
SQUIDGY WARS

A funtastic arcade game for two players!
Play it now, and shoot your friends!

by Simon Hern and Roland Higginson (Summer 1995)


  Alas, our hero and heroine just don't seem to get along! Finding themselves
trapped together in a maze, do they team up and try to figure a way out? Do
they keep each other's spirits up by telling stories and singing happy songs?
Bollocks they do! Our two little friends may seem cute and cuddly, but
they've got personalities like pissed-off sewer rats, and in a maze littered
with fire balls, laser bolts, and assorted magic symbols, it looks like
somebody's going to get their fur fried tonight!

  The game is easy to play, but for the slow-of-thinking here are a few hints
to get you started:
  The mazes are very small but easy to get lost in. Keep moving to collect
the weapons and magic symbols as they appear. Consult the introduction screen
for a summary of what all the objects do. (If you need more time on this
screen run the program with the "/i" command-line option.)
  Since only one player can have a gun at any one time, you either play the
hunter or the hunted. The best way to stop your opponent firing at you is to
get a gun of your own!
  The game switches between two different types of level. On one level the
only weapons available are fire (and occasionally plasma) balls. On the other
level you get to play with laser bolts and orbital shields (which come in
handy both as offense and as defense).

  The game should run on any 386 (or better) PC with VGA graphics, but it may
have problems running under awkward operating systems such as Windows.
  Joysticks and soundcards (Adlib/Soundblaster) are supported - at least in
theory. The command-line options "/m" and "/s" can be used to turn off the
music and sound-effects if they rub your soundcard up the wrong way.

  This program and its source code are released into the public domain; they
may be freely distributed subject to the condition that all of the files be
kept together in their original form.
  Paranoid disclaimer: The authors are not to be held responsible for any
adverse effects this program may have on the computer equipment it is run on
or the people who use it.

  Comments and queries (and donations? well, we can wish) to:
    Simon Hern, Wolfson College, Cambridge, CB3 9BB, England.
    Email: sdh20@cam.ac.uk.

