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Act of War - Dave Smith September 1992
System Requirements
Act Of War works under both Workbench 1.3 and 2.0, in both NTSC and PAL, and requires 1 meg of memory as a minimum.
If you have just one meg and the game won't run, try turning off all external drives, hard drives etc. This will free more memory.
To run the game from a hard drive, you'll probably need more than a megabyte.
It should work fine on accelerated systems, if a little fast in some places! I've got some "slowdown" routines in it, but as I've only got a 68000 I haven't been able to test it.
As Act Of War was written with AMOS, it multitasks - use Left-Amiga A to switch between the game and Workbench.
Act Of War works under both Workbench 1.3 and 2.0, in both NTSC and PAL, and requires 1 meg of memory as a minimum.
If you have just one meg and the game won't run, try turning off all external drives, hard drives etc. This will free more memory.
To run the game from a hard drive, you'll probably need more than a megabyte.
It should work fine on accelerated systems, if a little fast in some places! I've got some "slowdown" routines in it, but as I've only got a 68000 I haven't been able to test it.
As Act Of War was written with AMOS, it multitasks - use Left-Amiga A to switch between the game and Workbench.
Introduction
Act of War, or AoW as I've just decided to call it as it involves less typing, is a strategy game in the tradition of Laser Squad, Breach 2 (or so I'm told) and, if anyone can remember that far back, Rebelstar.
If you've never played any of those games, think of a childish fascination for big guns married to a fair amount of strategy and you won't be far wrong.
So what makes AoW different?
The game is played over a series of missions, three of which are included with the program. More missions are being worked on as you read this, by myself and others. And if you don't like these missions, there's no reason
for you not to create your own!
On payment of a small shareware fee (more information later on) you'll get the mission designer that I use, which makes mission creation very simple.
Everything from the map, to the weapons, to the sound effects can be changed.
Noteable game features include:
* 1 or 2 players
* Sampled sound
* Completely extendable!
* 3 difficulty levels
* Optional line-of-sight feature
* Squad arming sequence
* Explosive scenery
* Keyboard and / or mouse controlled
* Halfway-decent user interface
* Revolutionary new ICASS AI system (see later)
The three missions included in this release are as follows:
* Informant - An ex-director of your shady corporation is ready to spill your industrial secrets to a rival company. There's only one way to stop him - break into his sprawling mansion and take him out! (Obviously, negotiation comes a long way down the list with these people).
* Escape - Taken prisoner by a corrupt Planetary Security Force for your part in the above escapade, you and two companions have been jailed in an orbital maximum-security prison. Initially armed with only a little smuggled-in plastic explosive, you must break out of your cell, somehow obtain a weapon, free your comrades and escape to a passing PSF shuttle to secure your freedom.
* Terminator! - Soon after you make it back to your base after escaping captivity, a Terminator droid from a rival corporation stages an assault! Backed up by a squad of combat droids, it will attempt to kill you all...
If you've never played any of those games, think of a childish fascination for big guns married to a fair amount of strategy and you won't be far wrong.
So what makes AoW different?
The game is played over a series of missions, three of which are included with the program. More missions are being worked on as you read this, by myself and others. And if you don't like these missions, there's no reason
for you not to create your own!
On payment of a small shareware fee (more information later on) you'll get the mission designer that I use, which makes mission creation very simple.
Everything from the map, to the weapons, to the sound effects can be changed.
Noteable game features include:
* 1 or 2 players
* Sampled sound
* Completely extendable!
* 3 difficulty levels
* Optional line-of-sight feature
* Squad arming sequence
* Explosive scenery
* Keyboard and / or mouse controlled
* Halfway-decent user interface
* Revolutionary new ICASS AI system (see later)
The three missions included in this release are as follows:
* Informant - An ex-director of your shady corporation is ready to spill your industrial secrets to a rival company. There's only one way to stop him - break into his sprawling mansion and take him out! (Obviously, negotiation comes a long way down the list with these people).
* Escape - Taken prisoner by a corrupt Planetary Security Force for your part in the above escapade, you and two companions have been jailed in an orbital maximum-security prison. Initially armed with only a little smuggled-in plastic explosive, you must break out of your cell, somehow obtain a weapon, free your comrades and escape to a passing PSF shuttle to secure your freedom.
* Terminator! - Soon after you make it back to your base after escaping captivity, a Terminator droid from a rival corporation stages an assault! Backed up by a squad of combat droids, it will attempt to kill you all...
Installation
AoW can be installed on a hard drive - just make sure that the files:
diskfont.library mathtrans.library
are in the libs: drawer, and that you've copied the "Spacey" font to the fonts: drawer. The directory that you put the game in must have the name
"px:" assigned to it. In other words, if the game is in "dh1:Games/AoW",
you should put:
assign px: dh1:Games/AoW
in your startup-sequence.
The mission directories should be in the same dir as the game, ie. "px:". The default missions also require that the "Pics" drawer and the "Snd" drawer, and their contents, are present in "px:" also.
The game is much nicer installed on a hard drive (isn't everything?). As it is so extendable, a fair amount of disk access is inevitable. However, there is no disk access during a game so the actual gameplay speed is identical on both floppy and hard drive systems.
To summarise then: the necessary files are as follows.
libs:diskfont.library
mathtrans.library
fonts:Spacey/7
Spacey.font
px:Pics/GameTiles
EscapeTiles
GameBack.iff
WeaponBack.iff
Weapons.1
Snd/Samples.1
Act_Of_War
Informant/Everything
Escape/Everything
Terminator!/Everything
diskfont.library mathtrans.library
are in the libs: drawer, and that you've copied the "Spacey" font to the fonts: drawer. The directory that you put the game in must have the name
"px:" assigned to it. In other words, if the game is in "dh1:Games/AoW",
you should put:
assign px: dh1:Games/AoW
in your startup-sequence.
The mission directories should be in the same dir as the game, ie. "px:". The default missions also require that the "Pics" drawer and the "Snd" drawer, and their contents, are present in "px:" also.
The game is much nicer installed on a hard drive (isn't everything?). As it is so extendable, a fair amount of disk access is inevitable. However, there is no disk access during a game so the actual gameplay speed is identical on both floppy and hard drive systems.
To summarise then: the necessary files are as follows.
libs:diskfont.library
mathtrans.library
fonts:Spacey/7
Spacey.font
px:Pics/GameTiles
EscapeTiles
GameBack.iff
WeaponBack.iff
Weapons.1
Snd/Samples.1
Act_Of_War
Informant/Everything
Escape/Everything
Terminator!/Everything
Gameplay
I know, I know, you just want to know how to play!
The front end:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* The first thing you have to do is load a mission in. Select "Load Mission" from the menu. The disk will grind a bit, and a list of the available missions will come up. Choose the one you want, again using the mouse.
* Select the difficulty level you want. Easy gives you a lot of cash for the arming sequence (see below). Medium gives you less cash and introduces the line-of-sight feature, where you can only see enemy units that are in your line of sight. Hard keeps line-of-sight and gives you the least cash.
* Choose a 1 or 2 player game. The AI is not brilliant, but I think it's good enough to be called "not bad". It even has its own acronym, which is obviously essential for any program these days. So, when you play a 1-player game of AoW, you are experiencing ICASS - the Intellectually Challenged Artificial Stupidity System (tm).
Now, don't you feel proud?
Arming:
* Next comes the arming sequence. A total amount of cash is shown, and you can either accept the default weapons (use the "Next Unit" icon, which looks like a tick, to see each unit's weapons) or choose to buy your own. To keep the defaults, click the "Quit" icon; to buy weapons, click either of the two "Buy" buttons.
* The squad's default weapons are usually round about what you could buy at the Medium level of difficulty. The amount of cash you get at each level is as follows:
Easy - 250 per unit
Medium - 200 per unit
Hard - 175 per unit
* If you do buy new weapons, the first button is "Buy Weapon", the next is "Buy Ammo", the two arrow icons let you see the weapons and the
"Next Unit" button is used when you've finished arming that unit. You can always go back to it, until you quit the arming.
* The cash shown is a total for your whole squad, try to divide weapons fairly equally. It's always better to have, say, four men with Pulse rifles rather than one man with a Plasma Cannon and tons of ammo.
* Click on the Quit button (bottom right) when you've finished.
The front end:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* The first thing you have to do is load a mission in. Select "Load Mission" from the menu. The disk will grind a bit, and a list of the available missions will come up. Choose the one you want, again using the mouse.
* Select the difficulty level you want. Easy gives you a lot of cash for the arming sequence (see below). Medium gives you less cash and introduces the line-of-sight feature, where you can only see enemy units that are in your line of sight. Hard keeps line-of-sight and gives you the least cash.
* Choose a 1 or 2 player game. The AI is not brilliant, but I think it's good enough to be called "not bad". It even has its own acronym, which is obviously essential for any program these days. So, when you play a 1-player game of AoW, you are experiencing ICASS - the Intellectually Challenged Artificial Stupidity System (tm).
Now, don't you feel proud?
Arming:
* Next comes the arming sequence. A total amount of cash is shown, and you can either accept the default weapons (use the "Next Unit" icon, which looks like a tick, to see each unit's weapons) or choose to buy your own. To keep the defaults, click the "Quit" icon; to buy weapons, click either of the two "Buy" buttons.
* The squad's default weapons are usually round about what you could buy at the Medium level of difficulty. The amount of cash you get at each level is as follows:
Easy - 250 per unit
Medium - 200 per unit
Hard - 175 per unit
* If you do buy new weapons, the first button is "Buy Weapon", the next is "Buy Ammo", the two arrow icons let you see the weapons and the
"Next Unit" button is used when you've finished arming that unit. You can always go back to it, until you quit the arming.
* The cash shown is a total for your whole squad, try to divide weapons fairly equally. It's always better to have, say, four men with Pulse rifles rather than one man with a Plasma Cannon and tons of ammo.
* Click on the Quit button (bottom right) when you've finished.
The Game
* The screen is divided into four windows:
1) The largest window, at the top left, is the view window. This is where the action happens.
2) Directly below this is the message window. Always keep half an eye on this for reports and updates.
3) At the top left is the status window. Here you can see the stats of the current unit.
4) The final window at the bottom right is the mini-map window. Apart from giving you an idea of the overall shape of the map, you can keep track of your units here via the flashing dots which show their positions.
* Player 1 always moves first. You begin the game fully armed and ready.
* There are several ways of moving around the map. You can use the cursor keys or the joystick to move the cursor around. You can click with the left mouse button on the view window to place the cursor directly onto a square. You can click on the mini-map to jump directly to another area.
* To select a character, press the joystick fire button or the space key when the cursor is over a unit. You can also click the right button on a unit to select it. You are now in move mode, where believe it or not you get to move the unit around.
* To move a unit, use either the cursor keys, the keypad or the joystick. The keypad allows movement in 8 directions, using the keys:
7 8 9
4 6
1 2 3
* To deselect a character, use the space key, the joystick fire button or the right mouse button at any time.
* If you are playing on Easy level, you'll be able to see all the enemy units as you look around the map. This takes a lot of the fun out of the game, so the default difficulty level is Medium. Here, you can only see an enemy if they are in a direct line-of-sight. This allows them to hide around corners and jump out at you, wait behind doors etc. Remember, you can see through windows.
* If you find a scenario too tough on Medium, or you don't like the hidden movement, go to Easy. Otherwise, I'd recommend you stay on Medium or Hard.
So now you know how to move around the map, and select characters (by the way - I use the words "character" and "unit" interchangeably, they both mean the same). Now things get a little bit more complicated!
Nearly every action in the game can be carried out by the mouse or the keyboard. If you prefer to use a keyboard, you can play the whole game without having to take your hands away from it. However, I prefer a mix of the mouse and keyboard. It's up to you though.
You'll have noticed (assuming you've actually played the game yet) six buttons by the mini-map window. I'll go through these and any sub-menus that they lead to.
First, a word about actions. Everything you do in the game requires a certain amount of actions to carry out, and you have a set number of actions per unit, per turn. For instance, moving across a normal square uses 2 actions, but moving over rubble and debris takes 3. Picking something up takes 5 actions, teleporting takes 20. As I explain each option, the number of actions it needs is shown alongside.
If a character's health is reduced to 1/3 of his (or her!) maximum, they are said to be injured and their actions are reduced by half. You can tell when a character is injured - their health and actions show up red in the status window.
1) The largest window, at the top left, is the view window. This is where the action happens.
2) Directly below this is the message window. Always keep half an eye on this for reports and updates.
3) At the top left is the status window. Here you can see the stats of the current unit.
4) The final window at the bottom right is the mini-map window. Apart from giving you an idea of the overall shape of the map, you can keep track of your units here via the flashing dots which show their positions.
* Player 1 always moves first. You begin the game fully armed and ready.
* There are several ways of moving around the map. You can use the cursor keys or the joystick to move the cursor around. You can click with the left mouse button on the view window to place the cursor directly onto a square. You can click on the mini-map to jump directly to another area.
* To select a character, press the joystick fire button or the space key when the cursor is over a unit. You can also click the right button on a unit to select it. You are now in move mode, where believe it or not you get to move the unit around.
* To move a unit, use either the cursor keys, the keypad or the joystick. The keypad allows movement in 8 directions, using the keys:
7 8 9
4 6
1 2 3
* To deselect a character, use the space key, the joystick fire button or the right mouse button at any time.
* If you are playing on Easy level, you'll be able to see all the enemy units as you look around the map. This takes a lot of the fun out of the game, so the default difficulty level is Medium. Here, you can only see an enemy if they are in a direct line-of-sight. This allows them to hide around corners and jump out at you, wait behind doors etc. Remember, you can see through windows.
* If you find a scenario too tough on Medium, or you don't like the hidden movement, go to Easy. Otherwise, I'd recommend you stay on Medium or Hard.
So now you know how to move around the map, and select characters (by the way - I use the words "character" and "unit" interchangeably, they both mean the same). Now things get a little bit more complicated!
Nearly every action in the game can be carried out by the mouse or the keyboard. If you prefer to use a keyboard, you can play the whole game without having to take your hands away from it. However, I prefer a mix of the mouse and keyboard. It's up to you though.
You'll have noticed (assuming you've actually played the game yet) six buttons by the mini-map window. I'll go through these and any sub-menus that they lead to.
First, a word about actions. Everything you do in the game requires a certain amount of actions to carry out, and you have a set number of actions per unit, per turn. For instance, moving across a normal square uses 2 actions, but moving over rubble and debris takes 3. Picking something up takes 5 actions, teleporting takes 20. As I explain each option, the number of actions it needs is shown alongside.
If a character's health is reduced to 1/3 of his (or her!) maximum, they are said to be injured and their actions are reduced by half. You can tell when a character is injured - their health and actions show up red in the status window.
Move - Keyboard: SPACE (when in FIRE mode)
The first button, with the four outwardly-pointing arrows, is the MOVE button. When a unit is in FIRE mode, this button exits and returns it to the default MOVE mode.
