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The game begins with a dozen large Asteroids or "Spheres" that, when hit by your Plasma Balls (a.k.a. Energy Balls), will split into two or three mid-sized Objects, which in turn split into the smallest ones.  Once you've zapped the last of the small Objects, you'll have to go searching for the Super Orb;  follow the arrow guides till you get close to the Super Object.  Then, hit each of its Protective Shields several times until you've knocked all the force fields and, finally, the Super Orb itself.

At the Intro Screen, use [Spacebar] to choose Asteroids or Orbs, and the arrow keys to choose your preferred Skill Level.  To turn clouds (nebula) on/off, press F9 on Intro Screen. 
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N O T E :  
As is usually the case, the current version of StarBlast may be incompatible with data files saved by older versions.  Also, I have no idea whether the included EXE will run normally.  

About FONTS: As it stands, this game uses Linux font files.  To change to Windows fonts, you can edit the text file SB_Fonts.dat to refer to valid Windows font paths and files.  Each path line ends with a font size.  Even without editing, the game should run well enough, but on-screen text may look pretty poor.  

NOTE: In version 2019.10.6, I've included the .ttf FONT FILE that the program uses in three sizes.  Keep it in the folder with the executable.  I hope it'll work in Windows as well.
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N E W E S T   F E A T U R E S:  

* JUMP ROUND: Pressing Alt-J will take you to a special mode in which two Objects appear and disappear unpredictably.  Your challenge is to turn your ship as quickly as you can to blast the Objects before they vanish.  There's a time limit, so zap as many as you can, while you can.  And don't miss too many times if you want to keep your ship!  Use of a mouse is highly recommended.

* BIG ROUND: Every few rounds (levels), you'll have the opportunity to enter the Big Round, where you may be overwhelmed by the insane number of Objects flying all around you.  Your job will be to zap either as MANY or as FEW of them as possible (mind the on-screen instructions) in order to score the biggest bonus you can.  Keep your cool and you should do just fine.  You may even earn a bonus ship.  Perform poorly and it may cost you dearly.  Use F10/F11 to enter the Big Round.

* SPINNERS! There are now several special rotating objects, and the special tasks associated with them.  Most of them must be destroyed by having their cores hit repeatedly.  You may need to blast your way through their thick shells to get the job done.  Careful not to hit the RED hot zones, though!  One of these objects is extra special, and your challenge is to protect it by clearing its path of the usual Asteroids or Objects, which will damage the Spinner on contact.

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R E C E N T :

* LASER BLAST: Now, in addition to the purple Plasma Balls, you'll be able to zap all those space objects with your shiny, new twin laser cannons!  You'll find that the Laser Bolts are faster and more effective than the Plasma Balls, especially when your energy is high.  

Starting in Round 3, after you've blasted enough Objects with your Plasma Balls, the laser cannons will be enabled.  Be aware that Laser Bolts use slightly more energy than P-Balls.  Use F6/F7/F12 to select Plasma Balls, LaserBolts 1 or LaserBolts 2.

* ROUND & ROUND: Remember those Super Bugs that try to defend the Super Sphere at the end of each round or level?  Well, they no longer merely meander in your general direction while you're trying to blow up the Big One.  After several rounds of play, at least sometimes, the Bugs will move in circular or spiral paths around the Super Sphere.  If your projectiles don't reach, you'll need to make your way through the circling/spiraling baddies to accomplish your mission.

If the single Bug's path is a SPIRAL, you'll be warned to stay FARTHER away from the Super Sphere than the Bug is at any moment.  Be sure not to be in the same QUADRANT as the Bug if it does happen to move farther than your Ship is.  Eventually, the Bug will expire and a fresh one will emerge from the Sphere, giving you a new chance.

If one or more Bugs have concentric CIRCULAR paths, then watch for openings thru which to get your Ship nearer the Super Object.  If you've weakened the Sphere's outer shield and then hit a Bug with your projectile, the outer shield will be restored to full.  In earlier rounds, ALL shields will be restored.

* FREE SHIP'ing: Now, as an added method of gaining extra Ships/Lives, some rounds will provide a special Object (Asteroid or animated Sphere, depending on your selection at Intro Screen).  If you start a new round with a single Ship (life) remaining, there will be Free Ship object somewhere not too far.  Find the object, zap it and that bonus Ship is yours!

Free Ship rounds are 10, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, and then every even-numbered round from there.

* The MILLION Mark: If you manage to make it to 1,000,000 points, you should find that certain restrictions on your weapons have been lifted.  This means your projectiles should travel faster and farther than they normally would when energy is low.

* As usual, some miscellaneous fixes and enhancements have also been made.

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O L D E R   F E A T U R E S :

* MULTI-HIT vs. SINGLE-HIT: Now, you can choose whether Objects must be hit ONCE or MULTIPLE times to be destroyed.  The higher the Skill and Round, the more times they must be hit.  Use Ctrl-P to toggle this feature.

* TEXT TO SPEECH:  During the game, imaginary chatter among the pilots, their leader and command base will appear near bottom of screen as text.  If you have Festival or eSpeak TTS software installed, you should be able to hear some or all of what's being said.  Use Alt-C to select whether it'll be Text Only, Text + Voice (Central Command only), Text + Voice (ALL characters), or no text + no voice.  You may need to alter the source code to have it work with your installed TTS app.
* Warning Ring:  As you approach the Super Sphere at the end of a typical round, you may find your Ship's energy dropping.  To alert you to the danger, a ring will appear around your Ship.  The closer you get to Sphere, the brighter the ring, and faster your energy drains.

* Projectiles, behave!  When the Ship fires while moving and then suddenly stops, the LaserBalls will behave in one of two ways.  The difference may be most noticeable when the Ship is traveling in reverse (and firing) when it abruptly stops.  Use Alt-P to change how projectiles behave.

* Triangles of Terror!  Yes, you heard me right!  You wanted the game to be more challenging?  Well, I did anyway.  So, now, in addition to all the Objects that your Ship mustn't touch, you need to watch out for threatening threesomes.  That is, if 3 on-screen Objects are near enough to your Ship (in higher rounds), they may generate a buzzing triangular "death zone" which saps your protective shield, and if your Ship remains within it too long, adios!  One less Ship to worry about.

* Bits and Pieces:  Now, when your Ship is destroyed, instead of just the expanding rings suggesting an explosion, you'll actually see the craft blown to bits.  Enjoy.

* In the FreeZone, blasting a green Power-Up object will freeze any nearby Objects, earning you points, just as if you had hit them with your LaserBalls.  Similarly, hitting a pink UnLocker object will UNFREEZE any nearby frozen Objects.  Strategy may be needed here.

* Super Swarm:  If you survive enough rounds, you'll find that the Super Object is now accompanied by not one, but many defensive Super Bugs.  But at least you can zap them. 

* News FLASH!  When you destroy a larger Object, you may see a bright flash that makes the blast more dramatic.

* While many flaws remain, I've made many improvements.  For example, when accelerating to maximum using the keyboard, the Ship should no longer drift off course when moving diagonally.

* New RGB Round: Starts with 36 Objects in total.  First, you must blast the 12 RED spheres, then the 12 GREEN ones, then the BLUE.  You lose points for hitting the wrong color.  And the more times you miss altogether, the fewer points your next hit will get you.  You may even score negative points!  Note: RGB Round is accessible in all game types except FreeZone.

Your first chance at the RGB Round will come at 5000 points.  Subsequently, opportunities will come every 10,000 points, starting at 10,000.  When you see the RED/GREEN/BLUE dots appear at bottom of screen, you can press Alt-R to enter the RGB Zone.

* Pressing F1/F2 to save a game during play will now save it in a file specific to the type of game it is.  This means you can separately save a Normal game, a Planetary game, a FreeZone game, etc.  In addition, every ten seconds, your game will be auto-saved in a special file.

* Dare to enter the FreeZone!  It's a new region of space in StarBlast.  Here, if you zap Objects, be they "spheres" or ASTEROIDS, rather than being destroyed, the Objects merely FREEZE.  And, if you blast them again, they come back to life!  Either way, contact with your ship should be avoided!  Press F7 at the Intro Screen.

* Better Sounds!  Now, instead of a bunch of beeps and bloops, you'll hear what may actually sound like explosions and such.  

* 3-D Space Array:  Instead of nebulae or clouds, you can have just a multi-layered bunch of glowing dots letting you know how fast your ship is moving.  Press F6 at the Intro Screen.

* Floating Points!  Now, when you zap certain special Objects, your earned points will briefly float, or drift, in the space where the Object was.

* Lots of minor, mostly, improvements and fixes.  Some bugs remain, but they shouldn't be too major.
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O L D E R   S T I L L :

1) To fly over an alien planet's surface instead of in outer space, press F8 at Intro.  The game will cycle thru a few variations of the terrain background.

2) A few rounds in, a new threat will appear: After you've blasted a bunch of Objects, the Star Spectre, or Space Ghost, will materialise (listen for the sound).  Don't let it touch your Ship!  If you can, steer the Ghost into a medium or small Sphere or Asteroid;  this will shrink the space ghoul, maybe even enough to destroy it....for a few seconds!  After a while, it'll stop returning and leave you alone to finish your round, if you haven't already done so.

3) New scenery!  In addition to the new terrain BGs, OUTER SPACE just became more exciting, with new clouds (nebulae?) that are out-of-this-world!  Like, cosmic, man!

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Starting each Game Type at the Intro Screen:

[Enter].......Normal game in SPACE (with or without clouds)
F6............3D Array Mode (Coloured dots/orbs over stars)
F7............FreeZone Mode (Objects freeze/unfreeze when hit)
F8............Terrain Mode (Flying low over land)

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C O N T R O L S
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KEYBOARD:

Arrow Keys (Left/Right)........Turn Ship
Arrow Keys (Up/Down)...........Accelerate/Slow down
Ctrl + Arrow...................Jump-turn the Ship
Shift + Arrow..................Slide Ship sideways
[Enter]........................Space-jump to other location

[SPACE], X, C, V.....Fire Energy Balls or Laser Cannons
F5, S, D, F..........Detonate the Plasma Bomb
F6/F7/F12............Change weapons (Plasma Balls, Lasers 1, Lasers 2)

Ctrl-S...............Firing sound ON/OFF

MOUSE:

Left/Right Button.......Jump-turn left or right
Wheel (Turn)............Accelerate/Slow/Reverse
Wheel (Click)...........Full STOP
Shift + Slide...........Slide Ship sideways

Move (slide) the mouse left/right to ROTATE the ship.

JOYSTICK:

Although I've made the game work with a joystick, I have no idea whether it will work at all with your particular controller.  Mine is a Logitech Wingman from years ago.
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To SAVE your game to disk, press F1 or F2 during a game.  A game in progress will be auto-saved in a separate file every 10 seconds, as indicated by a low-pitched beep.

You can JUMP to the next Round using Alt-N.  Or, press Ctrl-R to activate direct-access.  Then, enter a 2-digit number to go directly to any Round (01-99).
 
Load a saved "normal" game with F3 on the Intro Screen or Ctrl-F3 during play.  Use F4 to resume an auto-saved game, but be careful if you don't wish to save it (F1/F2) as your normal game.
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T I P S  &  F E A T U R E S :

During the game, observe the Map in the upper-left corner.  It'll show the locations of the the nearer Objects, including a number of special Power-Up Objects which can restore your Ship's energy and protective shield. (To find the Power-Up Asteroids, look for the GREEN dots on the corner Map.)  Use Ctrl-M to change the Map's BG from clear to opaque, and vice versa.  Use Alt-M to move the Map between corner and center of screen, or to remove it entirely.

In addition to the Power-Ups, there's an Energy Drainer Sphere.  At first, you should merely avoid touching it, as you won't be able to destroy it until the Round is nearly over.  But be warned: When you do finally zap the Drainer, it will reduce your Energy by 50 (full = 100).  That is, unless you had less than 50 to begin with, in which case -- you guessed it, you lose a Ship! (Note: The Drainer Object's map dot turns RED only when the Drainer is activated.)

When your energy is high enough (see Energy/Weapons metre at screen's LL), you can use F5/S/D/F/G to detonate the Plasma Bomb and maybe destroy the nearest Objects in one fell swoop.

Also when energy’s high, you’ll notice that your LaserBalls have been TRIPLED!  And the Energy Balls grow as they travel, too!  But it won’t last long, so use the power wisely.  (To turn OFF the expanding and/or Triple LaserBalls, use F8/F9.)

If your Ship touches an Object, your Shield strength will fall (see metre at screen's LR).  Touch it too long and you'll lose one of your Ships.  Small icons at screen's bottom show how many Ships remain.

To help you avoid a too-close encounter with the Star Spectre, watch the indicator in the LL corner.  It's bright RED when the Ghost is on screen; otherwise, the farther the Spectre is, the darker grey the warning indicator will be.  Naturally, it'll vanish with the Ghost -- until the Space Spook returns!

Starting with Round 12 (at Skill #2), an additional danger will show itself in the form of shield-draining triangles stretched between trios of Objects.  Do your best to keep your Ship out of these deadly geometric shapes.  You can use Alt-T to turn off the triangles, if you must.

After you've zapped a lot of Objects, the remaining ones may begin to change direction abruptly.  Turn this feature ON/OFF with Ctrl-T.  And to make things even more interesting, the Objects may vanish and reappear (jump) somewhere else.  Use Ctrl-J to control this.

When you approach the Super Sphere, be sure to mind the Bug(s) (may not actually resemble a bug), which will emerge (in most rounds) to chase you and make it harder to destroy the Great Orb's protective shields.

One advantage of RGB Mode (Alt-R) is that only a SINGLE Bug will emerge from the Super Sphere at the end of the round.  However, if you exit an RGB Round and then resume it, you may find that the Bug has multiplied.  In high rounds (RGB or not), this can make it nearly impossible to destroy the Super Orb.
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Now that you know all this, enjoy the game!



