                           ******* `TROOPER *******
                            (c) 1999 DAVID BESWICK



                                  VERSION ONE
                                 6 August 1999



                                  DISCLAIMER
WHILE IT IS EXTREMELY UNLIKELY THAT ANY DAMAGE WILL BE INCURRED AS A RESULT OF
USING THIS SOFTWARE, DAVID BESWICK IS NOT TO BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY
DAMAGES INCURRED FROM THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
BY RUNNING THIS SOFTWARE YOU AGREE TO THE ABOVE TERMS.











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        OO  OOOOOOOOOOOOO
         o        O
                  O   OOOO  OOOO  OOOO  OOOO  OOOO  OOOO
                  O   O  O  O  O  O  O  O  O  Oooo  O  O
                  O   OOO   O  O  O  O  OOOO  O     OOO
                  O   O  O  OOOO  OOOO  O     OOOO  O  O

                         A GAME BY DAVID BESWICK
                     ASCII ART ALSO BY DAVID BESWICK



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Finally Released....
--------------------

What is `Trooper?
Lying dormant for over four years, `Trooper is unleashed. An all-out audio
visual assault on the senses, its realism will blow you away and leave you
standing holding your own guts in your hands, trying desperately to push them
back into your open abdominal cavity while your lifeblood ebbs away before
your eyes.


Recommended System
------------------

486DX/100 Processor
8 MB Ram
Sound Blaster series soundcard
DOS 4.0 or greater


How To Set Up
-------------

Before you can run `Trooper, you must run the setup program to configure your
sound options. Simply run the program SETUP. Choose your sound options from
the menus that appear with the arrow keys and enter.

Once your sound options have been configured, run the program TROOPER to start
the game.


Gamma Setup
-----------

When you run the game for the first time, a gamma setup screen with a red box
will appear. Follow the instructions. The purpose of this screen is that many
monitors have different brightness levels. `Trooper uses the visibility
information to automatically select the optimal brightness level.

If you accidentally set the gamma too dark and cannot see the main menu,
delete the file GAMMA.CFG and restart the game.


Problems
--------

If you do not hear sound during the game, or `Trooper freezes when the game
starts, the problem is most likely sound-related.

* Check your speakers. Are they manufactured such that they are required to
  have a steady power source? Many types of amplified speakers systems
  require this. If your speaker system requires electricity, and it has none,
  (for instance, not plugged in, your country's power grid has many blackouts
  or power spikes, not turned on) ensure that electricity is supplied to your
  speakers. To ensure steady power supply to your speakers you may consider
  purchasing an Uninterrupted Power Supply unit.

* If sound is still not audible, check if your speaker system has a volume
  control. If so, you must adjust the volume in such a way that the sound
  becomes audible. Most volume-type speaker systems have a dial or knob-type
  control that controls volume amplification. Volume controls are typically
  labelled with a right-angled triangle or the word "Volume". Try turning
  the knob clockwise until it is unable to be turned further, and if sound
  is still inaudible,  turn the knob anti-clockwise until it is unable to be
  turned further. Sound should now be audible. Speaker systems with USB or
  button-type controls are  beyond the scope of this document, please consult
  your speaker system's manual.

* Many modern sound-cards have hardware mixer controls. Check that your sound
  card's mixer volume is at a sufficient level, a trivial task.

**************** MOST COMMON SOUND-RELATED PROBLEM *****************

  If you have a Sound Blaster series card, check your AUTOEXEC.BAT file for
  a line that should start with SET BLASTER. If this line does not exist,
  add it as follows, then reboot your system.

  SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4

  A is your sound card's port address
  I is the IRQ number
  D is the DMA channel
  T is the Sound Blaster series (4 is SB Pro)

  The most common values are listed above. Your port, IRQ and DMA may differ.

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Playing the Game
----------------

Main Menu

The main menu has several options:

* Start Game
  Starts the game.

* Options
  Accesses the options menu.

* Highscores
  Displays the highscore tables.

* Help
  Displays some help.

* Quit
  Quits the game, first entering the credits screen.


Options Menu

The options menu has several options:

* Difficulty
  Press enter to cycle Easy, Normal or Hard.
  Easy   - Even you could kick its ass and so could your mom.
           On this skill level, the game is quite easy.
  Normal - For generic people or the skilled but insecure.
           On this skill level, the game is pretty normal.     
  Hard   - For the people who can beat up anyone they want to and pee hard
           into the urinal. If you sit down when you widdle don't expect to
           win on this skill level.
           On this skill level, the game is quite hard.

* Sound On/Off
  Press enter to cycle On/Off.
  On  - The sound effects in the game will be turned on (ie you will hear
        them).
  Off - The sound effects in the game will be turned off (ie you will not be
        able to hear them, as they will not be played).

* Music On/Off
  Press enter to cycle On/Off.
  On  - The music in the game will be turned on (ie you will hear it).
  Off - The music in the game will be turned off (ie you will not be able to
        hear it, as it will not be played).

* Reset Gamma
  Clears gamma (brightness) settings, so next time when you start the game
  you can reconfigure it.

* Back
  Takes you to the main menu.


History of 'Trooper
-------------------

'Trooper is based on one of the first games I played on an IBM, called
Paratrooper. It had CGA 4 colour graphics and it totally looked cool whenever
you shot something. I love that game.... so I pay it homage. But in that game,
you lost a point whenever you shot!! That was GAY, man. So I put a heat gauge
in 'Trooper instead. I can't remember who wrote Paratrooper but it doesn't
matter, mine has better sound and graphics.

'Trooper is different from Paratrooper in a number of ways. Paratrooper was
always a very tactical game, much skill was required. Because you lost a point
when you shot, you always had to aim carefully. Terrifying bomber planes
could kill you in one shot. Ground-based paratroopers could be killed by
falling paratroopers, if they were landed on.

'Trooper gets its inspiration from Paratrooper, and I feel it is more action
and reflexes based. This is due to the smaller playing area. Also, due to this
smaller playfield, landed troopers can not be killed by falling troopers.
Because that would make it too easy! And, I was lazy. Also, weapons powerups
are present, no sense in updating a game for the nineties if there's no
powerups. But at its heart, I'd like to think that 'Trooper still has a
tactical base. This is best seen while battling the menacing Drones, or
terrifying Crack Commandos. So, while tactics is not as ever-present, it still
plays an important part in the game.

Does 'Trooper stack up well to the legend? Comparisons become unfair. But I'd
like to think if the creators of that ancient game played my game, they would
not play anything else but my game, and kill anyone who would not play my
game.


Understand the Opening Movie
----------------------------

Many people I spoke to had trouble understanding the symbolism present in
'Trooper's opening movie. With that thought in mind, here is a step-by-step
guide of my thoughts when I gaffa taped by hands to my legs and drew my intro
movie with a Microsoft Intellimouse with dirty mouse ball.

Scene 1. The green thing is the Earth. The wierd f*#$en thing with three balls
         is an alien ship.
Scene 2. It's the alien ship's control room. We learn that the aliens are
         homies.
Scene 3. The alien hangar. We see a ship ready to launch... could it be...
         TO INVADE THE EARTH?!
Scene 4. The homie alien hasn't moved. He's got better things to do, like....
Scene 5. ....LAUNCHING ALIEN TROOP CARRIERS!!!
Scene 6. The troop carriers are on their way, probably to invade Earth.

We know from seeing this, that there are aliens parked outside Earth sending
bad shit our way. But why?

This is what you need to know to play the game.


Fundamentals of the Game
------------------------

When the game opens you can see your ground to air defense turret. It is
painted khaki in the middle of the red desert sands of Australia, so that
no one can see it. You will find that pressing the left and right keys will
change the orientation of your turret's barrel. This is an essential technique
to learn if you want to hit everything on the screen, and not wait until it
passes directly above your turret.

By pressing the CONTROL key, you will cause your turret to fire its current
weapon. Initially, this is a powerful bullet able to fell a trooper carrier
in one hit, and turn a trooper into little red chunks. However, you will find
that any weapon causes HEAT in your turret, visible at the lower right corner
of the screen. If you fire your gun too often, the turret will become hot and
will be unusable for a short time while it cools.

There are a few ways to die in trooper. If four troops land on either side of
your turret, you will be dead. You can't stop it. When a troop lands they do
a little dance, just to piss you off. Make sure you shoot them before they
land. Use your tactics - if there is three troops on one side, but two troops
are parachuting on both sides, kill the one where there is three troops. Makes
sense. If you shoot their parachutes they fall and when they hit the ground
they make a splat. At the end of the round you are awarded a blood bonus for
each time you perform this violent and basically sadistic act, to reward you
for acting in a violent and sadistic way.

The next way to die is by being shot or bombed. Drones will shoot you, bombers
will drop bombs on you. Each time you are hit your armour gauge, visible at
the lower right corner of the screen, will decrease. If it hits zero, you
will explode. You only have one life. Also, every time a commando jumps on
your turret, it damages you and you lose armour.

From time to time a thin khaki plane will appear. DO NOT SHOOT IT. It makes a
really big explosion if you do. If you've been shooting it every time it
appears, just to see the big explosion, you really are an idiot. It drops you
weapons. They look like little grey and green icons. Shoot the icon to get
the weapon.


Elements of the Game
--------------------

WEAPONS

You can get things that make bigger explosions when you fire them. Or, some
things just fire faster. Some fire more things at a time. One just kills
everything with one shot. Following are all the weapons you can get, and how
to recognise them, in brackets.

* Triple (three bullets, branching out from the same point)
  Your turret fires tripley.

* Rapid (dotted line)
  Your turret will fire rapidly.

* Laser (a line)
  Your turret will fire a laser. If you don't line this weapon because you
  overheat every single time you fire, the trick is to hold the button.

* Powerball (a ball)
  Fires a powerball that creates a lasting shockwave. Anything running into
  the shockwave will experience shock and explode.

* Megalaser (a nuclear mushroom cloud)
  This non-nuclear device sends a huge beam of energy screaming outwards,
  converting the enemy's kinetic energy into purple ball energy, thereby
  rendering them harmless.

Each weapon has an ammo reserve. Upon depletion, the weapon will no longer be
available to you.


ENEMIES

* Troop Carrier (Fat grey plane)
  Carries paratroopers.

* Paratrooper (Grey men in spacesuits, do they *seriously* look like koalas?)
  Parachute down to the ground. They are experts at dancing. If four land on
  one side of your turret, they go off and get a big bomb to blow you up. You
  can't stop them from doing it. You can turn off the screen before they come,
  that way you won't see yourself being blown up.

* Bomber (Blue and red plane)
  Drops bombs. You can shoot the bombs if they look like they're going to hit
  you, but usually its not worth the fun. Besides I drew the explosion really
  quickly, it looks retarded...

* Drone (Ball thing on a spike)
  Shoots at you. While it spins rapidly you cannot hurt it. By shooting at it,
  you will only hurt yourself in the end, when you wear away the skin on your
  firing finger leaving nothing but tendon and bone.

* Crack Commando Carrier (Flat grey plane)
  Carries Crack Commandos.

* Crack Commandos
  So named because they are really good at what they do, which is jumping on
  the enemy until they blow up. YOU ARE THE ENEMY!!! If you don't kill them
  before they fall, they will probably JUMP ON YOU!!! Shoot the carrier, they
  will catch on fire. They have little jet-packs. They can't dance, because
  they have been too busy training to jump on things until they explode.
  Paratroopers will usually get more girlfriends, because they can dance with
  the girls.

* MOTHERSHIP
  This is ONE BAD MOTHER AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

There are six levels.


ENTERING YOUR NAME

If you are good at the game, you can enter your name into the highscore table!
Enter you name by pushing the keys on the keyboard marked with the symbols
that correspond to the letters making up your name.
If you don't enter a name, it automatically calls you DICK, because one of my
friends is called Dick, and he never put his name in. That's why I made it
call you DICK.

Now you are a REAL PRO. So GET OUT THERE MARINE, and KICK SOME ASS!!!

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Other Notes
-----------

* 16 BIT SOUND CODE
  To do this run the game like so: trooper /s
  This may or may not work, la la la.


Thanks to the Mikmod sound library for everything!


CHANGES LOG

FINAL (6/8/99)
* All done, hopefully won't crash, I just don't care. I hope it crashes and
  just totally f*#ks up your whole f(*!ing computer, and you lose your gay-ass
  school assignment.

BETA 6 (3/6/99)
* Added Reset Gamma option
* Powerups come more often
* More ammo for all weapons
* Changed cheats a little
* Changed heat and armour displays
* Fixed a memory leak do with the waves
* Fixed a possible problem with the powerup plane exploding on entry
* Played the game all the way through, haha
* Fixed reverse stereo problem
* Added final artist profile things
* Song changes on wave three
* Who cares?!?? (Teen angst setting in)

BETA 5 (13/8/98)
* Added loading screen.
* New swanky setup program.
* Gamma determination is different, and now actually works.
* More robust error handling.
* Exiting screen mostly finished, still waiting on those final graphics...
* Bombs that hit the ground no longer give you points.
* Easy difficulty problems with strange attack waves fixed.
* Hi-score tables for easy, normal and hard added.
* Problem where a coloured dot would sometimes appear on the ground is
  fixed.

BETA 4
* Was a problem with the new song (my fault), I put the loop in the wrong
  place. Now fixed. The song will be much longer now :)
* The timing was messed up on the title page, all the dots didn't come
  together at the right moment. Silly mistake, now fixed.
* Removed the two little dots that I put on either side of the turret and
  forgot to take out for the past three betas.
* Added gamma correction routines.
* Generally much more stable. Lots of memory leaks and things sorted out.
* Added beginning of information screen at the end of the game

BETA 3
* Fixed problem with highscores, typing lots of letters caused a crash.
* Some title animations tweaked, optimisations in sprite and help routines.
* Slightly more ammo for every powerup box
* Change in the difficulty levels, on easy and normal each plane can drop
  two troopers, whereas on hard each plane can drop three.
* Rain effect changed to look more '3D'
* Small "introductory" help page added
* PLEASE TEST THE 16 BIT SOUND CODE IF YOU HAVE A 16 BIT SOUND CARD
  To do this run the game like so: trooper /s
  Also remember to run setup and choose option 3 or 4 for sound quality.
* New song from DJKIKE added, check it out! :)

BETA 2
* You no longer have to run the game with /m to enable sound. RUNNING THE GAME
  WITH /m WILL *DISABLE* THE SOUND.
* 16 bit sound support has been disabled for this beta while some problems
  with its operation are resolved.
* Frequency of paratroopers dropping has been reduced.

BETA 1
* Initial release
