Dark destroyer!


Copyright Pb-games, 2004.


Contents:
* Introduction
* System requirements
* The main menu
* How to play
* The boss
* Score posting
* Thank's to
* License


* Introduction

The doomday has come, the day when the earth finally will be gone from the galaxy. The humans' situation is desperate, they don't seem to stand a chanse against the huge army of enemies that have surrounded them, at all sides. They are in panic, and they don't manage to organise even the weakest defense. The first attacking ships have already been spotted, cirkling over the planet. All defense is meaningless, the last piece of hope is gone.

Suddenly, an enormous, golden spaceship bursts through the dark clowds, it sweeps down with a speed of an attacking snake and throws a bomb right at the closest enemy ship. It explodes with a bang that makes the earth tremble.
The golden ship continues to make it's way down through the sky, and a scene of a kind that never has been seen before takes place as one enemy after the other explodes in a clowd of fire. The ship is now only a few hundred meters above the earth, and in the light of the moon two shining letters are visible on the ships left side. D d.

Welcome to: dark destroyer!


* System requirements

This game requires the following:
* A stereo compatible sound card.
* Headphones or speakers of course. But since the game is for just one player, headphones are strongly recommended.
* A relatively fast computer is required for the game to work properly.
* Active x support enabled for the score posting feature to work.
* Very important: Microsoft internet explorer 5 or later, with javascript enabled!


* The main menu

To navigate in any menu, use your up and down arrow keys to cycle between the options, and press enter to select one.
The main menu has 4 options.

Start new game:
Very obvious isn't it? Select this to start the game.

Speaker test:
Plays a sound first in the left and then in the right. This way you can make sure that your speakers or headphones are set up properly. If you hear the sounds from the wrong directions, switch your speakers or headphones around.

Learn game sounds:
If you're a new gamer, it's strongly recommended that you check this out before you start a new game. If you select this option, you'll be taken to a sub menu in which you can listen to the various sounds of the game that you will need to know about in order to play.

Exit game:
Simply exits the program.


* How to play

The game play is very simple. Press the left and right arrow keys to move your ship, and the spacebar to fire your lazer. When you hear that an enemy ship is approaching you, try to center it in the stereo field by moving towards it. when you are close enough to fire, you will hear your radar bleep. This means that you can go ahead and blast away the little pest! You will have to shoot several times to successfully destroy a ship. The number of times you have to hit a ship in order to destroy it increases on the higher levels (see below). As the ship gets closer to the earth, it's volume will increase and if you don't shoot it quick enough, it'll land. If 10 ships land on the earth, the lights are out. However, the chanse that those stupid things will manage to land is rather small, because after all you're the dark destroyer. Or, are you? That remains to be seen...

In the beginning of the game, you will hear a message from an evil little dude, the enemy leader. He's the one who is commanding the ships, and unfortunately chanses are that you'll have a little meeting with him some time...
He will stick in with messages every now and then at the start of the levels, press the enter key to skip the message. The enter key can also be used to skip the game intro, and to turn off and on the background music of the game. You can press p to pause the game, and then p again to unpause. Press s to hear your current score, press r to hear how many ships you have remainning to destroy on the current level, and press b to hear how many bombs you have left. More about bombs later.

There are 11 regular levels in the game, level 12 is a boss. The regular levels will become more and more difficult as you progress, for example, level 1 is really easy, and level 11 is a pain. On higher levels it takes more hits to destroy a ship, and the ships move faster. There are 5 kinds of ships, one of them, enemy ship 3, moves around on the screen. Thus, those ships are harder to target, but give more points when they're destroyed. To hear what ship is number 3, check out the learn game sounds menu.
One thing that you have to your help is a small supply of self targeting, very powerful bombs. If you throw one, it will destroy all the ships currently on the screen. They are very useful, so save them to the higher levels, you will really need them! You start off with 5 bombs, and you cannot get any more during the game, so save them! To throw a bomb, press the alt key.


* The boss

Level 12 is not a regular level, it is a boss fight. The enemy leader is tired of you destroying his armies, and has decided to end your flight once and for all. He moves fast around on the screen, so you have to chase him. To hear where he is, listen for the sound of his ships motor and his occational taunts that he yells down at you as he approaches. If he lands, you better write your will. Once you shoot him, he will tellaport to another part of the screen, so keep chasing and shooting him until he blows up. This can be rather tricky, so concentrate! If you kill him, you've beaten the game.


* Score posting

Thank's to Matt Campbell, this game supports online score posting in realtime. When you die or beat the game, you will be asked if you want to post your score to us. Press y, and then fill in the info about yourself that it asks for. Do not use any special characters when you fill in these fields, that might result in an error when the score is being posted. Note that you have to be connected to the internet for this to work, also, active x has to be enabled, else you will get a script error.


* Thank's to

Thank's to Kelly Sapergia (http://www.kjsproductions.com) for acting the roll as the boss, and for composing the wonderful music in this game. You're really great, keep up the work! Also a big thank's goes to Rebecca Loomis for recording the speaker voice in the game. You're awesome!
I also want to thank Matt Campbell for creating the excellent online score posting system for us; you've been a huge help!


* License

This game is distributed as free software, which means that you are allowed to distribute the game in any way you want, but only in it's original form. You're not allowed to modify the game in any way, including but not limited to the sounds, this documentation or the game itself. If you distribute the game, it has to be free, you're not allowed to charge anyone for it. You got it for free, thus everyone else should as well.


Enjoy!


Copyright Pb-games, 2004.