
MILLENIPEDE
-=-=-=-=-=-
v1.1.1 - "Countermeasures" - 11/03/08

(c) 2007 - 2008 Firestorm Productions
http://www.firestormproductions.co.uk/millenipede/

Based on "Centipede", famous on many 8-bit machines

Found a bug? Report as much detail as you can to:
prospero@firestormproductions.co.uk

Thanks for downloading!



 CONTENTS
================================================================================
 1.  Introduction
 2.  Enemies
 3.  Controls
 4.  Frequently Asked Questions
 5.  Credits & Links
 6.  Version History
 7.  Legal Stuff / Media


 1 - INTRODUCTION
================================================================================
  Welcome to Millenipede! The original version of this game was developed in
less than seven days for the 94th Wednesday Workshop held by Socoder:

  * http://socoder.co.nz/

  Since then, it has been developed further with new features, tweaks and
bugfixes. As you might guess from the title, Millenipede is a PC version of the
classic 8-bit shooter Centipede. Nothing groundbreaking, but curiously good
fun...

  Your aim is to zap all of the millenipedes on each wave while dodging spiders,
snails, mushrooms and of course the millenipedes themselves. They'll make their
way down the screen until eventually they hit the bottom - at that point they
will roam around the player area until you shoot them.

  Each dead millenipede will, for some environmentally friendly reason, grow
into a mushroom. These serve no purpose aside from blocking the movement of
other millenipedes and hindering your bullets.

  If you touch any enemy, be it a millenipede, spider or snail, you lose a life.


 2 - ENEMIES
================================================================================
MUSHROOMS
  Fungus with attitude. Although they are actually harmless and immobile,
they block the progress of millenipedes and encourage them to get up close and
personal with you just that little bit quicker. Mushrooms can withstand four
hits of your laser and are worth 1 point each.

MILLENIPEDES
  Just your average scuttling wee beastie. They're only dangerous if you let
them get too close. They will normally move horizontally across each row of the
playfield, but if blocked by mushrooms they will descend a row and turn around.
Be warned, though, that millenipedes are strong enough to slowly chomp their way
through mushrooms that keep them trapped, and if any millenipede manages to
reach either of the bottom corners of the play area, more will start to appear
from the side of the screen. Worth 10 points each. Turns into a mushroom when
zapped.

SNAILS
  No-one knows exactly how these snails move so fast. Perhaps they're some form
of evil ninja assassin snail? In any case, as they whizz across the playfield
they'll leave a trial of fresh mushrooms in their wake. Not a direct threat but
with more mushrooms around, the millenipedes will reach you faster. Downward
snails give you 50 points, while the sneaky horizontal ones are worth 100.

SPIDERS
  There's nothing a spider likes more than to bounce around randomly and cause
a little bit of chaos in the player's area of the screen. Their favourite tactic
is to attack unsuspecting players who spend too long clearing mushrooms near the
sides of the playfield. Depending on how close you are to the spider when
you shoot it, you'll receive either 25, 50 or 75 points.

FLYING SAUCERS
  Detailed analysis of photographs taken of these saucers seems to indicate that
they are flown by highly evolved super-snails, though it is unlikely anyone will
ever know for sure. Unfortunately they're rather toxic. If you see one flying
over the playfield then you'd best aim straight for it, otherwise the poison
mushrooms it creates will cause all sorts of unpleasantness. Destroying a saucer
will bag you a whopping 250 points. Saucers are known to appear only after
reaching the 5th wave.

POISONOUS MUSHROOMS
  Noticeable by their strobing rainbow glow, these are mushrooms which have been
diseased by the emissions of a flying saucer's engines. Extremely dangerous! Any
millenipede which touches a poison mushroom will immediately start diving right
to the bottom of the screen. Splatting a poisoned shroom gives 15 points.


 3 - CONTROLS
================================================================================
KEYBOARD
  * Cursor keys - Move your ship
  * Left CTRL   - Fire bullet

MOUSE
  * Movement    - Move your ship
  * L/R button  - Fire bullet

JOYPAD
  * D-pad       - Move your ship
  * Any button  - Fire bullet

  In all control modes, the space bar toggles constant fire mode - if activated,
your ship will fire bullets automatically so you don't have to keep your finger
glued to the fire button.

  To pause the game, hit Escape or P. Pressing Escape while in pause mode will
quit to the main menu. Any other key will resume gameplay.

  Oh, and you can reconfigure the ship's keyboard controls via the Options menu.

OTHER KEYS
  * F4 toggles between fullscreen and windowed mode.
  * F5 adjusts the scale factor when in windowed mode.
  * F12 will take a screenshot (appears in the same folder as millenipede.exe).


 4 - FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
================================================================================
  Q. Can I listen to my own music while playing?
  A. Certainly. If you have any mod music (IT, S3M, XM or MOD) that you want to
  listen to while blasting centipedes, just place it into the "music\ingame\"
  folder and Millenipede will shuffle them into its playlist for you.


 5 - CREDITS & LINKS
================================================================================
Lead Coder
  Chris Allcock

Additional Coding
  The Blitzbasic.com Community (FMod music library wrapper)
  "Cire" of the FMod forums (music length estimation algorithm prior to v1.1.1+)
  "Perturbatio" of the Blitzbasic.com forums (parts of the key config)

Mac Porting & Testing
  Joshua Ziegler

Graphics
  Chris Allcock

Sound
  Chris Allcock
  Nicholas Kinglsey (FMOD wrapper code)
  "sfxr", the retro sound effect generator
  The Freesound Project
  Firelight Technologies (FMOD Sound System)

Music
  Petri Hoikkala ("smirk")
  Pierre Martin ("cyborgjeff")
  Olivier Degand ("Okeanos")
  "Chavez"
  "Travolta"
  "funkti0n"

Links
  http://www.blitzbasic.com
   Official homepage for all of the Blitz Basic languages

  http://www.cyd.liu.se/~tompe573/hp/project_sfxr.html
   sfxr - a superb free retro sound effect generator

  http://www.modarchive.com/
   The Mod Archive - thousands of freely downloadable mod music files

  http://www.cyborgjeff.com/
   Excellent electronic music!

  http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/
   The Freesound Project - exact files used:
    33685__cognito_perceptu__fm_flip.wav
    33684__cognito_perceptu__fm_flip_2.wav
    33683__cognito_perceptu__am_flip_2.wav


 6 - VERSION HISTORY
================================================================================
v1.1.1 - 11th March 2008 - "Countermeasures"
 * ADD: Mod music support for MacOS. No more bulky OGG files, yay!
 * ADD: After gaining a highscore, your position in the table is highlighted
 * ADD: Some new sound effects
 * TWEAK: Mushrooms now decay after being bashed too many times by millenipedes
 * TWEAK: Mouse control is now the default on all fresh installs of the game
 * TWEAK: Changed pause mode key to "P"
 * BUG: The flying saucer sound effect should now play reliably

v1.1.0 - 8th July 2007 - "Storm in a Teacup"
 * ADD: Poison mushrooms - they can really ruin your day...
 * ADD: Flying saucers - beware the poisonous fumes from their engines!
 * ADD: 640x480 fullscreen resolution
 * ADD: Configurable keyboard controls
 * ADD: In-game oldschool starfield backdrop
 * ADD: More particles! Better explosions! Yay!
 * ADD: Extra lives - one every 2,500 points
 * ADD: Pause mode
 * ADD: If a centipede reaches the bottom of the screen, more begin to spawn
 * TWEAK: Slightly better joypad detection
 * TWEAK: Menu system improved and clarified
 * TWEAK: Expanded highscore table (top 15 instead of top 10)
 * TWEAK: Game now starts in windowed mode rather than fullscreen
 * TWEAK: Lots of random nips and tucks to make things generally nicer
 * BUG: Prevent menu navigation weirdness on the highscore screen
 * BUG: Scores of 10,000 or more are now drawn correctly on the highscore table
 * BUG: Downward snails on the far left column will now drop mushrooms properly

v1.0.2 - 3rd June 2007 - "Apple Orchard"
 * MAC: Millenipede is now playable on Macs! Hurrah! Unfortunately the download
        is slightly bigger due to OGG music instead of MODs, but hopefully this
        isn't too much of an inconvenience...
 * BUG: Game will no longer crash if only one piece of ingame music is available


v1.0.1 - 6th April 2007 - "Calm Before the Storm"
 * BUG: Two pieces of ingame music could sometimes be playing at once
 * BUG: Bullet can no longer be fired at same moment as player losing a life
 * BUG: Screenshots in scaled window mode will now be dumped fully


v1.0.0 - 29th April 2007 - "Mushroom Madness"
 * ADD: Joypad support
 * ADD: Menu can be controlled via joypad
 * ADD: Graphics can be toggled between fullscreen and windowed (F4 to toggle)
 * ADD: Windowed mode graphics can be scaled up to 4x (F5 to adjust)
 * ADD: Constant fire mode (Spacebar during game to toggle)
 * ADD: Music playback now uses the FMod library for crossplatformivity
 * ADD: Lots more ingame music
 * ADD: Use your own .MOD, .XM, .S3M or .IT music if you wish
 * TWEAK: Mushroom colouring is based on the critter that created it
 * TWEAK: The way mouse control works was changed for greater responsiveness
 * TWEAK: Both mouse buttons act as fire button now
 * TWEAK: Miscellaneous other small stuff
 * BUG: Particles no longer "carry over" into places they shouldn't
 * BUG: Shooting spiders at point blank range when dead gave incorrect points


v0.8.0 - 10th April 2007 - "The Snail and the Spider"
 * ADD: Screenshot functionality (F12 anywhere in the game)
 * ADD: Snails
 * ADD: Spiders
 * ADD: Awesomely retro sound effects (hurrah for emulators!)
 * ADD: Funky chip music
 * ADD: Proper main menu with options
 * ADD: Highscores
 * TWEAK: Centipede speeds altered
 * TWEAK: Collision detection between player and centipedes refined
 * BUG: Player will now respawn after losing life in 2nd game


v0.1.0 (alpha) - 6th April 2007 - "Fwee"
 * Initial release
 * Basic gameplay
 * Keyboard and mouse control


 7 - LEGAL STUFF / MEDIA
================================================================================
  Millenipede is freeware, released under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. For more information,
visit these pages:

 * http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
 * http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/legalcode  

  Use of this software is at your own risk. Firestorm Productions provides no
warranty of satisfactory performance, nor will we be held responsible for any
damages caused - directly or indirectly - by use of the software.

  MEDIA: If you are interested in distributing Millenipede on a magazine
coverdisk or are otherwise featuring the game, please let us know beforehand by
contacting Chris Allcock (prospero@firestormproductions.co.uk). Thanks!

  WARNING: Contains mushrooms - and, as the British Board of Film Classification
might say, "very mild comic violence" :)



  Thanks for reading and have fun playing Millenipede!
