                            History Of Ace Crusader




Sept 92  :    I Had just finished a game called Alpine Challenge and I wanted
              to try out some new Sprite routines that I'd been coding. I
              had always had a "chip" on my shoulder concerning the Arcade
              Game "Defender", this was a game that in my youth I had never
              been able to conquer, despite many hours of effort ! If I 
              could not play it, then I would code it ! The version I had in
              mind would only be based on "Defender" (see "!Help").
                  I started to sketch out what I wanted, (1..Parallax star
              background, (2..Solid scrolling mountains, (3..Radar display 
              etc..etc..
                  Worked out how to print the mountains on the screen very
              fast. Basicaly using multiple screen banks as memory buffers.
                  Coded the parallax stars routine. There are actually about
              7 layers of parallax in the routine and if you stare at them
              as they move the 3D effect is quite good.
                  Rammed in the new sprite print routine and coded some
              movement for your ship and the aliens into the game.

Oct 92   :    Now had the ship flying up and down a scrolling landscape with
              the parallax stars in background. At this point work on the
              game ceased as I had to return back to University after the 
              summer recess.

Feb 93   :    Found a spare week to work on the game, and coded the bullet
              firing routine of the aliens. Doing the "angles" for them
              proved to be the most tiresome (I never was never any good at
              maths !).

June 93  :    All remaining code was now added, (and there was a great 
              wailing and gnashing of teeth, as all the bugs were being 
              ironed out !).

19 July 93 :  Version 1.00 completed. (Hip Hip Hooray !). This version did
              not run from the Desktop.

20 July 93 :  I'd never wrote a WIMP program before and decided that I might
              have a bit of a toodle with the desktop. Got out the 
              reference manuals, and had a shufty at the WIMP section,
              Jeeeez, why do they wright in "outer mongolian" - northen 
              dialect. I had to re-read these sections a few times, before 
              they started to make sense.
                   I decided that I would convert "Alpine Challenge" first,to
              run from the Icon Bar. This was due to the fact that this
              was technically a simpler game, as regards memory requirments
              etc...
                   After a few days this desktop version was up and running.
              I then set to work in converting "Ace Crusader" to also run
              from the Icon Bar. Although I could use a lot of the WIMP
              routines that I had developed for "Alpine Challenge", this
              conversion still proved awkward and presented it's own
              special problems.

31 July 93 :  Version 1.1 finished (Icon bar version).