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                          RGCD PRESENTS A NOEXTRA GAME
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          +         RRRRRRRR     0000000000     XXX       XXX   +
             .     RRRRRRRRR    000000000000      XX     XX       .  *
                  RR            00        00    .  XXXXXXX
                  RR       +    00        00   .   XXXXXXX    .
       .      .   RR      .     000000000000      XX     XX    .
         o        RR             0000000000     XXX       XXX       o

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                 RELEASED AT OUTLINE 2009 FOR THE ATARI SCENE!
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0. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
2. THE GAME (ARCADE MODE)
3. THE GAME (VS BATTLE MODE)
4. ADDITIONAL FEATURES
5. CREDITS
6. CONTACT US
7. VERSION HISTORY
8. FINAL WORDS

+-------------------------[ 0. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ]------------------------+

To play r0x you will need a 2MB Atari STE, a joystick/joypad (two for two-
player), a colour VDU and a loud soundsystem plugged into your STE L/R audio
ports.

A friend to play against is optional, yet strongly recommended.

+----------------------------[ 1. INTRODUCTION ]----------------------------+

Commander Perez was not a happy man.  He sat alone in the cold empty bridge 
of the TTA Military Frigate 'Irata', gravely contemplating his current 
situation. Up until now the mission had run smoothly - his platoon had all 
but wiped out the renegade death squads of Proxima Centauri in an intense 
ground battle and they'd reclaimed a previously captured warship in the 
process. It had looked as though it would be medals and cigars all across 
the board for his surviving troops on their return to Sol - but not any 
more...

From assessing the ship's log it appeared that one of the mechanics had left
a 3D skin-flick playing in the training holo-deck whilst Perez and his crew 
were stored in suspended animation on the long trip home. Unfortunately, 
playing the movie repeatedly over several millennia had completely drained 
the ships primary battery banks dry. As a result of this, the ship's computer
followed emergency protocol, cut life support down to a minimum and 
jettisoned all expendable personnel - basically everyone except Perez 
himself. Somewhere out in the cold vacuum drifted his entire crew, floating
in their survival suits, catatonic and completely oblivious to the danger 
they were in.

To make matters even worse, the ship's navigation system had apparently 
failed during the crew-dump procedure. Perez had been awoken deep in 
uncharted space.

"Computer!" Perez barked, "Where are we? Give me a nav report!"

There was no reply. Perez leaned out from his chair and swivelled the 
navigator's VDU round to face him. The screen was blank, empty except for a 
row of 8 bombs and what appeared to be a cursor in the shape of a bumble bee.
Unfortunately, as part of a military cost-cutting exercise the majority of 
the Irata's previously cutting-edge computer hardware had been replaced by 
vintage (yet serviceable) 68000-based systems. Perez had in fact signed the 
authorisation papers permitting the changeover in return for an extra week's
paid R&R.

"What the frakk is this?!" Perez roared. He furiously stabbed at the buttons
on his terminal and initialised a mid-range radar scan on the bridge's main 
display. The top of the screen was a chaotic blur of echoes and the ship was 
flying on a direct collision course.

"What the frakk IS THIS?!" Perez roared (again). He pulled a lever and the 
ship launched a probe out into the cosmos ahead. It survived about 50 seconds
before impact, but not before it had relayed a short burst of video 
information.

"Computer! Give me full manual control and initiate evasive protocol 
Delta-Nine-Zero. Lock down all external apparatus and raise shields NOW!"

Commander Perez began to grind his teeth nervously, his brow beaded with cold
sweat. The mother of all meteor storms was heading straight for the Irata.

+-----------------------[ 2. THE GAME (ARCADE MODE) ]-----------------------+

r0x is a game of skill.

In the single-player Arcade mode, your goal is to earn as many points as you
can and survive as long as possible.  You control the Irata's movement via 
the joystick and have a limited number of smart bombs that are activated by 
pressing the primary fire button.  If you get tired of playing, just press
'Q' to return to the main menu.

When you start the game, r0x, treasure, bonuses, 'maluses' and cosmonauts 
will begin to fall from the top of the screen.  Bonuses (bombs, E-X-T-R-A 
letters and lives), treasure and cosmonauts should be collected, whereas 
r0x and maluses (reverse controls and skulls) should be avoided.

In the top right corner of the screen you'll see a distance counter.  This
shows how much longer the current wave of r0x will last.  The HUD also 
displays your current score, how many smart bombs and ships you have left 
and any E-X-T-R-A characters you've collected (get the full set and you're 
awarded with an extra life).  There's also a space where an exclamation mark
will appear if you accidentally pick up a 'reverse' malus, but hopefully you
won't make the mistake of collecting one of those too often.

Smart bombs clear the screen and are a lot of fun to use, but we recommend 
save them for emergencies only.  As you progress deeper into the meteor storm
you'll often encounter situations where you cannot avoid a collision and 
it's these times that the bombs will prove most useful.

Want to get an insanely high score?  Lightly grazing the sides of r0x earns 
you serious danger points.

+----------------------[ 3. THE GAME (VS BATTLE MODE) ]---------------------+

r0x is a game of death.

In the two-player battle mode both players start with three lives (and no 
bombs) and it's a competition to collect the most floating spacemen.  

The first player to collect 20 wins.  Otherwise, if both players die, the one 
who has rescued the most wins the round.  In the case of a draw situation, 
the player to survive the longest wins.

Note that to play in two-player mode you require two joysticks.

+-------------------------[ 4. ADDITIONAL FEATURES ]------------------------+

Right, that's the basic instructions out of the way.  So what else does the 
game feature?

* A menu screen with a message displayer and animated VDU.  Make yourself a 
  coffee, sit back and see if your name is in the extensive 'greets' list. ;)
* An in-game playing guide (not that it's really needed).
* A hi score table that saves to disk. (Woo-hoo!)
* A quit to desktop option.
* A SECRET menu (read the messages in the displayer for a clue on how to 
  access it - or just hack our game till you find it! :P)
* And it's hard disk installable too.

That's about all.  A lot more was originally planned (shop/trading, end of 
level sequences, etc.), but as r0x is basically an unashamedly simple game 
we decided that adding features like these wouldn't really benefit the 
game-play enough to warrant the effort required to implement them.

+------------------------------[ 5. CREDITS ]-------------------------------+

So, who were the r0xx0r's behind this game?

Design....................................................Heavy Stylus (RGCD)
.............................................................TomChi (NoExtra)

GFA Code.....................................................TomChi (NoExtra)

Graphics.....................................................C-Rem (MJJ-Prod)
..........................................................Heavy Stylus (RGCD)
.............................................................Templeton (CVSD)

Music........................................................Crazy_Q (G-Spot)
..........................................................DMA-SC (Sector One)
.............................................................TomChi (NoExtra)

Sampled Speech / SFX......................................Heavy Stylus (RGCD)
.............................................................TomChi (NoExtra)

Testing / Additional Help.........................................GGN (D-Bug)
.................................................................Xerus (STOT)

Based on the meteor storm bonus stage in Edgar Vigdal's Deluxe Galaga (Amiga)

+-----------------------------[ 6. CONTACT US ]-----------------------------+

If you'd like to get in touch to provide feedback, bug reports or anything 
else, just drop us a mail!

heavystylus@yahoo.co.uk (Heavy Stylus)
tomchi@free.fr (TomChi)

+---------------------------[ 7. VERSION HISTORY ]--------------------------+

Version 1.00 - Added secret menu, added hi-score saving, added last few music
               tracks from Crazy Q and TomChi. The hiscore table now includes
               the wave reached, so you can compete for points or progress!
               
               Last(?) few bugs squashed, and the program now exits to desktop
               correctly.  Unless further bugs are found, this should be the
               final version of r0x!               

Version 0.99 - Tomchi added a kick-ass intro sequence, sinus scroll on game 
               over and logo bounce on two player screens.  Added more music
               to game and finalised score system (increased grazing reward,
               added a wave complete bonus and updated hiscore table). Fixed
               a bug that prevented the game running from an auto folder.

Version 0.98 - Bug fixes, optimised menu code and modified sprite sheet. 
               Added Moon parallax scrolling effect and new samples. 
               Addressed scoring issues, added spacemen to the single-player
               game and fixed two-player mode.

Version 0.97 - Initial Outline 09 (Game-Dev Compo winning) release!

+-----------------------------[ 8. FINAL WORDS ]----------------------------+

Work on r0x originally started back in the beginning of 2008 as a joint 
project between Heavy Stylus (RGCD) and El-Tel (EJT/RGCD).  The initial plan
was to use ripped sprites from Deluxe Galaga on the Amiga and we were 
intending to code the game using STOS.  However, when the sprite sheets and 
basic design document were complete, El-Tel had to abandon the project due 
to work commitments - leaving Stylus with a plan but no-one to help him 
execute it.

Some time later, after posting about the project on the D-Bug forum 
(www.dbug-automation.co.uk) TomChi emailed Heavy Stylus asking permission to 
create the game.  Several changes immediately came into effect; the ship 
would have full movement around the screen, a bonus system was designed and
a two-player battle mode was discussed.  TomChi had the basic engine up and
running within a few weeks.  C-Rem kindly pixelled a seriously 'rocking' 
intro screen.

In March 2009, Stylus demonstrated the WIP version of the game as part of 
the homebrew showcase at ByteBack 2009 (a retro gaming event in the North 
of England).  Around the same time, Stylus' friend Ptoing expressed an 
interest in the project and submitted a couple of sprites to demonstrate 
his view of how the game should look.  Sadly, nothing further came of this. :(

A month later TomChi contacted Stylus with a real surprise - the sprite 
sheet had been completely redrawn by Templeton and the game instantly looked
about 1000x cooler! :)  However, C-Rem's excellent artwork no longer suited 
the visual style of the game so it was dropped - or was it? ;)

Early May, with the deadline only days away and no-one available to pixel any
new screens for the game, Stylus sat down at his PC and worked for two nights
straight on creating all the additional (non-sprite) graphics and logos you 
now see in the game.  After a few more difficult evenings the sampled speech
and retro sound effects were added, and TomChi managed to get the game 
running a complete cycle for the first time.

Finally, after a year of on-and-off development, the Battle Mode and last few
bits of code were completed at the Outline 2009 party.


<< Heavy Stylus Says >>

This project, whilst difficult at times, has been an incredibly rewarding 
experience and both TomChi and I are really pleased with the end result of 
our labours.  Ever since I was a kid I always wanted to be part of an Atari 
game-dev team - and although I didn't do half as much work as Tom, I still 
feel satisfied that I contributed something to this prod.  Considering my 
limited art ability, I'm really pleased with the visual style of r0x - it's
amazing what you can achieve with some decent true-type fonts, Corel Xara 
and Paintshop Pro ;)

I'd like to say a big thank you to my loving wife Cassie for patiently 
putting up with the hours I've spent on this game.  


<< TomChi Dit >>

One hour before deadline, it's almost sure that r0x will enter the compo.
The last 24 hours were almost uncertain, but then, even if not polished and
not even completely finished, it runs from start to end, in both modes and 
that was the most crucial point as the 2 player mode was coded here in OL.
As I missed Crazy-Q before leaving home, Dma-Sc kindly proposed to make some
fast compos to have original tunes :) Thx a lot mate !!!

I'm now waiting for him, to pack the game and then send it to the orgas :)
Note to myself: do never start a game around a simple routine and then add and
add and add stuffs, just have a complete project set in stone and then start
coding ... Tomchi soon off to bed ;)

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