Copyright & Disclaimer
======================
This game is freeware. It may be freely copied if no modifications
are made with the entire package! Any commercial distribution is strictly
forbidden. There is no warranty or other guarantee of fitness of this
software for any purpose. It is provided solely "as is".
Welcome to Star Defender!
=========================
Features:
· Requires 1 MB chipmem and a 68020 CPU or better (fast 68030 recommended)
· Supports two button joysticks!
· Compatible with any screen that supports custom bitmaps!
· Doesn't stop multitasking!
The game is designed for PAL and 50Hz: smooth animation can only be done with
50Hz screens! (e.g. PAL or DblPAL) All other display modes require more CPU
power (the screen has to be updated more often) and irregular screen updates
will show up.
What is it?
Star Defender is an arcarde game like Defender and Stargate. It offers a
large number of moving shapes, fast accellerated scrolling and digi sounds.
The object of the game is to protect humanoids on various number of moons
from alien attack waves.
The Defender:
Your ship! Equiped with the latest engines, offensive weapons and defense
systems. The engines enable your ship to fast accelaration and auto reverse.
The quickfire laser, which is the main offensive weapon, has great power and
is capable of fast recharging. Additionally, your ship can fire smartbombs
(2nd button on your joystick or space bar), which will destroy all enemies on
the screen. Smartbombs are limited, so use them with care! Finally you can
use the scanner, which shows all enemies on the moon.
The attack waves:
The enemies are attacking in waves, which are limited to each moon. If you
succeed in defending the humanoids from all attack waves, you will be send to
the next moon, otherwise the moon detonates and you have to reject the
remaining attack waves.
· Humanoids: Your mission is to protect humanoids! They can be
hit by your laser beam, they can be killed if captured by Landers, and
they can be killed if a Lander drops them too far from the ground.
· Landers: These enemies are slow and do not fire much. But they
can capture one of your Humanoids and beam it to the top. At this point
the Lander will transform the Humanoid into a Mutant.
· Mutants: Fast and deadly killers that try to eliminate you!
· Bombers: There are four different types of bombers, especially on
later attack waves. Miners are dropping a mine from time to time,
elsewere they're mostly harmless, Beamers are fireing a dangerous wide
range laser device, Twisters are equiped with a fast recharger that
enable them making turn & fire manouvers and finally there are Pluggers
which are equipped with plasma lasers and one detachable Swarmer.
· Pods: These enemy ships are coordinating the attack waves. They
are slowly drifting around and mainly harmless. But if they are hit, they
divide into four deadly Swarmers!
· Swarmers: Not as dangerous as mutants, but smaller.
· Baiters: Appear only in the later part of an attack wave.
They're hunting you and are shooting at your ship. Because of they are
very small and fast, it is difficult to destroy them, so be carefull!
· Carriers: These transporters carry usefull equipment: An extra
smartbomb (grey), more energy for the laser (red), extra shield power
(green), or a satellite (blue). Destroy the carrier and capture the
equipment.
· Stargates: Activating a stargate will teleport you to another
location on the moon.
Special keys:
· F5: Pause
· F10: (Re)Starts the game
· Esc: Quits the game
JOYSTICK CONTROL: MOUSE CONTROL:
=================== ================
up! up!
.-. .---.
.-' `-. | | | left button: fire!
thrust left | O | thrust right |---| right button: thrust!
`-. .-' | | middle button
`-' | | or shift key: reverse!
down! `---' space bar: smartbomb!
down!
button: fire!
2nd button Press F10 and RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON in
or space bar: smartbomb! the title page to start with mouse
control.
Press fire in the title page to
start with joystick control.
Tool types:
· INPUTDEVICE=OFF -> Disables mousepointer and input device to
get full CPU speed. In pause mode, both are active again.
· ADAPTER=OFF -> Disables access to the parallel port. Usefull
if there is no four player joystick adapter. Data sent to another device
at the parallel port will be scrambled otherwise in multiplayermode!
Technical:
· Defender uses direct blitter access, so GFX-card screenmodes will fail.
If you are using CyberGraphX, you WILL have to DISABLE the PLANES2FAST
option or the game will even fail on standard screen modes!
· Requires mathtrans.library and icon.library from workbench disk!
History:
Defender for the Atari 2600 was my first video game at all. Again and again
it went around my head while several games called my attention: Repton on
the C64. (Really nice gameplay, but you really cannot survive that waves
after they have created their building, can you?) Orion on Archimedes. (Nice
movements and sound effects, but not really an increasing challenge in later
levels) Star Ray on Amiga. (good effects, but maybe a bit strange enemies)
Finally, my fingers hit the keyboard... My first builds on Amiga were a
moving defender ship, but nothing special happened, until Andreas created
these magic graphics. Now I can sleep again... :^) Thanks Andy!
V1.1: (08.Apr.2002)
· Can check special freeware version
· Bug fixed: humanoid beaming was blocked in later levels
· Bug fixed: smart bombs have been reset after defender has been destroyed
V1.0: (26.Jun.1996)
· First public release.
Any comments, suggestions, bug-reports? Let me know...
Matthias Bock, April 2002 | _ `=oo='____
| _ // (__)~ \
| \X/ |.___ _|\
homepage: http://lazycow.de/defender | Thank you, Amiga... jj "jj *