Thanks, glad you like it. It's only a few planets, a space ship and a planet surface so there's only so much you can do. Pretty simple. Took me one working day (if I did a 9 to 5)
So you've loaded up the tape... now what? Here's some information for those who are trying to make sense of the game.
You begin the game on a space station in the star system of Eridanus. Move the cursor left and right to select a planet to visit, or you can select the magenta X in the top-left corner to exit the star system and find another star with more planets. Press fire to select. Later on in the game you may wish to revisit the space station to get your ship repaired.
Once you have selected a planet, you will find yourself in a lander craft. Move around the planet and select a place to land. You may thrust left, right or up, gravity will automatically move your ship down. Try to avoid hitting the surface of the planet too hard or this may damage your craft. When you have landed and the craft is perfectly still, you may exit the ship by holding the fire button down. At this point you will be able to wander around the screen and pick up and flora and fauna and perhaps some other artefacts before returning it to the ship to research. Press fire to re-enter the ship. If you get stuck and are unable to return to the ship, press the teleport button. This takes some of your ship's energy, so should not be undertaken lightly.
Three separate specimens of each organism must be researched in order to fully understand it, and thus write an article for the encyclopaedia for which you are then paid. Some animals - and even the odd plant - may be hostile. These need to be sedated with a tranquiliser dart before they can be collected. While on foot, you may press fire to launch a dart. Be careful, as you only have a limited supply. Extra darts can be obtained from the shop.
The first specimen of each species collected initiates the DNA decoding sequence. This is a minigame where you must attempt to re-arrange the letters which make up part of the organism's DNA sequence to match the sequence at the top of the screen. Select the highlighted tiles you wish to swap using left and right, then press fire to exchange them. Match the sequence before the time expires for a $50 bonus.
Travelling between planets can be a risky business. There are asteroid belts to circumnavigate, and you may encounter other characters on your travels. Occasionally, your former colleague Dr Wolff may send you a helpful message, but other than that you are on your own.
At any point while you are in your craft, you may press down to bring up the shop screen. This is your character's personal shopping list, and includes items which may be of use in your mission. These are fuel, Zaphod's Old Dirigible (Theo's favourite tipple), cages, stasis traps, a plankton filter, a chemical scanner, an hydrogen engine and tranquiliser darts.
Fuel is needed to power your ship.
Cages enable you to store more specimens on board simultaneously. When you first begin the game, you start with two cages so you can only research two specimens at any one time. Extra cages increase this capacity and enable you to conduct research faster.
A stasis trap can be left on a planet's surface to collect awkward creatures. You may deploy a stasis trap by pressing down while on foot. You may then fly off to a different planet should you desire, to carry on collecting specimens elsewhere. When the trap is deployed a message appears in the window in the bottom-right corner of the screen. The organism is kept in stasis until you arrive to collect it.
The plankton filter enables you to filter tiny lifeforms out of any seawater you travel through. These tiny, simple lifeforms do not require cages and are relatively quick to research.
A chemical scanner scans for lifeforms on the selected planet, looking for organic compounds. A positive result gives a good indication that lifeforms may be present, although it may occasionally return a false positive. Likewise, a negative result does not necessarily mean that there isn't some form of life somewhere on that planet.
A hydrogen engine gives your thruster rockets more power. You may upgrade your engines twice.
Tranquiliser darts come in packs of 6, and are used to sedate deadly lifeforms.
I'm at a loss though at what you're supposed to do when you've got 2 specimens. You can't pick up anymore and all I'm doing is waiting around for 5 to 10 minutes until the reasearch percentage reaches 100. Am I missing something?
I'm at a loss though at what you're supposed to do when you've got 2 specimens. You can't pick up anymore and all I'm doing is waiting around for 5 to 10 minutes until the reasearch percentage reaches 100. Am I missing something?
Cages enable you to store more specimens on board simultaneously. When you first begin the game, you start with two cages so you can only research two specimens at any one time. Extra cages increase this capacity and enable you to conduct research faster.
I bought the digital download and unfortunately I'm unable to use it on my MCC-216 (FPGA). For some reason the game only wants to load in 128k mode and the MCC-216 core is a 48k ZX.
As a test I tried a few emulators and the game will only load as 128k mode can't seem to force it to load in 48k mode. :(
I bought the digital download and unfortunately I'm unable to use it on my MCC-216 (FPGA). For some reason the game only wants to load in 128k mode and the MCC-216 core is a 48k ZX.
As a test I tried a few emulators and the game will only load as 128k mode can't seem to force it to load in 48k mode. :(
I had a similar issue with the snapshot so I asked if I could have a TZX copy - which Chris happily supplied!
Comments
http://www.retrosoftware.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=785
Egghead Website
Arcade Game Designer
My itch.io page
Then, 3 hours later, this is how I'd tidied it up a bit!:
Hope you like it!
Ex-Ocean Software graphic artist -
Download my FREE PDF 'LOAD DIJ DIJ' (180,000+ words): https://ko-fi.com/i/IG2G3BEJZP
ZX Art page: https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/m/mark-r-jones/
https://twitter.com/MarkRJones1970
https://www.facebook.com/OceanSoftwareLtd/
https://www.facebook.com/ultimateptg/
Love it!!
Ex-Ocean Software graphic artist -
Download my FREE PDF 'LOAD DIJ DIJ' (180,000+ words): https://ko-fi.com/i/IG2G3BEJZP
ZX Art page: https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/m/mark-r-jones/
https://twitter.com/MarkRJones1970
https://www.facebook.com/OceanSoftwareLtd/
https://www.facebook.com/ultimateptg/
Please, can you update it?
Ex-Ocean Software graphic artist -
Download my FREE PDF 'LOAD DIJ DIJ' (180,000+ words): https://ko-fi.com/i/IG2G3BEJZP
ZX Art page: https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/m/mark-r-jones/
https://twitter.com/MarkRJones1970
https://www.facebook.com/OceanSoftwareLtd/
https://www.facebook.com/ultimateptg/
Ex-Ocean Software graphic artist -
Download my FREE PDF 'LOAD DIJ DIJ' (180,000+ words): https://ko-fi.com/i/IG2G3BEJZP
ZX Art page: https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/m/mark-r-jones/
https://twitter.com/MarkRJones1970
https://www.facebook.com/OceanSoftwareLtd/
https://www.facebook.com/ultimateptg/
Especially bearing in mind that a game like EG is a very tough gig to summarise in one screen.
Ex-Ocean Software graphic artist -
Download my FREE PDF 'LOAD DIJ DIJ' (180,000+ words): https://ko-fi.com/i/IG2G3BEJZP
ZX Art page: https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/m/mark-r-jones/
https://twitter.com/MarkRJones1970
https://www.facebook.com/OceanSoftwareLtd/
https://www.facebook.com/ultimateptg/
You begin the game on a space station in the star system of Eridanus. Move the cursor left and right to select a planet to visit, or you can select the magenta X in the top-left corner to exit the star system and find another star with more planets. Press fire to select. Later on in the game you may wish to revisit the space station to get your ship repaired.
Once you have selected a planet, you will find yourself in a lander craft. Move around the planet and select a place to land. You may thrust left, right or up, gravity will automatically move your ship down. Try to avoid hitting the surface of the planet too hard or this may damage your craft. When you have landed and the craft is perfectly still, you may exit the ship by holding the fire button down. At this point you will be able to wander around the screen and pick up and flora and fauna and perhaps some other artefacts before returning it to the ship to research. Press fire to re-enter the ship. If you get stuck and are unable to return to the ship, press the teleport button. This takes some of your ship's energy, so should not be undertaken lightly.
Three separate specimens of each organism must be researched in order to fully understand it, and thus write an article for the encyclopaedia for which you are then paid. Some animals - and even the odd plant - may be hostile. These need to be sedated with a tranquiliser dart before they can be collected. While on foot, you may press fire to launch a dart. Be careful, as you only have a limited supply. Extra darts can be obtained from the shop.
The first specimen of each species collected initiates the DNA decoding sequence. This is a minigame where you must attempt to re-arrange the letters which make up part of the organism's DNA sequence to match the sequence at the top of the screen. Select the highlighted tiles you wish to swap using left and right, then press fire to exchange them. Match the sequence before the time expires for a $50 bonus.
Travelling between planets can be a risky business. There are asteroid belts to circumnavigate, and you may encounter other characters on your travels. Occasionally, your former colleague Dr Wolff may send you a helpful message, but other than that you are on your own.
At any point while you are in your craft, you may press down to bring up the shop screen. This is your character's personal shopping list, and includes items which may be of use in your mission. These are fuel, Zaphod's Old Dirigible (Theo's favourite tipple), cages, stasis traps, a plankton filter, a chemical scanner, an hydrogen engine and tranquiliser darts.
Fuel is needed to power your ship.
Cages enable you to store more specimens on board simultaneously. When you first begin the game, you start with two cages so you can only research two specimens at any one time. Extra cages increase this capacity and enable you to conduct research faster.
A stasis trap can be left on a planet's surface to collect awkward creatures. You may deploy a stasis trap by pressing down while on foot. You may then fly off to a different planet should you desire, to carry on collecting specimens elsewhere. When the trap is deployed a message appears in the window in the bottom-right corner of the screen. The organism is kept in stasis until you arrive to collect it.
The plankton filter enables you to filter tiny lifeforms out of any seawater you travel through. These tiny, simple lifeforms do not require cages and are relatively quick to research.
A chemical scanner scans for lifeforms on the selected planet, looking for organic compounds. A positive result gives a good indication that lifeforms may be present, although it may occasionally return a false positive. Likewise, a negative result does not necessarily mean that there isn't some form of life somewhere on that planet.
A hydrogen engine gives your thruster rockets more power. You may upgrade your engines twice.
Tranquiliser darts come in packs of 6, and are used to sedate deadly lifeforms.
Egghead Website
Arcade Game Designer
My itch.io page
/me clueless as usual. The norm.
I'm at a loss though at what you're supposed to do when you've got 2 specimens. You can't pick up anymore and all I'm doing is waiting around for 5 to 10 minutes until the reasearch percentage reaches 100. Am I missing something?
Ex-Ocean Software graphic artist -
Download my FREE PDF 'LOAD DIJ DIJ' (180,000+ words): https://ko-fi.com/i/IG2G3BEJZP
ZX Art page: https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/m/mark-r-jones/
https://twitter.com/MarkRJones1970
https://www.facebook.com/OceanSoftwareLtd/
https://www.facebook.com/ultimateptg/
Ah.
:(
Wasn't there. Couldn't go anyway, but I only heard about it on the day anyway...
Not played the game but...
Some of these are signed by Mark Jones.
http://www.retrofusion.me.uk/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=vmj_naru.tpl&product_id=23&category_id=6&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=25
Ex-Ocean Software graphic artist -
Download my FREE PDF 'LOAD DIJ DIJ' (180,000+ words): https://ko-fi.com/i/IG2G3BEJZP
ZX Art page: https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/m/mark-r-jones/
https://twitter.com/MarkRJones1970
https://www.facebook.com/OceanSoftwareLtd/
https://www.facebook.com/ultimateptg/
Ta
What are methods of payment?
Exactly the same
Ex-Ocean Software graphic artist -
Download my FREE PDF 'LOAD DIJ DIJ' (180,000+ words): https://ko-fi.com/i/IG2G3BEJZP
ZX Art page: https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/m/mark-r-jones/
https://twitter.com/MarkRJones1970
https://www.facebook.com/OceanSoftwareLtd/
https://www.facebook.com/ultimateptg/
I bought it with paypal last night... ;)
Paypal is the only option for payment at this time.
As a test I tried a few emulators and the game will only load as 128k mode can't seem to force it to load in 48k mode.
:(
I had a similar issue with the snapshot so I asked if I could have a TZX copy - which Chris happily supplied!