version 1.01
(c) 2004 Spyros Paraschis
www.paraschis.gr

Overview | Controls | Game Options
Inspiration | Technical Details/Credits | Configuration
History | Screenshots | Contact | Legal | Changes


Overview
Welcome! Equilib is a game that can be described as a space racer. The player controls a space vehicle and tries to guide it as far as possible and as fast as possible in a horizontally scrolling environment. Easier said than done, since guiding the ship requires mastering the control system.
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Controls
Probably the most interesting part of Equilib. Following the laws of gravity, the ship tends to fall down, unless the player uses the thrust key (SPACE or UP) to "push" it upwards. The LEFT and RIGHT cursor keys decrease and increase the horizontal speed.
During gameplay you can also press F11/F10 to show/hide the FPS counter and F3 to take a screenshot. F9/F8 enable/disable a graphics smoothing filter - check the configuration information in this file. ESC aborts the game.
Menu navigation is done with the UP and DOWN cursor keys. SPACE or RIGHT activate options and ESC exits. In the main menu, press H to view the high-scores and D to see a description of the various bonii you can collect.
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Game Options
By accessing the options menu, you can change some of the game's parameters. The first option toggles between fullscreen and windowed modes (consult the "Configuration" section in this file for more information on that). The level, ranging between "yawn", "easy", "medium" and "hard" (Default is "easy") determines the game speed, the frequency of bonus appearance and the bonus duration. The gravity, ranging between "light", "medium" and "strong" ("light" being the default) determines how fast your vehicle is pulled down by the gravity force. The last option you can specify is your ship type - you can select between a helicopter like vehicle (the default) and a spacecraft. The heli is bigger and rotates slightly when thrusting, thus being a bit harder to use.
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Inspiration
What inspired me to make Equilib was a rather marvellous freeware game called "Urthworm", which managed to pack an enormous amount of fun in only 18kb. This basic game idea has been done numerous time (check for example the "Fly the chopter" flash game), but Urthworm was the first time I've seen such a game and it grew in me.
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Technical Details and Credits
Equilib is written in C and Allegro using MingW. The smoothed screen modes are provided by the Super2XSai lib. It uses Mappy for the level design, PoV and Chris Colefax's Galaxy.inc file for the space backgrounds and D.U.M.B. for the module audio file support. the graphics are heavilly ripped from the SNES version of Turrican. The heli-like ship is shamelessly ripped from Blood Money, the spaceship from Andro Dunos and some platforms/backgrounds have been "borrowed" from Apidya and the arcade version of R-Type II. The title screen, as well as has some in-game graphics, have been created by me (at last!) with PoV and Biowin.

Yes, I can't draw :)

The game uses two XM music files and they were both collected from the Mod Archive (www.modarchive.com). They came without any additional files and thus the only info I have for them comes from the included samples info: tz_ctech.xm is made by TemuZ and stal-rem.xml by stalker/fyllecell303. As far as I know, both songs are placed in the public domain - please contact me if you hold their copyright and want them removed from the Equilid distro.

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Configuration and performance
Equilib comes with a configuration utility that allows you to change some game operation parameters:
 
Rendering mode: defines how graphics are going to be drawn on screen
  • NORMAL means that Equilib is drawn at its native 320x240 resolution.
  • DOUBLE means that every pixel is drawn as a 2x2 pixel square, effectively doubling the resolution in height and width. This is useful for either for making the game window bigger or for allowing fullscreen mode in video cards/drivers that can't display a 320x240x15/16bit.
  • The EAGLE and 2XSAI options are special modes that double the resolution and at the same time smooth the graphics for a more pleasant result. These two modes are the most processor hungry.
    • When in NORMAL or DOUBLE mode, you can press F9/F8 during gameplay to enable an awfully coded pixel smoothing/bluring mode. Check it out to see if you prefer it.
     
    Screen mode: self explanatory. Keep in mind that some video cards/drivers cannot display in fullscreen mode a 320x240x15/16 bit screen, therefore they cannot display the NORMAL rendering mode in fullscreen.
     
    Vsync: Depending on your hardware/software configuration, changing this option may make the game run more smoothly.
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    History
    Equilib started as an attempt to make a version of Urthworm with slightly fuzzy and psychedelic graphics and effects, similar to the current breed of "abstract" japanese shooters. The map consisted of tiny boxes and was randomly generated; various abstract effects were coded or scheduled for coding. The ship was controlled only by one button, just like Urthworm. Halfway through I changed my direction and opted for a more traditional game, with "proper" graphics and predefined maps. Then came the addition of speed controls and various bonii.
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    Screenshots

    The title screen
    Protected with the shield bonus
    Lots of explosions around
    Meeting a strange entity
    Early development screenshot
    Veeeery early development screenshot
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    Contact
    Please feel free to contact me for any comments and suggestions. Drop by my homepage at www.paraschis.gr
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    Legal
    Not much to say here. Equilib is a freeware game so feel free to copy it around and pass it to friends, enemies and anybody else. Please, keep the archive file intact, along with the accompanying documentation. Even though the game is freeware, the copyright remains mine of course...
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    Changes
    v1.0 (Sep 10, 2004): The first public version
    v1.01 (Sep 16, 2004): Corrected a mistake in the map, causing ships to crash on an empty cell. Shrinked the map file size
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