uncompressed version are: 22K of memory to store the game (which can be archived) 4K - 8K of additional free RAM to run the game 2K of additional free RAM to store saved games, high scores, and options Memory requirements for the uncompressed version are: 15K of memory to store the game (which can be archived) 26K - 30K of additional free RAM to run the game 2K of additional free RAM to store saved games, high scores, and options _____________________________________ LEGAL STUFF Since you did not pay me anything for the right to use this software, there is no warranty of any kind. This software has been tested, and at the time of release the author was not aware of any problems with it. However, there is still a possibility of unforeseen problems. If you do encounter any problems with this program, please inform me as soon as possible (of course, I cannot guarantee that I will fix such problems. All parts of this software written by me are in the public domain, which means that they are not copyrighted at all. Thus you may use, copy, or modify it any way you want. The few things not written by me are from the TI-GCC library, so they can be freely copied. However, I would appreciate if you at least do the following if you are making a modified version: - Don't restrict distribution of it - Supply source code - Give me a reasonable amount of credit - Make your version also public domain, or copyrighted under a license that still allows users to modify it _____________________________________ INSTRUCTIONS Basics: To run the compressed version of this game, send both the 'platinum.89z' and 'platinum.89y' files (or 'platinum.9xz' and 'platinum.9xy' if you have a TI-92 Plus) to your calculator, and then run the 'platinum' program as you would run any other program (e.g. by typing 'platinum()') on the home screen. The 'platinum' and 'platcode' variables are both necessary to run the game. To run the uncompressed version of the game, you only need to send the 'platinum.89z' or 'platinum.9xz' file from the 'uncompressed' subdirectory, and run it as above. Note that this version will not work under AMS 2.03 due to the 8K size limit. Additionally, the game creates a variable called 'platdata' when you exit which stores saved games, high scores, and options. You can safely delete 'platdata' but then its data may be lost. All of the files can be archived, but 'platdata' will be saved into RAM on exit (even if it was archived before). Running it normally will show you the title screen, which lists the keys to press to start playing or view more information. Simply press F1 to begin the game. The game itself should be fairly straighforward. Use the arrow keys to move your ship, and press 2nd to shoot. You can select among the weapons you have by pressing the number keys 1 through 8. Note that you will begin with only weapon 1 (except in skill level 1 where you also get weapon 2). As you can probably guess, your goal is to destroy the evil aliens without being destroyed yourself. At any time during the gameplay, you can press the dot (.) to quit the game, or APPS to save the game and exit. If you save the game and exit, it will resume in the same place the next time you run the game. Options: Pressing F2 on the title screen brings you to an options screen. Options will be stored with the save data, so each time you start the game the last options you chose should be restored. You can adjust the following things (press the number to change): 1. Skill level. This determines the difficulty of the game, and ranges from 1 to 3 with higher numbers being more difficult. The easiest level gives you the second weapon to start with, whereas the others only give you the lowest powered weapon. The highest skill leve restricts your ship to moving left and right, while the others allow you to move up and down a limited distance. You get more initial shields and money on the easier levels, and level 1 also increases the amount of money you can collect in the game. You will get higher scores if you use higher skill levels. 2. Background. This allows you to choose between showing no background, the jagged edges only, or a full background with edges as well as the starfield in the center. 3. Ludicrous Speed. This can be turned on or off, and is off by default. Leaving it off plays at "normal" speed. If it is turned on, the speed is doubled, which can make the game somewhat more intense. You will get a bonus to your score if you dare to activate this. 4. Player Ship. Chooses which ship you will use. The two ships function in the same way; the only difference is the shape, which may have a slight effect on how often you get hit. Scoring: Even though you have a score while playing, you can only get a highscore if you finish the entire game. Your final score will be your in-game score plus bonuses for finishing quickly, having extra money, and having extra shield strength. The game will loop around to the beginning after the end, but you will not get a high score if you finish again since it would be unfair to be able to use all your previously accumulated points and weapons. _____________________________________ SHOP ITEMS At certain points in the game, you will have the oppurtunity to enter the Platinum Shop where you can purchase various useful items. You will only enter the shop if you have at least 50 credits. You can collect money while playing the game by moving your ship over it (the money is represented by $ and $$ symbols). When you collect money, it is automatically teleported to the First Intergalactic Bank so that you can easily spend it anywhere in the universe. The following items are available at the Platinum shop: Price Item Description $50 Shield Recharge This increase your shield strength by 1 step if it has been damaged. $100 Extra Bullet This increases the number of bullets that can be on the screen at once. Initially, you can have 16 bullets on the screen at once. By purchasing extra bullets, you can increase this limit to 24. $250 Double Shoot This weapon allows your ship to fire two shots at once. Both shots a fired straight ahead. Once you have purchased this weapon, you can select it by 2. $400 Triple Shoot This weapon allows your ship to fire three shots at once. One shot is fired straight ahead, and the other two are fired to the sides. These shots travel faster than normal ones. Once you have purchased this weapon, you can select it by pressing 3. $500 Quadruple Shoot This weapon fires four shots at a time. Two shots will be fired from each side of the ship. The shots will alternate between moving forward and moving to the side. From each side of the ship, one of the shots will go left and one will go right. Once you have purchased this weapon, you can select it by pressing 4. $1000 Rapid-Fire Unit This allows you to fire rapidly by simply holding down the fire button. You can fire 10 shots per second with this, provided the total number of bullets on-screen remains within your limit. $1500 Dual Plasma This is a much more powerful weapon than the previous ones. It fires two plasma shots at a time. Each of them does seven times as much damage as a shot from the first four weapons. Once you have purchased this weapon, you can select it by pressing 5. $2000 Golden Arches This is a very unique weapon. It fires shots which travel backwards and then swing forwards. This weapon does slightly more damage than the the Dual Plasma Cannon, although it can be difficult to control. Once you have purchased this weapon, you can select it by pressing 6. $2500 Triple Plasma This weapon is similar to the Dual Plasma Cannon, but it fires three bullets instead of two. Once you have purchased this weapon, you can select it by pressing 7. $3000 Deluxe Plasma This fires four shots at a time, each of which does 10 times as much damage as the bullets from the first four weapons. This weapon is selected with the 8 key. $4000 Ultimate Weapon This is the most powerful weapon in the game, firing 5 shots at once. This weapon is selected with the 9 key. _____________________________________ CONTACTING THE PROGRAMMER If you find any bugs in this game or have suggestions or comments about it, please tell me in E-Mail! If you are writing to report a bug, please be sure to tell me exactly what the problem is and describe exactly what you did before the problem occured. If you don't do so, it will be very hard for me to tell what is going wrong! You should also tell me which version of Platinum Edition you have and which calulator you use in any mail you send me. My main E-Mail address is: pad@calc.org I will usually answer my E-Mail within a week. If I don't, you can try to write to one of my other addresses below. I will not be replying from that address, so if your E-Mail is set up to block all messages except those from certain addressses, you'll have to send it to one of the other addresses and un-block that address. This sort of blocking has caused trouble for me before since some people didn't even un-block the address they sent to. The other addresses at which you can E-Mail me are: pad@ocf.berkeley.edu luezma@netscape.net ariwsi@rocketmail.com You can always get the latest version of this game, as well as other programs of mine, from my web page. The addresses are: http://pad.calc.org/ http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~pad/ http://www.calweb.com/~kwdavids/patrick/ http://surf.to/eeulplek/ _____________________________________ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This game is my own work. However, there are a few others whose assistance was invaluable in producing this game, and there efforts will be acknowledged here, in no particular order: David Ellsworth Fargo II and the Fargo II development tools, also a small bit of FLIB code I used Olivier Lesteven TEOS and the TEOS development tools Brian Anderson and The A68K assembler, used to assemble almost all Charlie Gibbs calculator assembly programs Tleilax DB92, an amazing on-calculator debugger Rusty Wagner of ACZ The VTI calculator emulator, which provides the ultimate testing environment on a computer MarkuSoft They GrayImag image converter Corey Taylor of the ACZ the CalcGS map editing software Zeljko Juric The TI-GCC library, whose documentation helped to explain some ROM functions and also showed me how to do OS key-reading and HW detection, and from which grayscale and file routines are used Thomass Nussbaumer The ExePack utilities which compress the program quite a great deal The inspiration for this game comes primarily from these computer games: Battle Squadron (Amiga) - Innerprise, 1989 Deluxe Galaga (Amiga) - Edgar M. Vidgal, 1993-1994 Tyrian (PC) - Epic Megagames, 1995 _____________________________________ VERSION HISTORY Sizes listed here are for the uncompressed TI-89 version of the program. Version Date Bytes Lines Description 0.01 8-Jul-01 20475 7227 First version Added grayscale Added background Enhanced enemy entry patterns Numerous smaller changes 0.10 10-Jul-01 21909 7409 No longer requires a kernel Three bugs fixed 0.50 15-Jul-01 20505 7880 Redesigned title screen Darkened high score screen Made one enemy bullet thicker Optimized collision detection Some additional levels & enemy types Added TI-92+ version Improved keyboard reading slightly Fixed status line problem on score screen Implemented game saving Now runs at same speed on HW1 and HW2 0.83 3-Aug-01 21849 8439 Slight improvements to exit/damage code Ship can now move vertically Optimized display routines Background is now optional Optimized wheel enemy Improved collision detection algorithm Implemented ludicrous speed Implemented weapon 9 Optimized player/bullet code Now saves game and high score externally Now distributed as ExePacked program Added second ship option for player Changed some images Adjusted some level patterns Fixed several small problems ______________________________________ THE FUTURE As this is only version 0.83, there are clearly many more enhancements to be made to this game. Features I plan to add soon are a few additional levels, a "companion" ship for the player, and using more of the TI-89's screen. I also hope to make some minor improvements to the background images and some of the ship images and patterns.