RETROBATTLE
Remar Games 2012


Table of contents
 1. Story
 2. Controls
 3. Gameplay
 4. Scoring and highscore
 5. Bonus stage
 6. Skill level
 7. Enemies
 8. Bonus pick-ups


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1. STORY
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In the far distant future, space trade between interplanetary
civilizations has grown common, and the cargo ships keep getting
larger to carry the increasing supplies of trading goods. The largest
cargo ship ever built, named Retro Perihelion, was a heavily armored
and secure ship that was going to carry the largest amount of money
and valuables in history to a planetary safehouse. However, when a
band of thieves and pirates heard about this ship, they amassed an
army of rouges to shoot it down and raid it of its cargo. After a long
battle, the Retro Perihelion was heavily damaged and crashed on the
surface of an unexplored planet. This planet turned out to be the home
of many vicious alien races, and the band of pirates soon fell victim
to them when trying to raid the ship.

The federation owning the Retro Perihelion and its cargo sent out a
courageous galactic police, known as Captain Good, to infiltrate the
spaceship and reclaim as many of its valuables as possible.


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2. CONTROLS
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 MAIN SCREEN
Enter: Start the game
Left/right: Select starting stage
Down: Select starting Skill level
Spacebar: Change the key bindings
Escape: Quit the game

 IN-GAME
Left/right: Move left/right
Z: Jump (keep pressed to jump higher)
X: Shoot
P: Pause/unpause
Escape: Go back to the main screen


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3. GAMEPLAY
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The main goal of this arcade-like game is to collect all 8 coins in
each stage to progress to the next, while collecting treasures and
getting a high score. The game keeps going until Captain Good is
defeated, at which point he's warped back to the federation control to
try again, and depending on how much score you have gotten, you may
set a new highscore. Apart from the 8 coins, there are also other
bonuses and treasures that randomly appear on the playing field, as
well as hordes of dangerous enemies that must be avoided or defeated.

At the start of each stage, and each time Captain Good loses a life
and re-appears, he is invincible until the first time he moves or
shoots. During this time, he is blinking, the time will not count
down, the Drones will not dig through any blocks, the Bounty Hunters
will not appear, and no pick-up bonuses will appear. You can take this
moment to relax and survey the stage, and make sure that no enemies
are close by when you start moving.

Captain Good, as well as the enemies, can warp around the screen by
leaving the playing field on the left and right sides.

Captain Good begins each stage with 8 shots for his standard gun,
displayed by the white circles in the upper left corner of the screen.
Whenever the gun has less than 8, it will automatically begin
recharging the ammunition, indicated by the green progress bar above
the ammunition counter. It takes 8 seconds to recharge a shot, so be
careful not to use them all up at once. You can also see a little
number above Captain Good's head that tells you how much ammo you have
- this number appears whenever your ammunition supply increases or
decreases, so you don't have to take your eyes off the action to check
your ammo.

The walls of the spaceship, which are built of blocks in a grid-like
fashion, can be destroyed with the blaster. They re-appear after a
while, as long as there is nothing obstructing them. There are also
some blocks you cannot destroy; these are solid in the middle, rather
than hollow. The blue, reinforced walls at the edges of the playing
field are also indestructible.

You have a limited time of 200 seconds to clear each stage. If the
time runs out, you lose a life, and the time goes back to 100 seconds.
You must also face many enemies - the most common is the blue Fuzz,
which is defeated by stunning it with a blaster shot and pushing it
off an edge from a high distance. There are also deadly spikes on the
spaceship's lowest floor, which were activated as a safety measure
when the pirates once invaded the abondoned ship. The spikes are
lethal both to Captain Good and the Fuzz, if they are pushed so that
they fall down on the spikes. All other enemies avoid the spikes
completely.

When you have collected all 8 coins on the playing field, or if
Captain Good loses all his lives, the score screen is displayed. If
the game is over, you are returned to the main screen where your last
score is displayed, along with the highscore.


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4. SCORING AND HIGHSCORE
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Getting a high score is the main aim of the game. You also get an
extra life for every 30'000 points you get - you can get up to 8 extra
lives this way.

In the score screen, the time left, the coins gathered and the enemies
defeated are tallied, and their worth are added to your score. Note
that you can only defeat one Space viper and one Bounty Hunter on each
stage. Also note that you don't get any points for the seconds left on
the clock if the time ever ran out during the stage or all lives were
lost. The highest score is generally achieved the faster you beat the
stage.

Time: 20 points for each second
Coins: 100 points * Skill level
Fuzz: 120 points
Drones: 200 points
Space Viper: 1200 points
Bounty Hunter: 1000 points

The game keeps track of the highest score ever achieved, and saves it
in ~/.config/retrobattle. Your control settings are also saved
here. If your current score is higher than the highscore, it becomes
the new highscore. If you remove this directory, the highscore is reset
to 0, and the keys bindings are reset to the defaults.


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5. BONUS STAGE
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After clearing 4 stages, you are taken to a bonus stage. If you
collect all 10 coins within the time limit in this stage, you get a
bonus of 2000 points. You have unlimited ammunition in the bonus
stages, and the coins are worth more depending on the number of the
stage. If the time runs out, you do not lose a life, but the stage
ends and you get no bonus points (except for the coins you gathered).
There are 8 increasingly taxing bonus stages, and the Skill level
increases after visiting one (up to Skill 8).


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6. SKILL LEVEL
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There are 8 Skill levels, and you can start the game at any one you
want. Every time you pass a bonus stage, the Skill level increases, so
the game gets harder.

At Skill 1, only a few Fuzz and Drones appear.

At Skill 2, more Fuzz and Drones appear, the Fuzz now move faster, and
a Space Viper appears.

At Skill 3, even more Fuzz and Drones appear, the Viper's body grows
longer, and a Bounty Hunter appears.

At Skill 4, even more Fuzz appear, the Viper's body grows even longer,
all blocks take 2 hits to destroy, and the "Quake" pick-up will start
to appear.

At Skill 5, all Fuzz become Red Fuzz.

At Skill 6, all Drones become Gold Drones.

At Skill 7, all Space Vipers become Dire Space Vipers.

At Skill 8, all Bounty Hunters become Dark Bounty Hunters. When you
reach Skill 8, the Skill level stops increasing, but the bonus levels
keep cycling.


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7. ENEMIES
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FUZZ (a blue fuzzy ball)
These lowly, yet dangerous, aliens climb around the walls of the
spaceship looking for food. They either travel in a clockwise or
counter-clockwise fashion, and will only change direction if they are
about to walk into a set of spikes. If they lose their footing and
fall to the floor, pay attention to which way they are spinning, so
you can anticipate which way they are going to travel when they hit
the ground. There are two ways of defeating Fuzz: either making them
fall onto a set of spikes, or stunning them with your gun and pushing
them off an edge from a high distance. When stunned, they must fall a
distance equal to 2 blocks or higher to be destroyed when they hit the
ground.

NEST (a blue fuzz-shaped vortex)
The Fuzz appear from the nests, which hover in the air. A nest starts
blinking just before a Fuzz pops out. The nests themselves are
harmless, and you cannot destroy them in any way. If the number of
Fuzz on the playing field is lower than the maximum number of Fuzz
allowed, new Fuzz will start popping out of the nests at 8 second
intervals.

DRONE (a slow, grey spiky robot)
These robotic soldiers, once brought to the crashed spaceship by the
pirates for protection, have gone haywire and attack anything in their
path. Luckily their path is a completely random one, but their sharp
edges and spikes means that they sometimes dig through the blocks on
the playing field. If they are caught in between four blocks, they'll
force their way out by digging through one of them. It takes 2 hits to
destroy a Drone.

SPACE VIPER (a green snake)
These sly creatures move behind the other things on the playing field,
as they randomly prowl the stage. They can retract and extend
themselves if need be, so if they get caught in a dead-end, they'll
simply fold themselves up and turn around. They will not cross over
themselves, and they don't dig through blocks. Space Vipers are
powerful creatures, and fighting them is not advised - it takes 6
direct hits to the head to defeat them, and like the Drones, their
erratic movement makes them hard to target.

BOUNTY HUNTER (a teleporting armed cyborg)
A large number of bounty hunters and space raiders have tried to scour
the crashed spaceship of its valuables, only to fall prey to the
aliens inhabiting it. Some of these were infested by the aliens, and
now search the spaceship for more adventurers to attack and feast on.
These infested Bounty Hunters use a powerful blaster, and possess a
local phase shifting device that lets them teleport around the playing
field. Luckily the alien infestation has crippled their ability to fly
around, so they rely on their teleportation device to move, and stay
stationary wherever they end up, firing at intruders. It takes 4 hits
to destroy the Bounty Hunters, which makes the ammunition in their
suits explode violently, damaging blocks and dealing 2 points of
damage to the enemies around them. This explosion is harmless to you,
but it may cause more enemies to drop in where blocks were destroyed.
The Bounty Hunters can only be damaged while they are not busy
teleporting.

RED FUZZ (a red fuzzy ball)
Unlike blue Fuzz, these can randomly change direction without
warning.

GOLD DRONE (a slow, yellow spiky robot)
These sentries have a tendency to hunt their enemies down more
effectively than the standard Drones. They take 2 hits to destroy.

DIRE SPACE VIPER (a purple snake)
These lethal snakes tend to move towards Captain Good more often than
regular Vipers. They take 6 hits directly to the head to defeat.

DARK BOUNTY HUNTER (a teleporting armed cyborg)
Armed with upgraded dark blasters that cause large explosions wherever
they hit, and the ability to teleport more frequently than regular
Bounty Hunters, these flying nightmares have put an end to many a
careless adventurer. They take 4 hits to destroy.


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8. BONUS PICK-UPS
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Bonus items will randomly appear during play, and will stay on the
playing field until you exit the stage or pick them up. Small coins,
diamonds, gold bars and blue pearls are the most common bonuses, while
clocks, bombs and quakes are the most rare ones.

SMALL COINS
Gives 200 bonus points.

DIAMOND
Gives 250 bonus points.

GOLD BAR
Gives 300 bonus points.

BLUE PEARL
Gives 400 bonus points.

WHITE BALL
Refills all the ammunition for your standard gun.

LOCK
Locks all the Fuzz Nests for 50 seconds, so that no new Fuzz can
appear. The only drawback is that you won't get as much score as you
normally would, as there will be less Fuzz to defeat.

POWER GUN
This weapon temporarily replaces your standard gun, and the word POWER
appears in the upper right corner of the screen. It only has one shot,
so you lose the Power gun when you fire it. When the shot hits
something, it causes a huge explosion that destroys blocks and deals 2
points of damage to all enemies caught in it. Note that the explosion
aligns itself to the grid of blocks on the playing field.

LASER GUN
Like the Power gun, this weapon only has one shot, and disappears when
you use it. When you possess it, the word LASER appears in the upper
right corner of the screen. It fires a searing laser blast that cuts
straight through blocks and deals 2 points of damage to all enemies
caught in the line of fire. Note that the laser blast aligns itself to
the grid of blocks on the playing field; this means that it will only
cut through one horizontal line of blocks, never two.

CLOCK
Adds 50 additional seconds to the timer.

BOMB
Instantly stuns all Fuzz, destroys all Drones and deals 2 points of
damage to the Space Viper and Bounty Hunter (unless it's busy
teleporting). If a Fuzz is just about to jump out of a nest when the
bomb detonates, the Fuzz will not appear.

QUAKE
Damages all undamaged blocks on the screen. It doesn't destroy the
blocks that are already damaged. Only appears on Skill 4 and above.
