Documentation for HawkQuest for PAL Atari 800 computers Programmed by Andrew Bradfield Graphics by Harvey A. Kong Tin In Detail Introduction Your home planet is a peaceful world that possesses a unique technology, a perpetual energy generator that is pollution free. It powers the whole planet and is the only major energy source used. The key to it is an energy crystal that was devised some hundreds of years ago by your ancestors. Unfortunately the secret died with them, although the crystal will last forever. The crystal has been stolen by an envious race of Metroids who have taken it home with them. Intelligence reports state they have disassembled the crystal into it's 5 component parts and hidden each beneath a different planet in their solar system. Each are hidden in a complex deep underneath the planet, where it is stored in a vault so that they can study it at their leisure. Each are heavily guarded, and all manner of traps are laid, waiting... Having been raised on pulp fiction, you volunteer to save your planet, because everything is powerless without the presence of the crystal. All machines are powered by this crystal grid system, in which the crystal is the key device. You board one of the few space cruisers available, and some museum kept helicopters are taken aboard. They have been refitted with lasers and neutron bombs. Your friends volunteer with you in the quest for the crystal, the mission being named "HAWKQUEST". Your home planet is depending on you. Successful completion of the game will take you to the end of game animation screen, which shows you returning the assembled crystal to the power generator on your home planet. The power generator is started up, and life is brought back to your planet once again. Game Options On the Title Screen, the following options are available: OPTION to see the High Score Table START to go to the Map screen SELECT to alter the difficulty level. Only 2 difficult levels are available. Level 2 is for players who have conquered Level 1. D = Demo Mode on/off. Press fire to start the demo off. It is a continuous demo of the main game only where the helicopter is indestructible. Press OPTION to exit demo mode and go to the Title/Map screen. Press START to attack that planet. Map Screen Here you can choose which planet you wish to travel to and land on. Move the cursor to the planet for info/choice. Press fire to go to that planet. Move cursor away to abort. Full information is available about each plent. The L/S/I options on the right are for Load/Save/Information. Load is to load a saved game. Save to save the current game. Game saves can only be done from the Map Screen or at the beginning of the Secondary Game. You cannot save a game during the actual game. Information is for information about the current game in progress, useful just before a save or after a loading a saved game. OPTION on the Map Screen shows your current Inventory ie. What parts of the crystal you have retrieved (if any?). Main Game Instructions Control of the helicopter is by joystick only. Move the joystick to maneuver your helicopter. Moving side to side or staying still, while pressing the fire button will fire your air to air lasers. Moving forward or backward while pressing the fire button together will fire a neutron bomb downwards towards the targeting sight. The neutron bomb is sharply focused and will only destroy ground guns and power generation/defense installations/buildings. Harmless vegetation and buildings will not be affected. There are special targets hidden within the landscape, these can provide shields (makes you invulnerable for a limited time) or extra helicopters. Indicators in the display panel light up, when they appear at the top of the screen - ie. their horizontal location is shown, but not their vertical location. Some are in obvious places, others are difficult to find. Once found, they will always be in the same place. Explosions are deadly - avoid collisions with explosions. SPACE BAR pauses the game. START restarts the game on that planet. Press this if you wish to restart on that planet. This is a practice mode, and should not be used when playing the game proper - because you will lose your inventory. SELECT to abort your attack on that planet, return to space and go to the Map screen. The objective of the main game, is to survive until the very end and destroy the protective Force Field generator. Destroying this will enable you to enter the Secondary Game. But you do need as many extra helicopters as possible in reserve. They will form your attack party. The more Helicopters remaining, the more men you have available. You will need them, because the Secondary Game is not easily conquered. NOTE: When you have lost the game, you do have the option of restarting on that planet. Press START to do this. OPTION will take you back into space and to the Map screen so as to choose another planet to attack. Secondary Game Instructions Upon loading the Secondary Game, you will get the message "Do you want to save game Y/N". It is advisable to save the game, before playing the secondary game, so that you can build up your own game saves. The Secondary Game is a complex 8-way scrolling shoot'em up, where you pick up various inventory idtems hidden in the walls to help you in your quest. They all look the same, but once you touch them, if they are a useful item, they will show up in your Inventory Window. Your aim is to retrieve a crystal segment that is hidden in a vault within the fortress. After collecting the crystal, you will have to find the transporter beacon, which has only become visible. Touching the transporter beacon will take you to the Map screen with the crystal segment. You will then be able to choose to journey to another planet. The fortresses are guarded by robots and traps. The robots appear at generators placed around the fortress. There are 3 main types of robots: Chasers: who try to get to you Releasers: who can generate small fast robots Rands: who are un-intelligent There are other robots which are seen less often. They are: Bouncers, Shooters, Followers (that require more than 1 hit) and Minelayers. There are 8 types of traps used in the Fortresses: Gas, Electrified, Light, Energy Field, Explosive, Squash, Missile, and Gun neutralizer Trap. You have to find ways of surviving these traps. Some fortresses are straight forward in layout, whereas others have puzzles for you to figure out. Some will take a while in mapping them out properly. Various items hidden in the walls. They are: T = Trap Finder. 8 different traps are used in the game and are hidden everywhere on the floors. Press "T" to activate/deactivate the Trap Finder, if you have it? Traps will now be visible. K = Key. Having the key will automatically unlock locked doors for you, when you touch locked doors. B = Blaster. This automatically turns your standard laser into a more powerful weapon. It will now blast away certain walls which were previously indestructible. E = Explosive. This is needed to blast away the Vault Door that stops you gaining access to a segment of the Crystal. It can only be used on the Vault Door, and is an essential item to complete the Secondary Game with. Press "E" when right up against the Vault Door (to plant and prime the Explosive) and then run away. A countdown timer will show up in the inventory window. P = Paralyser. This is a useful device to freeze the Robots/Creatures that roam around. They will stay freezed for only a few seconds. Press "P" to activate it, and it will be used up. The "P" in the Inventory Window will count down the time remaining, showing when the Paralyser effect will run out. You can only hold one Paralyser at a time, before getting another. S = Total Destruction Bomb (ie. Smart Bomb). This will destroy all visible Robots/Creatures on the screen. Press "S" to activate. SPACE BAR will pause the game. Shooting the Robot Generators (the number of hits required, depends on the fortress) will deactivate them, until they go off-screen, where they will reactivate. You have unlimited time, what determines your playing time, is the number of lives you have. Once you have lost all your lives in the Secondary Game, you will go back to the Map/Title screen for a possible High Score, or just to restart a new game. You can only play the Secondary Game once and must then go back to the Map/Title Screen. To save a High Score, type in your name with the keyboard, and press RETURN. If you wish not to save a High Score, press OPTION. LOADING A SAVED OR PRESET SAVED FORTRESS Boot up Disk 1 Side 2 You will have the option of loading a Preset Saved Fortress or loading a Fortress that you have saved. There are 3 Preset Saved Fortresses on the disk. (Demos so that you can see what some Fortresses are like). Choose a number and then press FIRE. This options is to save time, so that you can enter a fortress directly without having to load the Title/Map screen or the first game. Note: You can only enter a saved fortress in this way, not saves of the first game. We hope that action gamers will enjoy HawkQuest, a lot of work and time has gone into this project, with the intention of making a very special game available --- we hope that we have succeeded in producing a game that does have excitement and is fun to play too. Andrew Bradfield and Harvey A. Kong Tin NOTE: There are some faulty data sectors in the HawkQuest disk version available on the net. This affects probably 2 fortresses. Hopefully someone will be able to provide a working disk side (Probably the start of Disk 2 Side 1 is faulty). So one or two of the Presets do not work, the later 1 or 2 does work OK. If anyone can transfer original 5.25" Atari floppies to PC format, please contact me at kiwilove@paradise.net.nz so that we can fix up the above Disk 2 Side 1. Harvey A. Kong Tin March 2002 Guide to the Read out panels in HawkQuest. Main Game Panel Light 1 Light 2 Distance to Light 3 Light 4 Shield ON Bonus Points Force Field Extra Heli Generator & Shield? Generator & Points in range SCORE: 000000 HI-SCORE : 000000 LIVES : 5 Bonus Message Window Secondary Game Panel Details Inventory | MARINES 10 SCORE 000000 S T B K E P Message Window XX X X X X X X X X X? TP crystal retrieved ? = number of smart bombs T = TrapFinder on when these are on you have P = Paralyser on SPACE BAR will pause the game Tips Watch the message window - some messages are important Map out the fortresses Save the game often Remember to turn on the Trap Finder when you find it. Remember pressing SELECT in the game will abort the attack and take you to the Map Screen to choose another planet but it will still be the same game. Lives, score and crystal count will be unaffected. Pressing START will begin a completely new game.