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PROJECT FIRESTART v1.0
by Erik Hogan
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BACKGROUND
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The year is 2066. The SSF Prometheus, a deep space research vessel currently in Mars orbit, is developing strong, durable creatures to support asteroid mining operations. But something has gone wrong. Prometheus command is no longer responding. SI Agent Jon Hawking has been assigned to investigate and eliminate the threat.

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INTRODUCTION
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The original Project Firestart is a popular sci-fi survival horror game for C64, developed by Dynamix and published by EA games. Today the game is rated as the 11th best C64 game of all time on Lemon64.com.

Although I was a great fan of the C64 during my childhood, this was one game I had never played - or even heard of, until a couple of years back when I read a review for it on Home of the Underdogs. I was soon playing it on an emulator, and absolutely loved it and thought it held up excellently when compared with todays games.

It was about two weeks into June when I read that remakes.org was starting another Remakes competition. Immediately interested in entering, I started deciding on a project to do while discussing this with my friend Mark, who is an extremely gifted 3D modeller. After considering several options, the one that was most appealing to me was having a shot at Project Firestart. I got really excited, and knew that in two and a half months of easy programming my game would be 100% complete, bugless, beautiful looking and give justice to the original game.

Hah. Yeah. Right. If I could turn back the clock to July i'd tell yell at myself to make a simpler game. Which I will do if they ever have a competition again...

Project Firestart is easily my most complicated game project ever, and has eaten up an incredible amount of my spare time. And i've had my fair share of disasters along the way too, with real-life getting in the way for both myself and Mark, and ultimately the end result doesn't match our original creative vision. However I am proud of my creation, and of the fact that I have finally, after years of amateur game development, finished a game.

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PLAYING THE GAME
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Move and strafe with the W-A-S-D keys

Look by moving the mouse

Shoot with the left mouse buton

Reload, Pick up or interact with items with the right mouse click

To go up or down in the elevator, use the scroll wheel to select the appriopiate floor or alternatively, press 1-4

An alternative mouse-movement mode has also been implemented (called mouse-switching) so the entire game can be played with only the mouse. When mouse-move is activated (do this in Gameplay options) Double-click the right mouse button to enter/exit the mouse movement mode, which is controlled like this:

CURSOR IN TOP LEFT: Walk forward / Turn Left
CURSOR IN TOP CENTRE: Walk forward
CURSOR IN TOP RIGHT: Walk forward / Turn Right
CURSOR IN CENTRE LEFT: Turn left
CURSOR IN CENTRE: Stop
CURSOR IN CENTRE RIGHT: Turn right
CURSOR IN BOTTOM LEFT: Strafe Left
CURSOR IN BOTTOM LEFT: Walk backwards
CURSOR IN BOTTOM Right: Strafe Right

When in mouse switching mode, you will still need to use both mouse look and mouse move modes to complete the game. Using this alternative mouse-movement mode is more difficult then using the keyboard, so if you use this mode then I recommend playing on easy or easiest.

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SOUND/GRAPHICS OPTIONS
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Here you can set the Sound FX volume, the Music volume, the game resolution (640x480x16 or higher resolutions are supported), full screen mode or light mapping (if lightmapping is turned off, the game might run faster, but the ship will be less detailed). Note that if you make any change to the graphics, you have to exit out and reload the game for the changes to take effect. Changing sound options takes effect immediately.

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GAMEPLAY OPTIONS
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You can select the difficulty settings in here. There are five difficulty settings, from Easiest to Nightmare. The difficulty settings vary in both the tasks required to complete the game, and the number and deadliness of the Firestart creatures. Note that there are some difficult puzzles on medium difficulty and above.

You can also choose whether or not to use mouse-switching mode or to use autolock mode. In autolock mode, the player automatically targets the nearest mutant if you're looking in its general direction.

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TIPS
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The game has an adjustible difficulty level, feel free to experiment until you find the one that is the most fun.

Pay attention to the mission objectives in the opening cutscene, otherwise you might miss an important step and lose the game.

Don't try to hunt the mutants, they hunt you.

Carefully read the computer console logs and science log dvd, there is some really useful information in there. Also the computer map is very handy.

Always be careful when exiting elevators, thats the time you're most likely to be ambushed.

This is a survival horror game. Explore and learn as much about the layout of the ship as possible. Find and memorize every route, every health pack, every gun, every ammo clip, every elevator, every switch. It is particularly important to find where the Power switch is.

It is vital that you keep in touch with home base, otherwise something nasty might happen..

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KNOWN ISSUES
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There is a bug where sometimes the entire screen turns black and the sounds are distorted, so the game becomes unplayable. Unfortunately I cannot trace the cause of this issue, but I feel it has something to do with alt-tabbing or having multiple windows open or the like. There are a few other minor issues, but I didn't have the time to hunt them all down. However if you spot any serious bugs, let me know and I might fix it in Firestart 1.1

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COMPARISONS WITH ORIGINAL
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While the original was an isometric game, and this is a first person shooter, I strived to replicate the most memorable elements of Firestart, which are its cinematic scenes, intense action and exploring and puzzle solving gameplay. 

- The level structure is largely the same as the original version, as the levels were directly based on the original game. (It is truely remarkable how well the original game, which was done entirely in 2D, converts into a 3D format).

- While none of the cutscenes are exactly the same as the original, many of them are based on it.

- Objects are largely placed in the same places as the original, with a few minor changes.

- The guns have been changed from having a battery to a more traditional magazine system. There is also a pistol in this game which wasn't in the original.

- The quests in the game, from saving Mary to fighting the boss mutant, are much the same as in the original game. However there have been one or two small twists..

- The look of the mutants is different. In the original, they're hulking beasts with massive arms, and in this one, they're humanoid like except with massive teeth and no eyes. We had intended to make a new 3D model that looked more like the original but we never had the time, so I took the skin of an alien from Dark Matter 1 and pasted it onto the zombie from Dark Matter 1. To be honest I actually really like my version of the mutant, the large teeth and lack of eyes give it a very HR Giger type look.

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CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE
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Developed in Mark Siblys awesome Blitz Basic 3D.

Programming and level development done by Erik Hogan. I also have a cameo role in the game as SI Chief Weaver..

Original 3D models, including but not limited to the Prometheus exterior, the guns, the ammo clips, the health pack and syringes, the elevator, the computer consoles and the radio, are by Mark Harper. Mark has also given me incredibly helpful advice and support while we made it.

The music is by a co-worker, Bill Norris, adapted from one of his mixes called 'Cygnis Anomaly'. Cygnis Anomaly musically tells the tale of a space ship 
being sucked into a worm hole. I felt the impending doom that the song portrays was well suited for my game.

The levels were designed in cartography shop

All of the characters are from the Dark Matter 1 model pack, slightly modified by myself and Mark.

All of the space ships (excluding the Prometheus) are from the Dark Matter 2 model pack.

Textures and Sounds taken from various places, most notably the Golgotha texture pack and 

Special thanks to Tim Kibblewhite, Philip Hogan and Greg Thomas for having a play of it and giving me their two cents.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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Erik Hogan (thats me) is a 22 year old IT Engineer that works at the Music and Audio Institute of New Zealand. Since my teenage years I have been working on freeware games in my spare time, starting on 'Klik and Play' and slowly progressing up to Blitz Basic 3D, with every single one of my projects being abandoned half way through. Until now that is..

email: Earok@hotmail.com