Raid On Fort Apocalypse - v1.05 - January 24th, 2008
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Welcome to Raid On Fort Apocalypse - bignobody's entry to the 2008 Retro Remakes competition.

This is an entry for Category 3: Sequels That Weren't.

A very special thank you to those Hard Rocking Scientists, Bodenständig 2000 for the amazing music! http://www.bodenstandig.de 
(Rescue DRX and Bio-Bern from the dark corners of the Vaults of Draconis to unlock extra music!)

Complete all 10 Mission Objectives to win the game.

Also another very special thanks to Patsie of Brain Games who put together a "proper" linux version, and squished a few more bugs at the same time. http://www.braingames.getput.com 


=[CONTROLS]=

R.O.F.A. is playable with Keyboard only, Keyboard and Mouse, Single Axis Joystick or Dual Axis Gamepad:

[keyboard]: 
W S A D   or  Up Down Left Right arrow keys	: move your jetcopter. 
SPACE					   	: shoot guns at crosshair
M						: shoot missile at crosshair
+ and  -					: increase / decrease crosshair circumference

Crosshair position is controlled by jetcopter's current Velocity plus the current input direction.


[mouse]: 
Movement (move in a circle for smoothest results): Moves targeting Crosshair. 
Left button					 : shoot guns at crosshair		
Right button 					 : shoot missile at crosshair
Mouse Wheel					 : increase / decrease crosshair circumference

[joystick]: 
Movement					: Moves jetcopter.  
Button 1					: shoot guns at crosshair 
Button 2 					: shoot missile at crosshair

Crosshair position is controlled by jetcopter's current Velocity plus the current input direction.


[gamepad (dual axis)]: 
Stick 1 movement 				: Moves jetcopter. 
Stick 2 movement 				: Moves targeting Crosshair. Move stick all the way to shoot guns. 
Button 1 					: shoot guns at crosshair
Button 2 					: shoot missile at crosshair


*** SPECIAL NOTE ON DUAL AXIS CONTROLLERS *** ROFA will try to make a best guess at which axes should control the target, but because each controller may be different it may guess wrong. If it is not working correctly for you, you can change which axis number it uses as a starting point using PageUp and PageDown. In addition, you can invert the X/Y order of each of these starting points using the INSERT key. There is no visual feedback, but each change is logged in the log.txt file.


[other keys]

Esc 		: immediately quit - you will not be warned!
P		: Pause/UnPause
PrintScreen	: Save bmp screenshot in screens folder.



[cheat codes]

Contact me if you really need these :)




=[ENGINE MODES]=

The Apocalypse Engine is based on SDL (http://libsdl.org), and exposes some start up properties to the command line.

If the game does not run well for you (ie: it is really jerky when the map scrolls) you can try telling the game engine to run in a few different modes. Some of the modes may work better on your computer than others:

1) make a windows shortcut to Raid On Fort Apocalypse.exe
2) right click the shortcut and select properties
3) add the desired arguments in the Target field after the .exe path.
4) click accept.

Arguments are as follows:
 <RENDERTYPE> <WINDOWMODE> <RESOLUTION> [<FORCEDirectX>]

<RENDERTYPE> is HW or SW (hardware or software rendering)
<WINDOWMODE> is WM or NW (window mode or not windowed (fullscreen))
<RESOLUTION> is FS or RS  (Full Size (1024x768) or Reduced Size (800x600))
<FORCEDirectX> is DX or omitted. This will force SDL to use DirectX, but I 
generally haven't had good results with it.

So, your target field would look like (assuming you unzipped to C:\ROFA\):
"C:\ROFA\Raid On Fort Apocalypse.exe" SW WM RS

to run Software Rendering, Windowed Mode, at 800 x 600.



=[A WORD TO FORT APOCALYPSE PLAYERS]=

I have not tried to recreate the original, rather an imagined sequel. I believe I have recaptured some of the feel of the original, while bringing some new ideas to play. Which is what any sequel should strive for.

One word of caution: the cross-beams in the original would teleport you to other chambers. This feature got cut, so don't try it - you'll blow up :)


I had only 3 months for this (and only my spare time in those 3 months - I have a full time job and family that keeps me busy!) so many of the features I had planned got cut and much of the art is not as polished as I would have liked. But for all that, I am quite proud of this accomplishment.


=[Credits]=

bignobody of notsoft - http://www.notsoftgames.com 	: Code, design, art, sound effects.
bodenständig 2000 - http://www.bodenstandig.de/2000 	: Music, additional sound effects.

ROFA uses a custom game engine built on top of Simple Direct Media Layer: http://www.libsdl.org

ROFA uses .ogg sound compression: http://www.vorbis.com/


=[Special Thanks]=

Acadian Siren
Dragan and Bernhard
Patsie
Seregrail7
Doc Frank-N
Nickenstien
Lenny and Bicky

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Please send any feedback to: bignobody@notsoftgames.com

Cheers!

-bignobody

