StarMines II - The Planet of Mines Copyright (c) 1992-1993 by Jari Karjala. This program is distributed as CardWare. This means that you can give unmodified copies to your friends (and fiends), but I want to see how widely the game is played. Therefore: if you like the game, send me a postcard to the snail mail address below. Game idea --------- You start with your small scout ship at the level 1 of the Planet of Mines. You can advance levels by flying through transportals. Try to collect as many Bonusoids as possible while avoiding or shooting the alien objects. Luckily, you have unlimited fuel and ammunition supplies. You can shoot everything, but perhaps you should not... System requirements ------------------- At least a fast 286 system with 256 kBytes free RAM and a register compatible VGA card. The program uses an undocumented 256 color mode (resolution 320x240) and split-screen display. If it does not work with your VGA card, please let me know. The game has been tested under MS-DOS 5.0, DR-DOS 6.0 as well as the full-screen DOS box of Windows 3.1, OS/2 1.3, 2.0 and 2.1beta. I don't recommend running the game in a DOS box since it degrades performance. Do not try to switch out of the DOS box while the game is active (it may result a system crash). Controls (US keyboard) ---------------------- 'z' or 'left' rotate counter-clockwise 'x' or 'right' rotate clockwise 'm' or 'up' thrust ',' or 'space' shoot 's' stop motion (kind of cheat!) I recommend using the letter keys, they are much easier than the cursor keys! Command line options -------------------- /C Always keep the player in the Center of the viewport (equals to Options Centering ON). It may make the playing easier. /F Display Frames per second statistics after exit (normally 20 fps). /N No startup menu, start game immediately. /Q Be Quiet (equals to Options Sound OFF) /Sx Sync to ever x'th frame, default 3, which means 60/3=20 frames per second. This option disables sound. /S1 combined with /F is useful for measuring CPU/VGA performance of your computer. My 486/33+Trident8900 can scroll at 50-60 frames per second, depending on the level (a bit too fast for normal play:-). This option can also be used to slow down the game if it seems to be too fast... /V Fly in Vacuum (equals to Options Friction OFF). This makes the controls more like the original StarMines (most people think this is quite a bit harder). The options /C, /Q and /V (which are also available in the options menu) are saved in sm2.cfg file when exiting. The original StarMines ---------------------- The original StarMines was created and published as a demo of my Sprite Toolkit (STK110) in 1990-1991. This toolkit supports only monochrome EGA and Hercules, but it includes the C source code for the sprite library, sprite editor and the StarMines game. It is available on several anonymous FTP sites. Hacker Info ----------- Once again, I included some interesting tricks to examine. For example, try forging yourself into the hall of fame. There are also certain ways of CHEATing... If you are interested in the source code of StarMines II or if you want to design more levels and/or aliens, you are welcome to contact me (I cannot quarantee a reply, though). Contact Info ------------ Internet mail: jka@niksula.hut.fi -or- jka@nic.funet.fi -or- jka@tuura.icl.fi Snail mail: Jari Karjala Veropellontie 11 00740 Helsinki Finland Don't forget to send your postcard!