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*                                                                             *
*   Game:   The Caves of Horwar  Type:    Amstrad CPC Emulator DSK File       *
*   Author: Odiesoft             Webpage: http://www.odiesoft.de              *
*   Size:   1 * 194816 Bytes     Date:    27. January 2003                    *
*   File:   Odiesoft Games - The Caves of Horwar (1989).dsk                   *
*                                                                             *
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Title: The Caves of Horwar
Year:  1989


I am a big fan of the Atari game Gauntlet. When it finally was ported to the CPC
in 1988 I used to play it for hours - unfortunately the first Gauntlet game had
a broken level on the original disc so that it crashed every now and then. But
Gauntlet II didn't have this error and had some more new features. So I once
actually tried to figure out what happens after your reach level 99... but then
I didn't really want to spend the time to explore what happens after level 999!

As usual with things I like I wanted to copy it!

I knew I couldn't do it much better than the programmers at US Gold (who did the
original CPC conversion), but somehow I was still determined to create a
Gauntlet version of my own. I think the idea of animating dozens of enemies at
the same time was interesting to me and therefore I wanted to figure out if I
can do it. I also wanted to include a dragon in my conversion, since the dragon
in either CPC versions of Gauntlet was missing. (I've found that out after
playing Gauntlet on an Atari ST where there actually were dragons in some
levels).

I think I even started the game by drawing the dragon. But besides the dragon
the graphics is rather sloppy - I'm not a graphics artist, I'm a programmer. And
I had a lot to program in this game, so I rather kept to this side of the game.

I wanted to include scrolling in my game, even though I knew from previous
experiences that scrolling of the whole screen or even a major part of it takes
a lot of time. So I selected a smaller part of the screen and added a lot of
displays around it and so I didn't have to think this much about that matter
anymore. (But there was still enough to think, when to scroll, how much to
scroll and when to stop scrolling - but as you can see I've found a good
solution for all these problems...)

"Die Höhlen von Horwar" was actually one of the first games I've created that
were almost completely written in Assembler. So this was quite an achievement
for me.

I intended this game to get published on the cover disc of one of the two German
CPC magazines and so I gave it a German name and entered some German scroll text
into it.

The game didn't have a name right till the end and the one I finally came up for
isn't really this good. I didn't really want to think about this any longer
since I wanted to get the game published soon.

The first version I've sent to the "CPC Magazin" had a bug in it, so that the
enemies weren't really erased from the screen once they got hit, but left some
weird bytes on the screen. When I found that out I fixed it and sent it back to
the "CPC Magazin" not realizing that I created a new bug by fixing the old one.

When I finally send in the third version I got a message back that the magazine
was cancelled and that they wish me luck to get the game published in the last
remaining CPC magazine called "CPC International".

The CPC International team rejected my game, because they thought it was too big
for their cover disc. So the "Caves of Horwar" finally ended up in a drawer at
home and never got published...

Anyway, I still like it and I think it was a good game. I learned a lot from
creating it so had my lesson learned.

As usual I also created an editor for the game. It was quite a piece of work.
Besides being able to create the levels with the original graphics from the game
there was an overview mode in which you can see the whole level with reduced
graphics.

You can create the levels in boths views, but I mostly used the overview
display, because it was a lot faster to paint the levels. For creating the
details (like matching the correct wall pieces with one another) I often
switched back to the detailed view then. But it was fun anyway and I liked the
level editor a lot.

But I was only able to create four levels, so that the game wouldn't get too
long. Even though a level just needed two kilobytes (imagine how much memory the
levels in todays game take up ... :-).

Unfortunately the version on the DSK file lacks level 4. I had a read error on
the disc and wasn't able to copy it to the PC. So you cannot really play the
whole game anymore, after level 3 it will end with "file not found error" - but
if you want to you can create a final level [level 3 (it starts with level 0)],
save it to the disc and finish the game.

The story of the game is pretty easy. You just have to look around (the
character can be controlled with the joystick), collect everything in your way,
kill all enemies and find the exit to the next level.

Sometimes there are treasures, food or power ups hidden somewhere. You can
activate a super bomb with the SPACE key. The other extras affect the power of
your shots or add to your life energy.

Here are they keys you can use in the editor:

ENTER - Switch between Level designer and Menu
SPACE - Switch between overview and detailed view
L - Load a level (enter level number)
S - Save current level (enter level number)
Cursor Keys - Scroll screen (in detailed view only)
Joystick - Move cursor
Fire button - Draw object
C - Clear all
I - Define Colors for walls
P - Set player start position
Q/ A - Cycle through available objects


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*                                                                             *
* This program can be distributed freely and without the need of a written    *
* of a written permission by Odiesoft, as long as it is distributed free of   *
* charge!                                                                     *
*                                                                             *
* If you had to pay for this, you've been ripped off!                         *
*                                                                             *
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