WOR --- Andy Robinson, 2000. Original 'Wizard of Wor' © 1980 Midway. Requirements ------------ Minimum Spec: 486 66Mhz PC with Windows 3.1. Recommended: Pentium Class PC with Windows 95. Runtime library: VBRUN300.DLL General ------- This version of Wor is not meant to be an exact replica of the Midway arcade classic. Although it closely resembles the Commodore 64 version, in graphics and gameplay, which happens to be my favourite. GamePlay (from original game flyer) -------- Players control a separate squadron of worriors and compete for score at the same time. Worriors descend into various dungeon mazes, battling visible and invisible monster Worlings, and maybe the Wizard himself. Teamwork in the two player mode is important - but not necessary to play. Worriors are easy to operate for movement in the dungeons with a four direction joystick and fire button for their unified-field-disturbance rifle. The object of Wizard of Wor is to descend into the many dungeons of Wor, killing monsters, beating the Wizard and earning a high score. Dungeon maze patterns appear at random and Escape Doors at either end. These are used for strategic exit by Worriors to outwit the monster Worlings. They are also a means of escape for Worluk. The Radar Screen reveals the general location of invisible monsters in the maze to alert the Worriors. More GamePlay (my notes) ------------- There are extra life bonuses at 5000, 10000 and 20000 points. You must avoid monster laser shots, rather than just shooting through them (as in the original), making gameplay more challenging. You can not walk through monsters, you will die if you try. It is advisable to get out of the way of any approaching monsters, or shoot them before they have you for dinner. Also, monsters are never spawned closer than 2 maze units away. As per the original, Garwors and Thorwors will randomly turn invisible, but can be tracked on the radar screen. On entering the same maze corridor as you, they will turn visible again. They make a distinctive noise when changing visibility, so you get some warning. Controls -------- (Esc) Quit (F1) Help - Version Info, quick help (F2) Start One Player Game (F3) start Two Player Game (F4) Minimize Window - click on title bar to restore window, then unpause. (F5) Reset Game (P) Pause/Unpause - pauses gameplay. If you click on another open window the game will auto pause. To unpause, click on the centre of the game screen (not the title bar) or use the 'P' key. (F7) Sound off/on - turns off sound effects and midi. (F8) Midi off/on - toggles background midi rhythm. (F9) Deathmatch - toggles player1/player2 friendly fire. You decide whether it is better teaming up or hunting each other down. By default you can shoot each other without doing any damage. (Cursors) Player1 Move (Ctrl) Player1 Fire (ADWS) Player2 Move - A=left, D=right, W=up, S=down (Space) Player2 Fire Gridmove -------- If you find control of the Worrior to be erratic, or if you frequently get stuck on maze corners or corridors, select Gridmove from the Control menu. This will enable the original arcade game movement, where you seem to move through the maze on invisible rails. This smoothes out Worrior movement while losing some control flexibity. Note: this option can not be selected while in the middle of a game. Joystick Use ------------ Wor uses the standard Microsoft PC joystick driver. Calls are made to the MMSystem API. Use the game Control menu to setup player controls, you may choose between keyboard, joystick 1 or joystick 2. WIN 3.1 You need to have installed the ibmjoy.drv joystick driver addon. Every other time I booted Win 3.1, the joystick cal values seem to have drifted. To fix this, rather than actually re-calibrate, just run the test function from the joystick control panel applet. WIN 95 In Win95 things are made easy when it comes to setting up joysticks. - For a 1 player game using an ordinary gamepad, open Control Panel, Game Controllers, and add one 2-button gamepad. - For a 2 player game using 2 ordinary gamepads and a Y-cable splitter, open Control Panel, Game Controllers, and add two, 2-button gamepads (even if they have more buttons). - Make sure that you calibrate the gamepads before use. Sound Setup *Important* ----------- Sound mixing is done with the library WAVMIX16.DLL which uses a config file WAVEMIX.INI. You can leave these files in the game directory, or copy them to your Windows/System directory. If you have an existing WAVEMIX.INI file inside your Windows directory, you may need to remove this file first. If the sound is choppy when playing the game, WAVEMIX.INI may be missing or the settings need to be adjusted for your soundcard. Use a text editor like Notepad to open and change the default values. You can increase the WaveBlockLen value from 2048 (min = 512, max = 4096). You may change the SamplesPerSec value from 11 to 22 KHz for a sharper sound, although this can sound a little too harsh, you may then need to adjust the WaveBlockLen accordingly. Generally, the faster your CPU the smoother the sound mixing, in theory at least :) If you see the message 'Unable to Initialize WAVMIX16.DLL' then you most probably have another Windows application open which is using conflicting multi-media resources, sound will be disabled. Close all other programs before starting Wor. Midi playback is used for the background tempo rhythm. This could have been done more accurately with wave sounds, except midi has the least impact on CPU usage. The actual sound generated may differ between various sound cards and operating systems. I designed the sound using the Windows 95 midi mapper for Creative Labs SB16. The same card sounds quite different on Windows 3.1. If you find the sound from your card & OS is too annoying, then simply disable it (F8). If you like, you can replace the WOR.MID file with your own, bear in mind that it will be looped every 20 seconds or so. Video ----- Wor was designed to run on a Windows PC with the minimum video setting of VGA, i.e. 640 x 480, 16 colours. Even if you have a higher colour setting, Wor still looks best with the resolution of 640 x 480. Currently, the game Window is self centering, and can not be moved, this is done for a good reason. Wor has been designed with the Windows screen scale properties set to 96 dpi (small fonts), and so will not display correctly with Large Fonts set. If you try to run the program with any other screen scale you will see a warning message and the program will terminate. Contact ------- I am interested in constructive feedback. Email: andyr_nz@yahoo.com Version History --------------- 1.02 Win9x (32-bit) enhanced release. Improved multi tasking. i.e. less CPU use when idle (e.g. game paused). Included library file: Call32.dll 1.01 Fixed an intermittent bug. Occasionally you would get a warning message: 'Unable to Initialize WORLIB.DLL', the sound would then be disabled. This should only happen if Windows is extremely overloaded, but my code was giving a false alarm. Adjusted bonus score values, extra life now at 5000, 10000, 20000 points. 1.0 Initial release.