Games for December and 2012 - DEBUT (featuring Syd!)

[Angus]

First a couple of descriptions:


AGDB
Debut, a truly weird game, apparently written by a pair of hippies
called Tym and Phyd with a taste for Pink Floyd. The game combined an
arcade adventure where you found and dismantled nuclear reactors with a
planet simulation requiring you to fine-tune the planet's ecosystem in
an attempt to save it.


Moby Games
A planet sits on the verge of environmental disaster. It's the player's
job to find the sources and shut them down, but the slightest
intervention can have ramifications on a worldwide scale.

Début features a fusion of both traditional arcade side-scroller action
and a complex planet simulation. The arcade sections feature multiple
levels as the player descends deeper into the planet's infrastructure,
shutting down reactors, halting pollution, and eliminating bad guys.

The simulation part of this game presents a 3D satellite view of the
planet, allowing the player to scan various attributes of the ecosystem
below. Both elements combine to present the player with two separate and
complimentary goals that need to be fulfilled - both careful monitoring
and influence of the planet, together with direct hands-on intervention.


Okay that gives you an idea, but probably best to expect more weirdness
than is suggested.

This is one of those oddities on the Amiga that has intigued me for a
while. I can't tell you much more about it, because it needs to be
explored by us (should you choose to accept the mission) and bekieve me
when I say that initially at least its quite difficult to work out
what's going on.

But, as stated above, the game gives the player two different but
connected means to achieve his task, Tyme And Reality is the where you
monitor and make adjustments to the world that you are trying to save.
Apparently you need to identify critical zones where your input can turn
the tide. This I gather can be done through the introduction of plants,
animals, irrigation or water etc. The other approach you must use is
called Tyme Hounded Conscience, which is a side scrolling affair where
in the comfort of your vehicle, Pelvthrust, you must enter 4 underground
cities of increasing complexity, and disable the cities' nuclear
reactors. Each city has 5 levels, and along the way you'll find keys,
shields, lasers and unlicensed weapons which should help persuade any of
the good citizens who are reluctant to accept your guidance. You start
off on the Country level and then access the cities (1-4) through lifts,
which need keys in order to be used.

There's not much more I can tell you at the moment, except all the
contols in Tyme and Reality seem to have weird names, and song titles by
Pink Floyd adorn many of the various screens.

Did I mention it was a tad weird?

Okay, so what do you reckon for the other game?

[Ryan P.]

You know, I think I played this way back in the day when it was new.
A friend of mine had it, and I recall being put off by it... But its
quite possible I was just impatient and didn't want to deal with
micro-management games at the time!

I'll give it a go for the sake of nostalgia. Its on BTTR, I assume?

[Angus]

[This followup was posted to comp.sys.amiga.games and a copy was sent to
the cited author.]

In article <jc63ag$3fe$1...@dont-email.me>, ryann...@nogmailjunk.com
says...

It is, but as well as that the indefatigable Psygore has recently
created a WHDLoad patch for it, so you might consider that if you like
to run games from WHDLoad. He also updated the slave just yesterday as I
brought a game issue to his attention. What a chap! :)

[Angus]

Guys, I've having a bit of a mess around with Debut, and although there
are some readily available docs for the game on-line (which are somewhat
obscure)in the box there was a supplementary manual which had some
useful bits in it. I've put my take on the tutorial below - in case you
want to try it.

Aim of the game
Using the planet tweaking part of the game (Tyme and Reality) you
preserve and create habitable areas on the planet surface so that the
people you liberate when you close down the four cities in the arcade
section of the game (Tyme Hounded Conscience) can survive there.

A quick tutorial using Tyme and Reality

At the bottom of the screen you'll see seven buttons which are the basic
functions of Tyme and Reality:


Jostick (Yes, its meant to be Jostick)
Interact with the planet and monitor its landscapes

Trade
Sell what you found in the city and buy chemicals and fertilizers

Fusion
Your reactor enables the breaking down or combining of chemicals to
make such things as plant food.

THC
Time Hounded Conscience - the arcade part of the game where you attempt
to shut down the four cities.

Status
The current state of the planet, essentiallly, your score.

Misc
Save and Load etc.

Info
Sideways question mark - game verison number and credits


Okay first of all hit the G key for Global view (Local view is accessed
with the L key)
The screen should flash briefly.

Now, click the Jostick button which brings up a bunch of new buttons.
Click the Jostick programming button, top row, fifth from left (looks
like an ST abacus - sorry computer).

This brings up the Density Programmer panel - this allows you to look at
a whole range of things like temperature, wind, rain, animals, people,
plants etc. You can use the program to indicate various density levels,
for instance to only show where there are very low densities of plants
or high densities of animals, or both.

We'll look at temperature for now (currently selected) click the
universal view button (tall, icon, eye looking down, on right of
screen).

This should bring up the North (left) and South (right) hemispheres,
with the poles in the centre. This is a thermal view with the lighter
shades representing higher temperatures.

Okay, return to the Density Programmer screen by clcicking Jostick and
then that pesky ST again. Use the arrow icons to select other subjects
and repeat the process to view the situation, note that with clouds for
example the lighter shades indicate less density.

Had enough of that? Okay, select Temp Watching, now you see that line of
boxes of graduated shades? The Black one would refer to where
temperatures are at their lowest (with clouds selected it would mean a
completely clear sky). Let's find the coldest temperatures, click the
black box and the following three boxes. (This is actually programming
Jostick to include the information we require). Now click on the small X
icon (upper middle of screen) turning it to a tick.That's about it, but
this time don't click the Universal View, click on FISH (finish) to
close this panel, then click on the Jostick Output selector (to the
right of the ST, sixth from left, top row).

Now click on the Run Program icon (third from left) and the globes will
be drawn displaying the temperatures you selected in the TRUTH colour
(the word TRUTH is displayed and is white by default).
You can show more than one factor at the same time (eg temperature and
rainfall).

Go back to the Density Programmer and selct Rain Watching, then tick the
four highest rain densities, remembering to also change the cross icon
into a tick.

Now click the AND icon so it is highlighted. This time just close down
the menus till you just have the Tyme and Reality functions at the
bottom, and press the R key as a shortcut to Run your program.

That was the tutorial - There are some parts of Tyme and Reality you
may never wish to use but here are some extra hints.

The Playgod button is on the Jostick panel (bottom row, second from left
- is that a crucifix?) This enables you to place or remove people,
animals and chemicals on the planet surface.

The Zoomsegment (bottom row, right most button) lets you change your
current segment so you can play god at different places. (Press Escape
not Return after you have selected your new location if you don't want a
segment analysis).

[Nate Brazil]

Thanks for putitng so much work into these docs - I've started toying
around with the game and these will definitely come in handy!

It is a very strange game indeed - a bit hard to get one's head
around. Practice and more practice will be the key...

Nate

[Angus]

ing
> around with the game and these will definitely come in handy!
>
> It is a very strange game indeed - a bit hard to get one's head
> around. Practice and more practice will be the key...
>
> Nate

Setting aside for the moment the Planet simulation part of the game, I
need somebody with good arcade action/puzzle/logic skills. Anybody up
for it?
In Time Hounded Conscience (the arcade part) I have managed to find a
laser gun and equip it. "Right, payback time", I said, and went to find
one of those pesky sentry robots with the intention of resculpting his
etiquette protocols. I didn't even seem to slow him down!

Can anybody make a bit of progress on any of the city levels and report
back?

Cheers - and happy new year.

[Nate Brazil]

Well I've been in the game messing around a bit - but I definitely
need
to try to follow along with your documentation and see if I can make
some sense of the game.

It has very interesting sound effects and the interface is very
intriguing.

If I can get to the arcade part, I'll see what I can find out.

One of the strangest games I've played on the Miggy.

Nate

[Angus]

In article <26523aaa-129c-47b7-935a-662a7c7392b8
@g41g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>, nateb...@comcast.net says...

You appreciate you have the option to enter the arcade bit (Time Hounded
Conscience) at any point in the game?

> One of the strangest games I've played on the Miggy.

That's for sure! :)


> Nate

[Angus]

In article <MPG.2997a40de...@news.demon.co.uk>,
angus@_ANTISPEM_angusm.demon.co.uk says...

If any of you have checked out the AGDB recently, you'll see the new
Exodus 3010 review by mecha-neko. Its an extremely tricky game to
actually work out what is going on (sound familiar) but Matt has done a
brilliant job of negotiating the tortuous complexities and bizarre
control system and producing a highly informative (and amusing) review
of a mysterious game hiding in its own mystique.

With this in mind, I asked him if he would take a look at Debut and see
if he could illuminate a similarly obscure and abstract Amiga artifact
and perhaps reveal the hidden wonders that may (or may not) exist within
the depths of the game buried deep behind the insanity of the interface.
..okay, I was getting a bit carried away there.

So here's Matt's initial findings, for present or future readers,
hopefully there will be more if I can persuade him. :)


TAR... the howling! Why won't the howling stop!

And that's all I've got to say about that. From the manual on lemon
amiga, they've gone out of their way to make a very needlessly
complicated system of showing you what the contents of the planet cells
are, and you can put chemicals, animals, people and plants into squares
in order to do... something. It would be nice to know what the goal of
TAR is (assuming the lemon amiga manual isn't lying about there being
one). I wonder if it would be possible to get somebody to translate
those blasted message captions into English.

From the looks of things, it seems that there's no reason not to
complete THC first. The manual says you need to complete THC in order to
win the game and you can't take anything from TAR into THC, as far as I
can tell. Your THC progress sticks IF you use a computer to escape.
After rescuing everyone in THC, you can stick them on the planet in TAR
when its ready.

How far have you gotten in THC?

I've done the following:

Enter City 1 (right next to the starting point).
Go to City 1 - Defense 1 (the missile battery option in the lift) There,
I found two Energy Pods, a Laser Weapon and a key to City 1 - Defence 2
('Defense A Key 2' in inventory).
Go to City 1 - Defense 2 (select the missile battery option, then change
to 2) Go to left.
Find cryptic message 'Love rescue me. Congratulations for tearing it all
apart. Floor closed down.', ('Defense A Skeleton' in inventory, 5,000
pts). I think when you get this message, you've completed that floor of
that city?
Find Unlicenced Weapon. (A big grey bullet that returns to you.) Shoot a
glidey robot until it falls off the screen for a couple hundred pts.
Go to City 1 - Fusion 1 (the three circles joined together) Find
Chemicals one screen to the left.
Find key to City 1 - Fusion 2 ('Fusion A Key 2' in inventory'), and
Energy Pod and Chemicals.
Go to City 1 - Fusion 2.
Pick up Shield Pod (single use limited invulnerability. Timer still goes
down on lifts...) and Repair Pod.
More Shield Pods and a Fusion A Skeleton.
There's a Credit Card on City 1 - Trading, and more Chemicals on City 1
- Crypt.
But then I got killed by a slidey robot because I don't know how to
reload my guns.
By using the computer to escape on my last life, I can go back into THC
with the keys and the weapons I had and three new lives. I don't know
what the significance of the Energy Pod item is. It disappears when you
exit using the computer, so it might go in your TAR inventory, like the
chemicals. If you die in THC, your save is kept as it was, as if you
didn't enter THC at all. It isn't erased or anything like that (a nice
surprise).
There's a Laser Weapon on City 1 - Rubbish, but the robots kill you so
fast you can't really use it.

The Laser Weapon and the Unlicenced Weapon are both really lame. It
takes a full third of your energy gauge to kill anything with them, the
enemies don't respond in any way until they finally die and spring off
the level and they don't work if the enemies are half stuck in you
(which they always are because that's how they attack you). At first I
thought it might be due to the hardware collision settings in WinUAE,
but I think they're just plain old weak guns. Is it cheating to have a
look at the game in a hex editor to see if there's any different items?
(I checked, there doesn't seem to be. Just more of these types of thing.
I don't think there's even any different types of LW or UW.)

Have you had any more luck with it?