THE SPECTRUM GAME DATABASE DARKSTAR PUBLISHER Design Design AUTHOR programmed by Simon (Psi) Brattell, Neil (Mott) Mottershead and Gwaham, all from Design Design. YEAR 1985 DESCRIPTION CONTROLS INSTRUCTIONS LOADING INSTRUCTIONS Set up the Spectrum as detailed in the manual and load with LOAD "". Dark Star will now load and auto run. Please note Dark Star is a very long program and will take 5 minutes to load. PLAYING THE GAME The Dark Star galaxy is divided into a 16 * 16 grid of sectors in the galactic plain. The LIAR's battle computer generates a real time display on your screen which shows all activity in your immediate vicinity. As well as showing enemy ships and their missiles, this display will also show energy concentrations and Warp Gates to hyperspace. Energy concentrations are shown as pulsating blue squares; flying through these will enable LIAR to increase its supply of shield energy. Energy used to operate the ship's navigation and weaponry systems is generated by an internal energy source. The deflector screens will draw a large amount of energy if hit by an enemy missile. LIAR's weaponry is of the fixed mount type, aimed by manoeuvring the ship. The point towards which LIAR is flying is marked on the display by the cursor. This is moved by using the up, down, left & right keys, while LIAR's velocity is altered using accelerate and decelerate. Pressing a fire key will release a burst of plasma bolts in the direction LIAR is flying, destroying any enemy ship or missile on that line. Enemy ships will fire on the LIAR by prediction, so it is essential not to fly on the same course or speed for any length of time. The best way to avoid missiles being to rapidly change your velocity. Moving from one sector to another requires you to make a transition to hyperspace. This is done by first finding a set of Warp Gates, which your battle computer sees and displays as four yellow squares changing shape as the Gates open and close, and then flying LIAR into one of these whilst it is open. The four gates are arranged in a North, South, East, West fashion such that you can select the direction you wish to move within the grid, by flying through the appropriate gate. If the LIAR is in a sector at the edge of the grid one of the gates will be missing, or two if LIAR is in a corner sector. The route through hyperspace is mapped out as a rectangular tunnel, down which you must guide the LIAR. Travelling outside of this tunnel puts a heavy load on your screens and uses much energy, so accurate flying is essential. The Dark Star galaxy has planets in it. These can be investigated further by flying down onto their surfaces. This is achieved by flying directly up to a planet, as if on a collision course. Your computer will then carry out a re-entry manoeuvre during which your screen will blank for an instant, as your sensors are blinded by the 'Liar' using its momentum to smash through the planetory shielding. The surface of a planet occupied by enemy forces will be defended by anti-aircraft weaponry, raised above the surface on towers. These can be disabled by firing on the towers, which will collapse when hit. Certain areas on the planet are defended by force shields which will damage the 'Liar' if flawn through. There are, however, holes in these fields which your computer will detect and display as rectangles. If you fly through these, its energy will be lost. The enemy bases on the planets are hidden in the center of a ring of defences, and are themselves protected by three towers. These bases generate the planetory defence shields, which must be rendered inoperative, by destroying all the bases on a planet, before the 'Liar' can return to space. Without the velocity attainable in space, the 'Liar' can never build up the momentum required to pass through these shields, so if you elect to go down onto a planet you cannot escape again until all the bases on it are destroyed. This feature can, however, be disabled from within the game options menus. Pressing '1' whilst on the surface of a planet will cause your computer to display a tactical map of the surface, showing defences, bases and fuel dumps. The 'Liar's' position and direction are denoted on the map by a white arrow. There is also an arrow displayed on the main screen to show 'Liar's' direction in respect to the map. Bases are shown as concentric rectangulars, defences as shaded areas (density shows difficulty), fuel dumps as blue dots and spaceports as magenta rectangles. You may leave the planet's surface and return to space by flying with maximum speed and maximum climb at the same time, though only after all the enemy bases have been destroyed. Fuel dumps on the surface will consist of a number of energy concentrations. These are held in force fields generated by the surrounding towers. To gain extra energy guide your ship through these as you would in space, but beware of the towers: they are armed and will fire on you. Enemy spaceports are defended by both towers and enemy ships. They are fairly difficult targets, but it is not necessary to destroy these before leaving the planet. THE OBJECT OF THE GAME The object of Dark Star is to liberate your galaxy from domination by the Evil Lord's tyrannical Empire. To achive your aim you must wipe out all the enemy's military centres on the planets within your galaxy. (These are shown in green on the Tactical Sector Map.) The game difficulty setting will determine the degree to which the Empire has extended its sphere of influence through the galaxy. CONTROLS Dark Star has a fully user defineable game control system, which is explained by the incorporated screen instructions; please note that the program will select keyboard control or joystick control automatically, depending on which menu was first used. Under joystick control, the accelerate and decelerate controls will remain on the keyboard as defined by the user. We do not recommend use of joysticks in playing Dark Star. All aspects of the game are open to user control, including the display format, and can be altered by use of the highly flexible, menu driven front end. The keys "1" and "0" cannot be defined by the user. Those that are used in the game are as follows:- 1 Causes the display to switch between visual and tactical displays. On the surface of a planet, this will show the arrangement of defences as detailed above. Whilst the Liar is in space the tactical display will show a map of all the two hundred and fifty six sectors withing the galaxy, though your battle computer will only mark those sectors containing enemy planets. The type of defence employed on a given planet is also marked occording to the displayed key. The Liar's position within the galaxy is shown by a flashing square surrounding the sector it is located in. 3 & 4 When pressed together will cause the Liar to self-destruct, aborting the game and returning to the main menu or high score table on the next key press. FEATURES:- Universe Stopwatch Mode Full 3 Dimensional, 2 Million Way Movement Colour Vector Graphics Full Range of Sound Effects Full Screen Playing Area Continuous Error Free Operation 600k of Source Does not feature:- Materialisations Sprites Unused Ram Stupid Scenario Magic Rings WARNING Do not expect pirated copies of this tape to load correctly. Dark Star was written and conceived by Simon Brattel over a period of six months in 1984. The program is not another boring arcade copy! The second program on the Dark Side tape "SPECTACLE" will not run unless several passwords are entered correctly. The passwords will be released in the near future, in one of our adverts. Meanwhile keep guessing! - Is this the first reviewer-proof program? Part two of the trilogy "Forbiden Planet" will be available when the programmer recovers. Written at a secret software establishment (somewhere in Simons bedroom). These programs, documentation and artwork are copyright (c) 1984 by DESIGN DESIGN Software. CHEATS One high score table consisted of the lyrics to a song. This song gave away the password to an encrypted program also supplied with Dark Star. The song was "Everyone's A Nervous Wreck", from the Supertramp album "Breakfast In America". The password "Everyone's A Nervous Wreck" had to be typed exactly - even the apostrophe. It was released to the general world through CRASH magazine, who DesDes quite liked, unlike Computer & Video Games, who DesDes despised. As you will see from reading Spectacle! SEQUELS/PREQUELS The sequel to Dark Star was called Forbidden Planet. INLAY CARD TEXT If it moves, shoot it. If it doesn't move - shoot it anyway. If it's sqaure - fly through it. SCORES RECEIVED URL ftp.dcc.uchile.cl/pub/OS/sinclair/snapshots/d/darkstar.zip GENERAL FACTS NOTES Design Design are/were one of the weirdest Software houses. If their games had one fault, it was that they were just too damn slick. Dark Star is a prime example. The programming involved was so slick and fast, the graphics would slide past you before you;d even realsed what was going on. It did have the wildest front end however, keys could be pressed that weren't supposed to be pressed, to get hidden options, and woe betide anybody who tried to print the high scores without a printer attached... The High scores were always a good read - there were generally three/four different high scores randomly chosen when the game loaded. Should you get on a Dark Starhigh score table, try typing any of the following: Design Design software Invasion of the body snatchas Rommels Revenge Computer and Video Games (and many more!)