
	WarZone (w) 1996 by Eero Tamminen


INTRODUCTION

WarZone is a 2-8 player artillery game.  It's a bit similar to the
'Scorched Earth' game on DOS and the 'Scorched Tanks' game on Amiga (to
name a but few, more popular, games of this particular genre).  WarZone
uses monochrome graphics and runs under W window system using W toolkit
as it's interface engine.


OPTIONS

When starting WarZone you can specify how many players there will be.
The number of players can't be changed in-game. The default is two.


STARTING WarZone

First WarZone presents you with a dialog for entering the player names
and number of rounds to play.  First round (zone) begins when you click
the 'Play' button.  WarZone can be quit by clicking the 'Quit' button
when you'll get back to the startup dialog.


PLAYING WarZone

Each of the players have on the 'WarZone' window a circular habitat on
the mountaineous surface of the moon.  Players take turns in selecting
shields and shooting missiles at each other.  The starter is selected at
random.

From the open control dialog player can select the shield and missile to
use and in which angle and with how much power the missile is launched.
Clicking 'OK' button or closing the dialog will accept the dialog
selections.

At the top of the dialog is the current wind factor and at the bottom
are listed player's habitat shield status, energy level and score.  When
the shield's gone, missile hits begun to reduce habitat energy level.
Energy level correlates straight to how much power can be used for
launching the missiles.  When energy level goes to zero, habitat
explodes and it's air hisses into void (if sound was enable when game
was compiled :)).

Missiles can harm a habitat directly, by hitting it (shields prevent
that), by exploding near enough or by dropping the ground below the it.
Player gets points from 'wounding' other habitats plus a bonus from
destroying one.  Harming one's own habitat will lose points.

Round can be interrupted by closing the WarZone window.


SHIELD TYPES AND STRATEGY AGAINST THEM

None:
	Does nothing.

Raise:
	Raises the missiles that come near the habitat.
	Shoot below habitat middle (evertyhing's legal in war(zone))...

Absorb:
	Swallows the missile contacting the habitat.
	Shoot beside the habitat.

Bounce:
	Bounces off all the missiles contacting the habitat.
	Shoot beside the habitat.

Repulse:
	Pushes off all the missiles coming near the habitat.  The shield
	can be penetrated with a high velocity missile that is aimed at
	the dead center of the shield.  Alternatively you might try
	shooting Bigger/Nuker missiles beside the habitat.


MISSILE TYPES

Standard:
	Uses the default explosive.

Roller:
	Rolls downwards on the ground.

Bouncer:
	Bounces twice from ground if doesn't hit anything.

Digger:
	Penetrates the ground and explodes when comes back to the
	surface.

Laser:
	Moves in straight line except for the shield effects.  Doesn't
	explode on ground (that's non-inflammable :)).  Limited range.

Bigger:
	50% bigger than Standard.

Tripler:
	Divides into three Standard missiles at the top of it's flight.

Nuker:
	Twice as big, heavy and devastating as Standard.

Surprise:
	When hits ground, spurts up five Standards.

Note that none of the shields works for your own missiles. Ie. if wind
brings them back or opponent bounces them on top of you, shame on you!


TODO

Implementing most of the features in 'Scorched Earth':

- Dropping of habitats when ground below lowers.
- New missiles like dirtball, lava and so on...
- Bying of missiles/shields/gadgets and losing them from list after use.
- Auxciliary gadgets like parasuits, battery and teleportation.
- Carving mountains out of rock surface etc. images.
- Computer players.


NOTES

I haven't done much to this as I have considered rewriting it completely
in C++ someday. Maybe not even for W...



28th September, 1996

	- Eero			http://www.modeemi.cs.tut.fi/~puujalka/

